Five students qualified for the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) show: senior Mason Bosco, juniors Tyson Diep, Taiting Zhou and James Dunlap as well as eighth grader Atlas Diep. The show is the biggest national show for ceramic students. This year, it is being held in Detroit, Michigan, from March 25 to March 28.
Of around 1100 pieces that were submitted for application, 100 were accepted. The seven pieces from the students have already been shipped to Detroit.
“(The show) travels across the country. Last year it was in Salt Lake City,” Ceramics teacher Scott Ziegler said. “There’s a show called K-12 and so there’s 100 pieces in this K-12 show.”
Of these five students, Tyson and Zhou each had two pieces accepted while Bosco, Dunlap and Atlas each had one piece accepted.
“I think this show kind of shows them who is the best of the best. If you get into the show, I think it’s an extremely high honor,” Ziegler said. “The top ceramic students across the country are competing to get in the show, and then they’re competing for all sorts of awards and scholarships.”
At the show, colleges, artists and ceramics-related companies will pick out their favorite pieces, allowing students to win prizes in the form of scholarships, cash and equipment. The five students who had their work accepted will be travelling to Detroit to see their pieces on display.
“I think there is a little bit of scholarship money involved. It’s not like Harvard’s handing out a full ride,” Dunlap said. “But if a college or a ceramics teacher from a college sees a piece he really likes, I think sometimes you can win a little bit of money.”
To support his students, Ziegler grants his students full access to the ceramics studio, whether it be before or after school or even on the weekends.
“I think it’s a place that they like to hang out at,” Ziegler said. “Are they working constantly? No, not necessarily. I think there’s some students, though, that push themselves and strive for excellence”
To complete these projects, Dunlap consistently spends around 12 hours a week in the ceramics studio, with at least an hour to an hour and a half on school days and then two to three hours on the weekends.
“It really is time intensive. In all of junior and senior year, you come out with four pieces, one piece a semester, and so you just invest so much time and effort into something that can easily fall apart in the kiln,” Dunlap said.”
Dunlap applied with one piece that he had finished at the beginning of this school year as the first major project he had completed.
“I wanted to just see what my chances were. I was fairly surprised I got in,” Dunlap said. “It was very gratifying to be able to send off a huge scale project to be displayed in a national show. It also really excites me for the next few pieces I’m working on now, so it makes me excited for my art in the future.”
