2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

A recording of the compelling discussion led by Troy Williams of Equality Utah is now available on YouTube at @WatchNCECA. As part of NCECA’s 2024 Cultivating Community initiative, this session examines Utah House Bill 257 and delves into Equality Utah's strategic efforts to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion in the Salt Lake City region. Learn more.

Utah House Bill 257, titled “Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying, and Women’s Opportunities,” has generated discourse and concern in Utah and nationally. This session provided a platform for an in-depth discussion on the legal and social dynamics influencing policy development and advocacy work, offering Troy's insights on work that advocates and advances equity and justice.

Troy Williams

For the past two decades, Troy has been a community organizer for LGBTQ Utahns. In 2004, he became community affairs director of 90.9 FM KRCL. He was the executive producer and co-host of the talk show RadioActive. In 2010 the Salt Lake Tribune dubbed him "the gay mayor of Salt Lake City."

Troy's work has since been featured in the New York Times, Anderson Cooper 360, CBC Q, Democracy Now!, The Advocate, OUT Magazine, and Interview Magazine. In 2010, he co-wrote the award-winning play The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon and appeared in the Errol Morris film Tabloid in 2011. Troy also appeared in the HBO original documentaries Believer and Mama's Boy. In 2022, The Advocate Magazine named Troy as one of the 50 LGBTQ Champions of Pride.

Troy became the executive director of Equality Utah in the fall of 2014. In 2015 he helped pass Utah's historic LGBTQ non-discrimination protections in housing and employment. In 2016, he led efforts to rename 20 blocks of downtown Salt Lake City as "Harvey Milk Boulevard". In 2017 he worked to successfully overturn the state's 'No Promo Homo' law which prohibited discussion of LGBTQ issues in the classroom. In 2023 his team successfully passed legislation to protect minors from the dangerous practice of conversion therapy with unanimous votes in the Utah Legislature.

2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

Bianca Velasquez
Join Bianca Velasquez for an exhilarating tour of Salt Lake City, where she shares her artistic journey, highlights the city’s top eateries and art spaces, and explores the vibrant LGBTQ+ scene. Discover hidden gems and spark your excitement for an unforgettable Salt Lake City adventure. Watch now!

Bianca Velasquez (she/her) is a Salt Lake City local who has been involved with the arts and music community for over a decade. Velasquez is currently a freelance writer for several publications including Southwest Contemporary, Hyperallergic, and SLUG Magazine. As an artist, Velasquez works in acrylics, digital art, beadwork and more. Velasquez's beadwork interrogates the process of negotiating space, both physically on the canvas and emotionally, as she carves out space within herself for the lengthy task of self-realization.

2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

The gift of failure is a riddle: it will always be both the void and the start of infinite possibility. Part investigation into a psychological mystery, part an argument about creativity and art, and part a soulful celebration of the determination and courage of the human spirit, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis makes the case that many of the world’s greatest achievements have come from understanding the central importance of failure.

Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is an art and cultural historian. Her books and edited volumes include The Unseen Truth, Carrie Mae Weems, “Vision & Justice,” and The Rise. Lewis was named a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and has received the Arthur Danto/ASA Prize, the Freedom Scholar Award, and the Infinity Award.

2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

Engage with the 2024 NCECA Emerging Artists! Explore the compelling work of Erika NJ Allen, Magdolene Dykstra, Gloria Jue-Youn Han, Robert King, Teddy Osei, and Isaac Scott—in this insightful video presentation from the Coalescence Conference in Richmond, Virginia. 

Erika NJ Allen’s work embodies resilience, a healing diet, and newfound political awareness. From a hysterectomy during her time as a non-traditional BFA student to wrist injuries in graduate school, molded into tangible art. Clay is a vehicle that captures her experiences while innovating produce based glazes, merging art with identity, and propelling towards sustainable practices by pushing boundaries in ceramics.

Magdolene Dykstra works in sculpture, installation, and mark-making. Dykstra’s practice explores the tension between individuality and collectivity, visibility and anonymity, impermanence, and the embedded potential for transformation. Her methodology centers around the accumulation of small components within intricate ecosystems that embody a relationship with the Earth, its forms, and processes.

Gloria Jue-Youn Han complicates notions of what is traditional and contemporary and who gets to participate in either category. She studies Korean celadon ceramics as a case study of how traditions survive and evolve through diasporic peoples. Through craft, Han expresses devotion and love as an emerging artist and knowledge keeper. 

Robert King is a self-taught potter who respectfully collaborates with wild clay, found rocks, minerals, sand, and wood ash, aiming to craft pottery that expresses the organic and natural environment where these materials have rested for millennia. He describes his current work as “a love letter to the high desert”.

Teddy Osei delves into the concept of delineating borders and the complex power dynamics that lie beneath. He tackles the implications of traversing these boundaries and the subsequent transformation that follows. He crafts ceramic sculptural vessels that defy limitations, weaving a compelling narrative that echoes his cultural odyssey.

Isaac Scott is a ceramic artist and photographer from Madison, Wisconsin, who is currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Scott received his MFA in Ceramic Art at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in 2021.

