ICEX-International Ceramics Exchange

ICEX is a platform for established international ceramic artists to share their unique ideas, knowledge, and experiences with a local ceramic artists and art lovers, in-person.

Enthusiasm and interest in ceramics has grown immensely. There are nearly 25 studios within 35 miles of my home. Classes at many of these studios fill within minutes of registrations opening, and waitlists are frustratingly long for artists who are eager to participate and grow their skills. 

Through social media and the Internet, anyone—at any time—can find clay artists who show and demonstrate their work. But 20-second TikTok and Instagram Reels cannot compare to in-person, hands-on experiences. Humans have an innate desire to interact with each other, and ubiquitous digital media has created a new, urgent awareness of that fact. 

Travel workshops to global destinations have become widely attended by audiences starving to see and experience more. But cost of international travel has doubled in the past 10 years due to economic, health, trade and political environment. Coordinating multiple studio visits and workshops are not an easy task due to language barrier and facility limitations at the artists’ home studios.

By providing a a venue for the artist, locally, to present and share his art and practice, the clay community has first hand experience with the artist to learn, engage and to be inspired.

Follow: @icex.connect

Miki Shim

Founder & Managing Director, Artist
California & Illinois, USA

Miki Shim is on her second career as a ceramic artist after a 25+ years in marketing and graphic design in Chicago, IL. Since the move to California in 2012, her path has taken her work internationally, promoting artists locally through ICEX, visiting artist programs, and producing ceramics focus tours to South Korea and China.

Miki’s work can be seen throughout US, China, and South Korea through private collections, juried exhibitions and galleries, and also travel to teach, present, and demonstrate ceramics to a wide audience.

Locally, she focuses on teaching Bay Area clay enthusiasts through various private studios, community centers. Miki is an active member and past board member of Orchard Valley Ceramic Arts Guild (OVCAG) and the Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California (ACGA). 

Miki’s decorative functional pottery has become recognizable by its beautiful surface detail, sensitivity to lightness and proportion, and respect for the Earth and materials drawn from it. While she has successfully explored a wide range of techniques, materials and applications over the years, she has become well known today particularly for her work related to tea. In 2017 and 2019, she was one of only four American potters invited to participate in the highly respected “Hong Guang Zi Qi” International Ceramic Art Cultural Exchange Week in YiXing, China. Her teapots, tea bowls, jars and trays demonstrate a mastery of not only individual forms but of a holistic approach to the human experience of drinking tea, and they have been juried into many local and international exhibitions including the First World Teapot Competition in Yixing, China in 2019.

Follow: @mikisr_ceramics