Tampa Museum of Art’s NCECA Biennial is a great kickoff to a conference that’s crazy for clay

This week through April 2, the Bay area will be beset with ceramics artists as NCECA — pronounced in-seek-a, which stands for National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts — brings its annual conference to the Tampa Convention Center.

So why should you care? Well, one of the fringe benefits of NCECA’s arrival is that dozens of galleries and museums on both sides of Tampa Bay have collaborated to showcase a slew of related exhibitions. And those exhibits — from big (ceramic installations at St. Pete’s Museum of Fine Arts) to small (a juried exhibition of espresso cups at Tampa’s Cafe Hey) — make an exhilarating case for the vitality and importance of ceramics in the context of contemporary art.

In short, a geeky conference for clay nerds has flooded Tampa Bay in one season with more cool new sculpture than we ordinarily get to see in a year. As for the conference, it’s a fantastic resource for anyone interested in learning more about ceramics from technical, historical and other perspectives (check out nceca.net for details).

The NCECA Biennial at the Tampa Museum of Art, a juried show that includes work by more than 40 artists, is a great place to start your tour of NCECA-related exhibitions.

This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2011.