This is an open call to ALL ceramic educators, whether you teach private classes in your studio, or teach at school or university, and everything in between; we invite you to join us for the launch meeting of the National Association of Ceramic Educators.

In the last 10 years or more we have witnessed the decline of Ceramics at Higher and Further Education levels. Factors such as cost of provision, failure to grow or recruit new students compelled Universities, Art Schools and Colleges to close many successful courses. The tutors who had previously been working together on national collaborations across the discipline, found themselves in a very real local fight to save courses and preserve the subject.

As course after course closed, mirrored by factory after factory going the same way, an unequivocal and entrenched discourse grew. One of a subject and industry in terminal decline. Once the rhetoric of decline was set, it effectively became self-fulfilling.

So, it’s time to reboot the rhetoric and adopt a more inclusive and celebratory discourse.

We can with some confidence propose that Ceramics is more popular than ever, more diverse, more open to all, more accessible and more egalitarian. There are more people learning to throw, hand build, press mold, slip cast, coil and glaze than ever before. We have witnessed a sharp increase in popularity, in part due to events such as The British Ceramics Biennial (BCB), Ceramic Art London (CAL) and The Pottery Throw Down on TV. Alongside this there has been a surge in community clay studios, who use a subscription model, such as the Kiln Rooms, Turning Earth, the Clay Shed (Bristol) and the Clay Studio (Manchester) to name a few, and Private pottery classes abound in individual studios all over the country. The caveat here is there is still a requirement to reach everybody, to allow access to the subject without payment, In the last 10 years the Crafts Councils Firing Up and Make your Future projects have sought to reintroduce the subject in the curriculum within secondary schools.

The future of the subject must be in the creation of an inclusive community, that supports participation, endeavour, craftsmanship, acquisition of knowledge. A community that can advocate for the subject with a coherent and universal voice.

So, it is in this context that we propose to launch The National Association of Ceramic Educators (NACE). The intention being to reflect this broadening definition of what education means and of who is an educator.

NACE proposes the following mission:

· To support and promote the diversity of ceramic education from individual to institution.

· Ensure that everybody has the opportunity to experience a material based transformative education.

· Advocate for teaching with clay across the entire curriculum from K-12, GCSE, A level FE, HE to lifelong learning

· Commit to the teaching and sharing of specialist knowledge.

· Initiate and sustain local and national networks for the growth of the subject

· Celebrate diversity of professional practices through conference, exhibition and competition.

If you want to be part of this conversation, join us for our launch meeting of NACE at the BCB on Friday 1st October.

You can also co-ordinate a visit to BCB in the morning and we hope that you can join us for these vital discussions so please let us know if you can attend - and we also know not everyone can make the trip to Stoke, so please also tell us whether that will be in person or online.

Event location: https://goo.gl/maps/DqNs4VF7HQzW7agX7