Maybe it’s my current season of life, but I have been thinking a lot about the practice of inward expansion: the possibility that growth doesn’t always mean moving outward, getting bigger, or more far-reaching. Instead, like a taproot whose progress is unseen, growth happens by moving deeper—deepening relationships, enriching experiences, and finding possibilities within what we already have.
For the field of ceramics, that might mean creating more opportunities within the community we already have and making the experience of being part of our community richer. Talking shop and troubleshooting with friends and peers, online workshops, and organizing ways to encounter work in places we may not normally expect to find it can all be ways to do that in your own backyard. Finding new ways to share your work with the people already interested in it can be a form of expansion, too, and while none of these things make the field bigger, it can make it deeper, more connected, and more alive.
Surrounded by artists in undergrad who needed spaces to show their work and play music outside of the established galleries and bars in town, my roommates and I would periodically (much to the dismay of our neighbors) host house art parties. We pushed furniture into bedrooms, making way for common spaces to become galleries; window bench seats became plinths for sculptures; hallways provided intimate views of two-dimensional works; and the backyard filled with sound and conversation. These happenings provided space for friends to connect, blow off steam from a stressful critique or deadline, and share our creative work. Many of those friends later established community third spaces like coffee shops, alternative music venues, and bicycle collectives that became homes for the sights and soundtrack of our youth. We didn’t wait for a gallery to invite us to exhibit; we made the space we needed.
CXC’s pop-up pottery sales grew from a similar recognition. The traditional gallery model has a very real physical limitation—there are a finite number of walls, shelves, and artists that can fit. Rather than asking how to squeeze more artists into the existing Gallery Expo spaces at NCECA, they asked a different question: how can we create another space? Since joining together as a collective nearly ten years ago, they have become a staple in the ever-growing and bustling post-5pm Pot Crawl tradition at the annual conference, which boasted 24 different groups in Detroit during the 2026 NCECA conference.
Jonathan Adler “popped up” in a rainy NYC park over thirty years ago with a similar itch to find out where he fit, where he could find his audience, and how he could make a life as a full-time potter. Not selling a single pot that day didn’t deter him: “My career is littered with false starts and failures and minute problem solving that got me up a rung of the ladder.” He kept going and, by doing so, has built a rich life for himself as an entrepreneur, designer, and maker. It takes bravery, grit, and vulnerability to put yourself out there and to find answers for the questions within.
Liz Quackenbush is no stranger to grit; as a full-time potter, she stepped into the studio at Penn State as the first female educator in the storied program. For more than twenty years, she made a lasting impact on countless students, pushing them to refine their skills, take risks, and find their own voice in clay. I’m fortunate to have been one of those students and still hear her words in my mind, pushing me forward and encouraging me to dive deeper.
I am not at all surprised by her shift from low-fire majolica to porcelain. Inside Liz is a tenacity and willingness to challenge herself—to enter unfamiliar territory, to ask new questions of a material, and to allow herself to become a student again. Her move to porcelain doesn’t feel like a departure from her practice to me. It feels like an inward expansion: a deepening of the questions that have always driven her practice, even as her materials changed.
In this issue, we share the work of artists who are finding new depth in familiar places and community in the unknown. Whether you are launching a pop-up in your own neighborhood, challenging yourself to begin again, or searching for connection, remember that depth is its own kind of momentum. You don’t need a bigger room to change the conversation; you just need to be willing to dig where you stand.
Correction In the September 2026 issue, Alex Paat’s neon fabricator was incorrectly listed as Jantec Neon, when it should have been credited to Nebula Neon.
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Maybe it’s my current season of life, but I have been thinking a lot about the practice of inward expansion: the possibility that growth doesn’t always mean moving outward, getting bigger, or more far-reaching. Instead, like a taproot whose progress is unseen, growth happens by moving deeper—deepening relationships, enriching experiences, and finding possibilities within what we already have.
For the field of ceramics, that might mean creating more opportunities within the community we already have and making the experience of being part of our community richer. Talking shop and troubleshooting with friends and peers, online workshops, and organizing ways to encounter work in places we may not normally expect to find it can all be ways to do that in your own backyard. Finding new ways to share your work with the people already interested in it can be a form of expansion, too, and while none of these things make the field bigger, it can make it deeper, more connected, and more alive.
Surrounded by artists in undergrad who needed spaces to show their work and play music outside of the established galleries and bars in town, my roommates and I would periodically (much to the dismay of our neighbors) host house art parties. We pushed furniture into bedrooms, making way for common spaces to become galleries; window bench seats became plinths for sculptures; hallways provided intimate views of two-dimensional works; and the backyard filled with sound and conversation. These happenings provided space for friends to connect, blow off steam from a stressful critique or deadline, and share our creative work. Many of those friends later established community third spaces like coffee shops, alternative music venues, and bicycle collectives that became homes for the sights and soundtrack of our youth. We didn’t wait for a gallery to invite us to exhibit; we made the space we needed.
CXC’s pop-up pottery sales grew from a similar recognition. The traditional gallery model has a very real physical limitation—there are a finite number of walls, shelves, and artists that can fit. Rather than asking how to squeeze more artists into the existing Gallery Expo spaces at NCECA, they asked a different question: how can we create another space? Since joining together as a collective nearly ten years ago, they have become a staple in the ever-growing and bustling post-5pm Pot Crawl tradition at the annual conference, which boasted 24 different groups in Detroit during the 2026 NCECA conference.
Jonathan Adler “popped up” in a rainy NYC park over thirty years ago with a similar itch to find out where he fit, where he could find his audience, and how he could make a life as a full-time potter. Not selling a single pot that day didn’t deter him: “My career is littered with false starts and failures and minute problem solving that got me up a rung of the ladder.” He kept going and, by doing so, has built a rich life for himself as an entrepreneur, designer, and maker. It takes bravery, grit, and vulnerability to put yourself out there and to find answers for the questions within.
Liz Quackenbush is no stranger to grit; as a full-time potter, she stepped into the studio at Penn State as the first female educator in the storied program. For more than twenty years, she made a lasting impact on countless students, pushing them to refine their skills, take risks, and find their own voice in clay. I’m fortunate to have been one of those students and still hear her words in my mind, pushing me forward and encouraging me to dive deeper.
I am not at all surprised by her shift from low-fire majolica to porcelain. Inside Liz is a tenacity and willingness to challenge herself—to enter unfamiliar territory, to ask new questions of a material, and to allow herself to become a student again. Her move to porcelain doesn’t feel like a departure from her practice to me. It feels like an inward expansion: a deepening of the questions that have always driven her practice, even as her materials changed.
In this issue, we share the work of artists who are finding new depth in familiar places and community in the unknown. Whether you are launching a pop-up in your own neighborhood, challenging yourself to begin again, or searching for connection, remember that depth is its own kind of momentum. You don’t need a bigger room to change the conversation; you just need to be willing to dig where you stand.
Correction In the September 2026 issue, Alex Paat’s neon fabricator was incorrectly listed as Jantec Neon, when it should have been credited to Nebula Neon.
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