about the project

accessCeramics is a growing collection of images of contemporary ceramics by recognized artists. It is designed for use by artists, arts educators, scholars and the general public, and is intended to fill a void in contemporary ceramics digital image collections on the web. The images are stored within the Flickr photo sharings system, and accessible through this website as well as the Flickr interface. Submissions are juried by a curatorial board, which consists of the founders of the Collection, Ted Vogel (Assistant Professor of Art, Program Head in Ceramics, Department of Art, Lewis & Clark College) and Margo Ballantyne (Visual Resources Curator, Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark College) along with Namita Wiggers, Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, Thomas Orr, Professor of Art and head of Ceramics at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and Richard Burkett, Professor of Ceramics at San Diego State University.

accessCeramics merges a traditional academic digital image collection's metadata capabilities with Flickr's openness and flexibility. It seeks to take advantage of Flickr's software tools and social network while also providing a web interface customized to this collection. We expect that individuals will encounter the collection through our website and through the Flickr interface, in a spirit similar to the Library of Congress photo collection in the Flickr Commons. We hope the Collection will serve as a model for future image collections in the arts and humanities. In phase one of the project, we focused on building the collection with our cataloging/submission interface. Phase two will continue expansion of the accessCeramics current artists' image collection and support efforts to build a master artist (historical) component for the website.

accessCeramics is a pilot project organized by the Visual Resources Collection of Watzek Library and the Art Department of Lewis & Clark College. In 2008, the project received a NITLE Instructional Innovative Fund Grant and most recently is the recipient of a 2009 NEA Access to Artistic Excellence Grant.

Please send inquiries to accessceramics@gmail.com.