Clayscapes
At the Everson Museum of Art
Syracuse, NY
April 13 through October 20, 2024
Featuring:
Cristina CĂłrdova
Paul Scott
Steven Young Lee
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
When he was in college in the 1970s, Syracuse artist and entrepreneur Don Seymour named a series of ceramic landscape sculptures Clayscapes. This hybrid word, with roots in the earth and the ceramic community that is built around shaping it, felt so powerful that when he founded his ceramic supply business in 2003, he named it Clayscapes. A year later, a studio was added, and in 2010, a gallery.
In Central New York, clay is literally a part of the landscape. The ample deposits of clay beneath our feet were formed over many millennia by the weathering of minerals, including the pink granite from the shores of Lake Ontario that comprises a substantial part of the Eversonâs building. These resources made it possible for Indigenous Onondaga potters to make some of the most distinctive wares of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. As the area became colonized by Europeans, potters produced durable crockery for food and alcohol storage, as well as massive amounts of brick and tile. In 1841, W. H. Farrar started a small pottery business, becoming the Onondaga Pottery Company in 1871, and later evolving into Syracuse China, which was at one point the largest manufacturer of porcelain dinnerware in the United States.
Clayscapes is a tribute to clayâs ubiquitous presence in our lives, and to the powerful metaphorical and spiritual role that it can play. The Eversonâs famous collection of ceramics is filled with works that explore the landscapeâfrom artist Robert Arnesonâs monumental celebration of Californiaâs mountainous landscape to Uruguayan-born Lidya Buzioâs earthy vessels adorned with the skyline of her adopted home in New York City. The collection contains many commercially produced souvenir plates and pitchers meant to commemorate and memorialize specific places. These wares are a distinctive part of the Museumâs collection, and they provide inspiration for contemporary artists such as Paul Scott, who makes commemorative plates that reflect the ways that humans have altered the landscape and exploited its resources.
As artists continue to shape clay, Clayscapes recognizes the ways in which clay shapes us. The Eversonâs ceramic collection is filled with work that documents the joys and sorrows of humankindâs relationship with the Earth. This exhibition pays tribute to the powerful connection between artists and the world around them.
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison Street
Syracuse, NY 13202
More on the Exhibition HERE
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