Last week I went to my first NCECA ever. This year it was in Tampa, and we made our long journey to Florida via university transportation, which was a huge van that unfortunately had no storage compartments. After the very long drive, we arrived in Tampa at about 4:00 PM and we had an hour to set our booth up and everything worked out great. Now it was time to enjoy being social with other artists like us.
The 1st day, Wednesday, was really humid and some of us used the morning to travel around to some of the different NCECA exhibitions, and then I managed the booth, talked with students interested in our programs, and met a lot of people. Later in the afternoon, my friends and former professor from undergrad arrived and I was able to meet up and talk with them for a while.
On Thursday we saw some terrible weather. I mean, torrential downpours and fierce lightning that caused a bit of damage across Florida. I ran around a bit exploring with Tiffany and Symon (friends from undergrad), and we stopped by the cup sale, which was amazing.
Friday's weather was perfect. Walked around the exhibitions some more and a couple of lectures. The first one called "The Art of Drinking" which I was pleased to find out included raku, and then a talk about how to make the most out of promotional media. After that, Tiffany, Symon, and I sat on a floating dock outside the conference center so we could enjoy the weather until Tiffany had to go to her scheduled critique. Later, we three, our friend Patty, and Doug Gray (my former professor and now friend) all went to Ybor City, which was just a 10 minute trolly ride away.
Click for Photo Gallery on Flickr.
Despite the bad weather that blew through, I thoroughly enjoyed NCECA and would love to go to next year's. It's all the way in Seattle, so we shall see if I can manage to get out there.
