The dog days of summer have taken hold here in Kansas City, and the signs are showing. On the crinkled petals of fading front-yard flowers, in the flush of my children’s sunburnt shoulders, and even the sweat droplets fighting gravity on every forehead in town, the temperature itself remains unseen, but its presence is undeniable.
We know the heat is here by what it leaves behind, and so much of the world works this way. The forces that shape us—time, environment, culture, experience—rarely announce themselves directly. Instead, they accumulate quietly, revealing themselves only through the changes they produce.
Creative fields evolve similarly; their boundaries don’t shift overnight, but gradually, through countless individual decisions, conversations, and experiments. Looking back over the past twenty years, one of the most visible signs of that evolution in ceramics has been the quiet expansion of the material list. Painters and sculptors have long embraced mixed media, but among ceramic artists, a long-held hesitation to incorporate cold finishes and non-clay materials seems to have softened. As I reviewed the 536 submissions of “Bold Choices,” our annual readership-wide contest, glass, flocking, rhinestones, Plexiglas, acrylic paint, and other materials appeared alongside clay—not as afterthoughts, but as meaningful parts of the work. This shift doesn’t represent an abandonment of traditional materials or methods, but rather the opening of doors to new possibilities. It’s broadening the conversation and recognizing that the kiln doesn’t always mark the end of the story.
The artists featured in this issue embody that curiosity. Whether or not they utilize mixed media, each has challenged conventions, experimented, followed their intuition, and committed to their vision and their work. Jihyun Kim, whose work is on the cover of this issue, shares her process for casting, building, and finishing her vessels, which feature stems made from gravity-defying glaze drips. Fabrikaat Studio’s research explores how coupling very low- temperature firing (572º F (300ºC)) with plant-based biocoatings could create a watertight to-go coffee cup whose materials can be broken down and reused. Although porcelain insulators are often used in building neon signs, the use of neon in the concurrent NCECA 2026 exhibition “Clay Currents” was anything but traditional. Amanda Barr reflects on how the exhibiting artists used light as material and sparked inspiration among gallery goers.
Just as summer’s heat can be seen by the traces it leaves behind, the work in this issue is evidence of a field that continues to question, expand, and redefine itself. Whether through clay alone or in conversation with other materials, the featured artists that follow remind us that materiality is not fixed. Like clay itself, it is shaped, challenged, and continually reimagined.
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The dog days of summer have taken hold here in Kansas City, and the signs are showing. On the crinkled petals of fading front-yard flowers, in the flush of my children’s sunburnt shoulders, and even the sweat droplets fighting gravity on every forehead in town, the temperature itself remains unseen, but its presence is undeniable.
We know the heat is here by what it leaves behind, and so much of the world works this way. The forces that shape us—time, environment, culture, experience—rarely announce themselves directly. Instead, they accumulate quietly, revealing themselves only through the changes they produce.
Creative fields evolve similarly; their boundaries don’t shift overnight, but gradually, through countless individual decisions, conversations, and experiments. Looking back over the past twenty years, one of the most visible signs of that evolution in ceramics has been the quiet expansion of the material list. Painters and sculptors have long embraced mixed media, but among ceramic artists, a long-held hesitation to incorporate cold finishes and non-clay materials seems to have softened. As I reviewed the 536 submissions of “Bold Choices,” our annual readership-wide contest, glass, flocking, rhinestones, Plexiglas, acrylic paint, and other materials appeared alongside clay—not as afterthoughts, but as meaningful parts of the work. This shift doesn’t represent an abandonment of traditional materials or methods, but rather the opening of doors to new possibilities. It’s broadening the conversation and recognizing that the kiln doesn’t always mark the end of the story.
The artists featured in this issue embody that curiosity. Whether or not they utilize mixed media, each has challenged conventions, experimented, followed their intuition, and committed to their vision and their work. Jihyun Kim, whose work is on the cover of this issue, shares her process for casting, building, and finishing her vessels, which feature stems made from gravity-defying glaze drips. Fabrikaat Studio’s research explores how coupling very low-
temperature firing (572º F (300ºC)) with plant-based biocoatings could create a watertight to-go coffee cup whose materials can be broken down and reused. Although porcelain insulators are often used in building neon signs, the use of neon in the concurrent NCECA 2026 exhibition “Clay Currents” was anything but traditional. Amanda Barr reflects on how the exhibiting artists used light as material and sparked inspiration among gallery goers.
Just as summer’s heat can be seen by the traces it leaves behind, the work in this issue is evidence of a field that continues to question, expand, and redefine itself. Whether through clay alone or in conversation with other materials, the featured artists that follow remind us that materiality is not fixed. Like clay itself, it is shaped, challenged, and continually reimagined.
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