This week, you'll see evidence of NCECA's annual conference everywhere — from bigger crowds at your favorite downtown bars to sun-starved potters combing the Bay area's beaches — so why not get in the game and check out some NCECA-related exhibitions? The Bay area's major art attractions — the Museum of Fine Arts and Morean Arts Center in St. Pete and the Tampa Museum of Art (see accompanying story) — won't disappoint. But many smaller venues like the ones listed below offer great shows, too. For a complete roundup, look for NCECA-related shows in our Visual Arts listings on p. 30, or go to nceca.net and click on the 2011 exhibitions link. In St. Pete, 30 businesses have banded together to create clayaroundthebay.com, where you can download a brochure and map of participating venues, which include Craftsman House, Florida Craftsmen, Duncan McClellan Gallery, Interior Motives, St. Petersburg Clay Company and Queenshead Gastro Pub — to name just a few. (A printed brochure is also available at the venues.) NCECA Exhibition Shuttle Buses will be traversing Hillsborough and Pinellas counties to take art lovers on tours of NCECA-related exhibitions. Visit nceca.net for detailed times, stops and routes. Tickets will be available for purchase on-site at the Tampa Convention Center next to registration March 29-April 1. —MV
Material Matrix: 30 North by 84 West. This exhibit — dubbed after Tallahassee's longitude and latitude — brings together nine Florida State University-affiliated artists including David Packer, a New York-based sculptor who earned his MFA at FSU in the '90s. I first saw his work four years ago in Chicago, when he was crafting massive ceramic sculptures of V8 engines and suspending them from gallery ceilings. In Material Matrix, Packer exhibits a small-scale rendition of a shipping container train car emblazoned with his last name in the style of a multinational corporation. Runs through April 3, Tempus Projects, 5132 N. Florida Ave., Tampa, 813-340-9056, tempus-projects.com.
Ceramic Collaborations: Neil Bender, John Byrd, Andy Nasisse. Bender's bent for iconography that celebrates (explicitly) pleasures of the flesh steers this collaborative project with ceramic artists Nasisse and Byrd. Chunky platters by Georgia-based Nasisse bear incised sgraffito drawings by Bender, e.g., a gender-ambiguous face with pursed lips surrounded by a halo of orifices that might be nipples emitting milk or the tips of ejaculating dicks. Coated with smoky, crackly glazes, the platters are a naughty treat. Work by Byrd and Bender, both of Tampa, moves farther away from function and toward the development of creepy characters like a grubby-faced beer stein who smokes and wears a beefsteak hat. Runs March 30-April 10 with a reception Thurs., March 31, 4-9 p.m. Bleu Acier, 109 W. Columbus Drive, Tampa, 813-272-9746, blueacier.com.
The Art of Function. Functional teapots, platters, coffee mugs and more by artists from around the country make up this lovely showcase. Personal fave: Jennifer Allen's plates and tea bowls, painted with graphic pinwheels and dots in bright colors that give her handmade pieces a retro modern vibe. If you're organizing a tour of NCECA exhibitions, make a point of finding yourself at Craftsman House around lunchtime — the gallery's fabulous café is a great place to grab a sandwich or a pastry and a cup of coffee (in a handmade ceramic mug, of course). Runs through April 10, Craftsman House, 2955 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-323-2787.
Florida Souvenirs: Sand, Surf and Sin in the Sunshine State. "Greatest Generation" — Matthew Shaffer's sculpture of a grizzled old dude sporting a leopard print Speedo and a pair of colorful tats astride a sandcastle — captures perfectly the spirit of this exhibit at Mindy Solomon Gallery. The show pays homage to Florida's preeminence as a hothouse of low culture — from Mickey Mouse (who threatens to blow his head off in a sculpture by Chris Riccardo) to bikini-clad hotdog vendors (the subject of a photograph by Jeremy Chandler). Keep an eye out for Kate MacDowell's awesomely weird porcelain sculpture of an alligator, which appears to have grown a pair of human breasts. Runs through April 30, Mindy Solomon Gallery, 124 Second Ave. NE, St. Petersburg, 727-502-0852, mindysolomon.com.
Fluid: The New Wave of Celadon Artists. A whopping three exhibitions share Florida Craftsmen's gallery space during NCECA, but you can't miss the four artists who make up this show. From each of them comes a series of pieces adopting and adapting the ancient Chinese tradition of celadon, exemplified by pale green glazed pots evocative of jade. Maine-based Ingrid Bathe hand-builds functional ware with breathtaking fragility — porcelain plates, bowls and cups impressed with her fingerprints and coated with an ethereally frosty blue. Equally exquisite but thoroughly different, porcelain bowls, plates and tumblers by Munemitsu Taguchi (of Philadelphia) are paragons of sleek modern style — and testaments to virtuoso performances on the wheel — in bright aqua. Runs through Apr. 30 with a conference celebration on Thurs., March 31, 5:30-9 p.m., Florida Craftsmen, 501 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-821-7391, floridacraftsmen.net.
Peace/War, Survival/Extinction: An Artist's Plea for Sanity, the Artwork of Richard Notkin. Notkin's eye-popping, heart-rending "teapots" — elaborate stoneware sculptures that riff on the traditional ceramic form — make up the core of this show, which spotlights war, political betrayal and social injustice. In one piece, Notkin transforms a human heart into a vessel that's part machine and bound with chains. In others, he turns a square skull or a single die (suggestive of the variability of world affairs) into the body of a deconstructed teapot, topped with mushroom cloud plume and surrounded by a landscape of ruined buildings or empty crates marked "WMD." Runs through May 31, Florida Holocaust Museum, 55 Fifth St. S, St. Petersburg, 727-820-0100, flholocaustmuseum.org.
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2011.