2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

Announcing Inaugural Recipient of the Innovator Award

Sana Musasama

NCECA is thrilled to introduce Sana Musasama as the first recipient of the 2024 NCECA Innovator Award. Members of the award selection committee for this, the inaugural year of this honor include Holly Hannesian, Anya Montiel, Garth Johnson, Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy, Ife Williams, and Sequoia Miller with Shoji Satake serving as chair, and Rhonda Willers as co-chair.

Sana's work profoundly connects with our collective understanding of the power of objects in the universe, serving as agents to break down cultural barriers, educate us about our differences, and promote healing. Her innovative approach to community outreach is exemplified in her recent project, the “Apron Project,” where she collaborates with girls to develop entrepreneurial skills, enabling them to create products and earn income, thus achieving financial independence from the harsh streets of Cambodia. She integrates her lived experiences in the US, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, and Cambodia, using color, pattern, texture, and adornment to reveal life's deeper meanings.

Sana's entire practice is deeply influenced by her cultural traditions, as well as those of West Africa and Asia. Within the United States, she draws inspiration from urban and marginalized communities. Over more than 40 years, she has taught in neighborhood community centers, correctional facilities, and universities/colleges.

Sana Musasama earned her BA from City College of New York in 1973, and her MFA from Alfred University, New York, in 1988. Musasama received the 2018 Achievement Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts for her years of teaching and her humanitarian work with victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Musasama is the coordinator of the Apron Project, a sustainable entrepreneurial project for girls and young women reintegrated back into society after being forced into sex trafficking. In 2016, she was a guest speaker on “Activism through Art” at ROCA. A recently published article by Cliff Hocker, “If I can Help Somebody: Sana Musasama’s Art of Healing,” appears in the International Review of African American Art. In 2015, the Museum of Art and Design in New York selected four works from The Unspeakable Series for their private collection; Musasama was awarded the ACLU of Michigan Art Prize 7 and Art Prize 8. In 2002, she was awarded Anonymous Was a Women and in 2001, Musasama was featured in the 2001 Florence Biennial. Her work is in multiple collections such as The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina; The Museum of Art and Design in New York, New York; the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, New York; the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York; Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio; and in numerous private collections. Musasama lives and works in New York. 

2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

Pamunkey Pottery: Keeping Traditions Alive with Allyson Gray and Anya Montiel
The Pamunkey are an Indigenous tribe of the Chesapeake region who have made pottery for thousands of years. Pamunkey potter Allyson Gray will speak about traditional pottery methods and how the Pamunkey have continued to preserve their culture, artistically and socially. Moderated by Smithsonian curator Anya Montiel.

Allyson Gray 

Allyson Gray, an enrolled citizen of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, has called the Pamunkey reservation home for most of her life. Her love of traditional pottery began in 2018 when elder potters reintroduced her to the artform. Along with practicing the craft, she ensures its cultural significance is preserved.

Anya Montiel

Anya Montiel is a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Previously, she was Curator of American and Native American Women’s Art and Craft at the Renwick Gallery.

2024 Cultivating Community | https://nceca.net/2024-cultivating-community

Wonder Working Power with Valerie Cassel Oliver
This lecture explores the conceptual underpinning of ceramics in the African American South and their imprint on contemporary practices today. Primary in this exchange is the work of Theaster Gates whose work will be on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Valerie Cassel Oliver
Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to her position at the VMFA, she was Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Over the last two decades, Cassel Oliver has organized numerous exhibitions including the acclaimed Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970 (2005); Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art (2012) and major survey exhibitions for Donald Moffett; Benjamin Patterson, Jennie C. Jones, Angel Otero and Annabeth Rosen. Her debut at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was the critically acclaimed retrospective entitled, Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018). In 2021, she opened the groundbreaking exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse that toured nationally. 

Most recently, she has organized the exhibition, Dawoud Bey: Elegy that looks at the artist’s preoccupation with histories of place. The work includes commissioned photographs of Richmond’s Historic Slave Trail. Cassel Oliver is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including a fellowship from the Center of Curatorial Leadership (2009); the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Award (2011); the James A. Porter Book Award from Howard University (2018) as well as the Alain Locke International Arts Award, Detroit Institute of Art; the College Arts Association’s Excellence in Diversity Award; the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; and Brandywine Workshop and Archives’ Lifetime Achievement Award (all 2022). She was recently presented with an award of distinction from the American Folk Art Society (2023) for her work to bring art from the African American South into the collection of the museum. In October 2023, she was also tapped to curate Spotlight, a section for the Frieze Masters Art Fair in London. Cassel Oliver holds an Executive MBA from Columbia University, New York; an M.A. in Art History from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a B.S. in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin.

2023 NCECA CURRENT Conference registration is now open!
Click to register now: https://nceca.users.membersuite.com/events/372c6081-0078-c2b5-e698-0b445b89f6b2/details

CURRENT day Cincinnati is home to a vibrant creative community of artists, many working with clay. Collectively and individually, they are getting their hands dirty and shaping new worlds.