Currents in Contemporary Ceramic Art at Featherstone Center for the Arts brings together new and recent work by 25 clay artists from more than a dozen states.
Currents in Contemporary Ceramic Art at Featherstone Center for the Arts brings together new and recent work by 25 clay artists from more than a dozen states.
The show is guest curated by seasonal Islander Jen Gandee and her husband Errol Willett. Ms. Gandee and Mr. Willett are fellow potters and ceramicists who also own a gallery outside Syracuse, N.Y.
The couple has filled Featherstone’s Francine Kelly Gallery with a startling breadth of works, from hand-formed porcelain cups and mugs to sculptural works and massive planting urns.
Curator Jen Gander is also a potter.
Curator Jen Gander is also a potter.
“In bringing this work together, I wanted to show the breadth of... expression in our field,” Ms. Gandee said, during a gallery talk earlier this month.
Artists featured in the Featherstone show include David MacDonald, who adorns his wheel-thrown platters and bowls with designs inspired by his African heritage.
“He’s now 80 years old and is maybe one of the most active ceramic artists I know,” Ms. Gandee said.
One of Mr. MacDonald’s pieces at Featherstone bears a pattern from the Adinkra people of West Africa, she said.
“It’s the knot of reconciliation, [and] he made it especially for this show,” Ms. Gandee said.
Vessels by Stephen Procter and Errol Willettt.
Vessels by Stephen Procter and Errol Willettt.
Along with wheel-built pieces, the Featherstone show has plenty of sculptural works: representational, abstract and, in the case of Pennsylvania-based George Rodriguez, downright fantastic.
Mr. Rodriguez uses a technique called “sprigging” to decorate his hand-built ceramics with stamped-out designs like little clay cookies, their colors popping brightly from the brown stoneware surfaces of works like Peru Vase, Sin Mal (a spooky riff on the hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil, see-no-evil theme), and a heroic head titled Mykyta.
“They all are connected to his history as a person that grew up on the border of Texas and Mexico in El Paso, and how that personal history is about the blending of cultures,” Ms. Gandee said.
Other sculptural works in the show include Chris Gustin’s deeply glazed abstracts and Jee Eun Lee’s figural series Drift: A Dream Within a Dream.
Jennifer McCurdy, the sole Martha’s Vineyard artist in the group, creates porcelain pieces that begin as wheel-formed vessels she then sculpts into airy forms that seem to rise like smoke.
Work by Ruth Easterbrook.
Work by Ruth Easterbrook.
Along with the fine art ceramics displayed on pedestals and walls, Ms. Gandee and Mr. Willett have set up the center of the show as a pottery gallery where visitors can handle the cups, plates and other home-wares for sale, such as Ms. Gandee’s two-piece berry bowl.
Featherstone executive director Ann Smith said she’s been talking with Ms. Gandee about working together since they first met at an artisan’s fair in 2016.
“I said to her, someday we’re going to do something together,” Ms. Smith said.
A planned show for Mr. Willett and Ms. Gandee was scrapped when the gallery closed during Covid-19, but Ms. Smith later reached out with a new idea: a group show.
“We want to do something that really enriches and inspires our community.... I think that Jen has really accomplished that here in the ceramics show,” Ms. Smith said. “The diversity of the artists, the different types of pots and sculpture — utilitarian and just purely artistic — she has done a beautiful job,” Ms. Smith said.
Currents in Contemporary Ceramic Art is open daily from noon to 4 p.m. through July 20.
Comments
Wonderful show!
Candy Shweder ChilmarkWonderful show!
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