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UA Students and Faculty Participate in National Ceramics Conference

In March 2017, UA ceramics faculty, student and alumna participated in the annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in Portland, Oregon. MFA candidate Sydney Ewerth presented art works and a lecture. Assistant Professor Matt Mitros, instructor Wade MacDonald, Ewerth and recent MFA graduate Virginia Eckinger presented art works in a conference exhibition. Graduate students Amy Smoot and Patrick Hoban also attended the national conference.

Sydney Ewerth, "Mapping What Mopped Up The Shopped Up Floor" UA art students receiving scholarship awards at Honors Day 2016 in the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art. Sydney Ewerth, "It's Safe, Rest Here"

Sydney Ewerth presented the lecture, “Artifacts of Identity.” Using didactic qualitative researchTACTIC exhibition poster methods, she argued that the interrelationship of clay, mapping, chance, shadows, and memory are significant in the creation of a work. Ewerth explained, “By using supporting theories on memory and semiotics, my hope is to explore how the identity of the clay object changes through iterations of itself.”

In addition, Ewerth’s art work was chosen for NCECA’s annual National Student Juried Exhibition (NSJE), which showcases the work of current graduate, undergraduate, and post-baccalaureate students across the United States.

Assistant Professor Matt Mitros co-organized an exhibition, Tactic, that includes ceramic work by Eckinger, MacDonald (pictured here) and other artists, The exhibition represents “a growing shift in material sensibility,” using other materials, technology and processes in the way they have traditionally used. The exhibition was supported with funds from The University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences.