A woman clutching a prettily glazed clay mug gleefully explained to the people around her how she had convinced the potter across the room to part with it. He was carrying a few cups, it seems, in his coat pockets. Upon seeing them, she negotiated, in English tinged with an European accent, an exchange for one of her own designs shelved in her hotel room.

This happened at an exhibition reception, but it was the kind of interaction that was taking place throughout Pittsburgh last week as 5,000 national and international members of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) met for its 42nd annual conference.

From all reports, the conference was a huge success, for attendees and for hosting communities.

NCECA 2008 on-site liaison Josh Green said yesterday that it "exceeded all possible expectations" of council officials gathered here from across the country.

Pittsburgh picked up the conference when it became clear that originally scheduled New Orleans would not have recovered sufficiently from Katrina to host it. Usually a city has three years to plan; Green and those working with him had fewer than 10 months.

"People were incredibly impressed with how much Pittsburgh was able to pull together in the brief planning period," said Green, also Manchester Craftsmen's Guild (MCG) Director of Arts and Education Strategies.

The size of the crowds and their intense interest in the exhibitions amazed and delighted hosts. The Society for Contemporary Craft, where the 2008 NCECA Invitational Exhibition continues through June 7, said people began to arrive at 8:30 a.m. daily last week and continued coming until closing time.

The Pittsburgh Glass Center, which expected 20 to 30 people for a panel led by exhibiting collaborators Michael Rogers (glass artist) and Richard Hirsch (ceramist), drew a standing room-only audience of more than 100 (show continues through Sunday).

Lee Grice, operation manager for Standard Ceramics in Carnegie, which hosted seven exhibitions, said it was "a fantastic experience for everybody here." Standard had purchased a couple of the buildings that exhibitions were placed in after the devastating 2004 flood. The conference, Grice said, was an impetus to renovate them. Local people who had read about the exhibitions walked through, saying they'd always "wondered what was in those buildings."

Green said that Papa J's restaurant in Carnegie had to turn people away several days in a row because they were filled.

As with most conferences, there were lectures and panels relative to the professions in attendance. But the ceramics community -- ranging from young studio potters working in near obscurity in rural areas to international educators who are art stars in their own right -- is particularly tightly knit, and the social component of these events is as significant. Camaraderie, love of medium and mutual appreciation of work and dedication was characteristic of attendees.

That is not to say discord was absent. Although the boundary between art and craft was theoretically dissolved decades go, it's evident that not everyone was in agreement. Some functional potters still disparage the products of idea-oriented ceramists, and vice-versa.

"Are we supposed to be afraid?" joked a few adults as they entered "Forgotten Forest," a dimly lit, site-specific installation by Alexandra Watrous that hauntingly evoked immersion within a perhaps fading brain.

The curator of a different exhibition, featuring conceptual works, called in writing for ceramists to break the hold of material and place idea first.

Those were the extremities in the rush of some 100 exhibitions displaying work by more than 700 artists throughout the city.

Expression included well-conceived installations such as the one by Watrous; a complex and thought-provoking performance work by Amber Ginsburg and Joe Madrigal; sculpture ranging from decorative to political; and an inconceivable variety of functional work.

The latter enjoyed special presentation at three venues where mugs, bowls, plates, vases and the like by scores of artists were placed in loose table settings. MCG sold approximately $12,000 worth of work from its "Table of Elements" early in the conference week. Almost all of the pieces from Santa Fe Clay, a national invitational held at the Westin Convention Center Hotel, sold. And The Union Project also reported good crowds and sales. (Its "Wood Fired Ware" show continues through Friday.)

The conference may be gone, but clay is staying around for a while in exhibitions with longer runs and in new ones to come.

That was planned from the beginning, Green said. During an especially large NCECA conference in Baltimore in 2004, the Baltimore Clay Works, a successful community-based organization, saw the potential to raise awareness of the ceramic arts in the region. The event became bigger than NCECA itself.

"In a sense we borrowed from [their] concept," Green said.

Under the umbrella logo Cera[mix], the conference became a catalyst for larger undertakings, resulting in such accomplishments as a new raku pavilion at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, a new wood-firing kiln for The Union Project, and a long-term MCG residency for Japanese ceramists Mieko and Hiromu Okuda that ended Saturday.

MCG also established a Web site, and it will continue to be updated to include the latest exhibitions and other events (www.ceramixpittsburgh.org).