Instagram Live with NCECA and Shikha Joshi, moderated by Antra Sinha.
Join us next Friday, July 10, 2026, at NOON/ET right here on Instagram for a live conversation with Shikha Joshi, moderated by Antra Sinha.
Shikha Joshi: “My creative process results from the interplay between form and function. I like to create pots with strong shapes with the guiding principle of good functionality. I am drawn to the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi. Loosely translated, it means beauty in imperfection. I strive to create pieces that echo the earthy landscape reflecting the austere beauty of the natural world.
Experimenting with the chemistry of ceramic material in an electric kiln is the bedrock of my practice. My process consists of layering multiple glazes, incorporating a variety of soils and crushed rock, collected in my travels, directly on the surface of my pots. The results evoke the same natural elements that inform and inspire my work. Reimagining possibilities from electric firing continues to guide my journey and evolution as a potter.”
Shikha Joshi is a studio potter based in Round Rock, Texas. Born and raised in New Delhi, India, she began ceramics through community classes and workshops in the United States. Her work has been featured at galleries, Companion, Charlie Cummings Gallery, and ClayAKAR, and is included in permanent collection of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts. Joshi has been published in Ceramics Monthly, Surface Design for Ceramics, and 500 Platters. She has taught workshops nationally and internationally and serves on the board of The Studio Potter and on the advisory board of the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.
Join us on Instagram Live on July 10!
AX Atlantic Ceramics Conference
Surface Matters is an invitation to linger at the edge of material—where clay stops being form and becomes language. Here, surface is not finish but beginning: a place where fire, hand, air, and time leave their traces. Glaze blooms, breaks, and crawls; textures gather like memory; colour settles like weather across skin.
Across these conversations, artists explore surface as terrain—layered, unstable, alive. Each mark holds evidence of process, place, and intuition, revealing how matter can speak when pushed, coaxed, or allowed to unravel. In this gathering, surface is everything: the record of making, and the space where meaning quietly emerges.
In 2021, AX conducted a survey of potters, ceramists, and other industry professionals in the Atlantic provinces. The results were clear: a need for a tighter, stronger ceramics community. In response, AX is offering the only ceramics conference in Atlantic Canada.
Join us October 1–4, 2026, for the third biennial AX Atlantic Ceramics Conference: Surface Matters. Over four days, the conversation unfolds through the work and ideas of Alex Bevan-Baker, Joan Bruneau, Chris Colwell, Matthew Cripps, Darren Emenau, Jamie Germaine, Maria Guevara, Linda Homenick, and Tim Isaac—each offering a distinct approach to clay, process, and surface.
Your registration includes a welcome kit and access to a full program of talks, discussions, presentations, playful exchanges, networking opportunities, a live music concert featuring Montreal-based Pastel Blank, and a studio tour with Linda Homenick. Light breakfast and lunch are provided on Saturday and Sunday, offering space to gather, pause, and continue the conversations beyond the stage.
Optional experiences extend the weekend further: a raku firing workshop with Tim Isaac, and a bus tour through the studios of ceramic artists across Saint John, the Kennebecasis Valley, and the Kingston Peninsula—both available at an additional cost.
At its heart, the weekend is about community in motion—artists meeting artists, ideas crossing tables, and connections forming in real time.
Register now at axartscentre.ca
residency opportunity – ILWACO
NEW Summer Ceramic Residency ✨
What better way to vacay than with clay on the coast? 🌊
Spend your summer at Ilwaco Artworks, where salty air, slow days, and clay come together just steps from the ocean.
1 week • 2 weeks • 1 month residencies available
ilwacoartworks.org
call for entries: Juried Functional Teapot Show IV!
The call for submissions is now open! You can submit to the Juried Functional Teapot Show IV!
Submit form is a Google form. This means you will need a Google account (Gmail) to fill it out (this is free and really quick to set up if you don’t have one). Worst case scenario, if you can’t do this then send an email. Also feel free email with any questions about it the show : [email protected]
Cost to submit is $35 for non students, $20 for university students, or $10 for high school students. We are setting aside some spots in the show specially for each of these student categories. The student submissions will also be considered in the main jurying process too. This is to encourage younger makers to get on making teapots!
All the details of the submission are on the Google form but I’ll just say that you can submit up to 5 images of your one chosen teapot. And a short (under 15 second) video of the teapot pouring. This can just be recorded on a phone. Doesn’t have to be fancy, we just want to see how the teapots pour.
The most important criteria for the jurying is functionality. Then aesthetics. Function is foremost though!
Deadline for submissions is October 1st. Jurors to be announced soon!
The teapot in this photograph was made by Lucy Be who had a teapot in Juried Functional Teapot Show III. Lucy won the Studio Potter Award for Excellence for this teapot!
monday morning eye candy: Olga Siruk
call for artists: Sixth edition of the Officine Saffi Award
Gordon Baldwin’s exhibition “Little hard clouds becoming vessels”
Applications are now open for the sixth edition of the Officine Saffi Award, the international prize dedicated to the promotion of contemporary ceramics in the work of artists, designers, and craftspeople committed to this medium.
Participation is free of charge and offers the opportunity to be selected for the Main Prize of €10,000, seven Residency Prizes developed in collaboration with leading international institutions, a Young Artists acquisition Prize as well as the chance to exhibit one’s work in the finalists’ exhibition.
For its 6th edition, Officine Saffi Award invites the submission of works inspired by the theme Forms of Belonging. The theme explores the human need for belonging, questioning how—within an increasingly aggressive social and political context—the material world can become a space of recognition, generate a sense of proximity, and make us feel part of a shared human community. Due to its intimate, everyday, and relational nature, ceramics emerge as a privileged language for this investigation: a silent presence that inhabits the time of our lives.
Take my Illustrative Pottery Workshop with the Ceramics School
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