Aberystwyth Arts Centre has long been involved in organising exhibitions of contemporary ceramics, both from the UK and internationally. So I am very glad of this opportunity to collaborate with NACHE on something as fundamentally important as Ceramic Contemporaries, which promotes work by ceramicists at an early stage in their career. The UK has a great strength in studio ceramics and it would be wanton to let this clay culture of innovation, often allied with an understanding of tradition and history, to dwindle due to lack of support; or indeed to remain un-celebrated.

Ceramic Contemporaries 4 is touring throughout the UK - an important fact, for in a world increasingly dominated by the virtual, there is still nothing to beat seeing the real ceramic thing - (and touching it too I would add, if to condone this were not a threat to security!). Clay is such a familiar material at its most basic, still part of most childhoods, that the public response to ceramic exhibitions is usually to engage with it very quickly. Certainly there will be no lack of stimulation in Ceramic Contemporaries 4.

The works in Ceramic Contemporaries 4 were selected in one (long) day, from slides, by a panel of four people eminent in the field of ceramics. After much hard looking and discussion, accord was reached and an exhibition selected - one of several which could have emerged, certainly, but nonetheless a fair representation of the major concerns and themes which had been in evidence in the original submission.

The works here do not all sit easily in traditional 'ceramic' definitions. Some challenge our perceptions as to what makes a pot a pot; or what makes ceramic, art. Contemporary culture is constantly evolving - not always importantly perhaps, but almost always interestingly. Contemporary ceramics is part of this broader picture and we are privileged here to see what a new generation of potters / artists / ceramists are making of it.