Our Community
The Ceramics Studio Community
The Ceramics area at the University of Arkansas takes pride in fostering a strong and diverse community of artists, working within the studio and as contributors and participants in the burgeoning arts community of our region. We believe students get the best educational experience when they are working actively alongside their peers, whether it is on their own projects, participating in a clay club event, attending a visiting artist lecture, or simply loading a kiln together. To this end, we work hard to make our community one in which inclusiveness and personal diligence coalesce in an experience tailored to bring the best out of each student.
UARK Ceramics hosts a variety of events each semester that students are welcomed and encouraged to attend. In most semesters, there are multiple visiting artists (providing lectures, seminars, and critiques), ACE fundraising events, sponsored events outside the school, and an end-of-semester exhibition. We frequently host resident artists—most recently Khalil Irving and Jolie Ngo—and have an ongoing graduate student exchange with Tainan National University of the Arts.
Our studio provides a year-round hub of activity, and has been expressly designed to place students of all levels in frequent contact in an effort to maximize an open exchange of ideas. At any given time, we typically have six faculty, six MFA students, four post-baccalaureate residents, and a dozen or more BFA Ceramics students working in close proximity (in addition to the 70-100 students enrolled in lower-level courses). The strength and dynamism of our program is unparalleled in this region.
The Association of Ceramic Enthusiasts
Our student-led organization, ACE, has the mission of increasing the visibility and impact of ceramics on-campus and in the local community. Our very active ACE members organize multiple events each year to help raise funds for visiting artists, offset costs for students who wish to attend the annual National Council on Education in Ceramic Arts conference, and to help contribute to studio improvements. Each year, ACE funding helps send 15-20 students to the NCECA conference. Active membership in ACE is an important part of the ceramic student’s development, helping to garner experience in organizing events, generating publicity, and selling works. If you are a student interested in participating in ACE, just ask any of your instructors and they will let you know when the next meeting is taking place.
Art in Northwest Arkansas
The School of Art provides a robust schedule of exhibitions, visiting artist lectures, and other art-related events. There are far more events happening in the School of Art than any one person could reasonably attend. Within the School there is the Fine Arts Center Gallery and the student-run sUgAR exhibition series (scheduling for these is currently paused, as we construct an all-new facility to open in Fall 2025), and scores of visiting artists and lecturers each semester. Within the Studio Art and Design Center, there are five generously-sized student install and critique spaces, in which BFA shows, MFA thesis shows, and many other exhibitions are frequently occurring.
Beyond campus, Northwest Arkansas is home to many different arts organizations and events; arts programming in the region is plentiful. Fayetteville is home to the Walton Arts Center, which brings Broadway quality theater, musical performances, and an art gallery to the city, as well as Theatre Squared, a impeccable stage for small-scale productions. And, if you venture just a few miles up the road, there are even more things to do. Bentonville (home to Crystal Bridges, The Momentary, and 21C) is a community deeply committed to integrating world-class art into the fabric of its identity, and drives much of the region’s
Living in Northwest Arkansas
One of the fastest-growing regions in the country, Northwest Arkansas is home to over 450,000 residents and offers many unique cultural experiences. There are great restaurants and nightlife, an excellent farmer’s market, and a historic downtown area. Fayetteville is regularly listed as one of the top places in the US to live, by Forbes, BusinessWeek, and others. It is a bicycle friendly town (Fayetteville was the first city in the United States to be named a "Bike City" by the Union Cycliste Internationale), with trails and greenways to help get you around, and there is an abundance of outdoor activities in the surrounding Ozark Mountains.