NCECA continues.... and so does the inspiration....

For those local to South Florida and who didn't get to NCECA or just need a little more ceramics there are two shows in Tequesta that you can still catch through April 6th that the Lighthouse ArtCenter, "Atmosphere" invitional and "On Fire". I didn't get up to either but plan to be up there early on take down day hoping to see as much of the works as possible. I was fortunate to have a trio of my stitched vessels juried into "On Fire".

 Although I didn't get to NCECA this year one of my clay and fiber purses did. It was at the show "Some Like It HOT", the FAU show juried by Mary Roehm and Bryan Hively. I've been searching the net for photos of NCECA and found coverage of some excellent shows at Art Taco.

NCECA is a wonderful experience for anyone who either works in clay or has an appreciation of the medium. There are so many exhibitions of every type of claywork imaginable. My most memorable moment at my first NCECA (2003, I think!) was walking into a gallery, a quick last stop on the way to airport, and seeing the works of Margie Hughto. Her work was like a quilt of clay in colors I had never used in ceramics. I loved it! I was so inspired I came home searched for her work online and finally found a book of her work. This photo above, "Blame It On The Sun", 1988, is from that book, Margie Hughto, Ceramics 1980-1990.

I quickly got to work in my studio and from her inspiration created one of my first clay quilt pieces, above. My first was done with clay and stitching, then I started to experiment with fabric for my quilt but framed with clay. The following year I was inspired by an article in Quilting Arts magazine on the use of Solvron. That is when my 'fiber studies' began. If you just clicked on that link you'll see that you ended up at my intro post discussing how I got to my starting point of fiber studies, posted at Tangled Textiles, a new group of nine ladies invited by Diane of Twelve by 12, to form a challenge art quilt group. We are all very excited to begin our journey of exploration into theme inspired art quilts! And here you see I started my post with clay but clay and fiber just go together for me!

Hope you're having a great week and happy, inspired creating!