This lecture will take place in Fine Arts 015.
Syd Carpenter is a ceramics and mixed media sculptor who teaches studio art at Swarthmore College. Her recent work from the last several years focuses on ceramic portraits of African American farms and gardens. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where her grand mother and mother were avid gardeners, she continues the legacy of gardening at her home and studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After visiting several farms and gardens owned by African Americans in Georgia, South Carolina and the Gullah Islands, she developed her on going series of farm portraits using the images, artifacts and conversations collected on this trip as source materials for the work. Examples are included in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the James Michener Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum, Tang Museum of Skidmore College, Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Woodmere Museum of Art. She is a recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowships, Leeway Fellowship and Leeway Arts and Change grant. Her artist residencies include the Haystack Mountain School, Penland School of Crafts, Brandywine Graphics Workshop, Anderson Ranch, North Country Studio Workshops at Bennington College and Hollins University Women in Clay Symposium. Her studio and home are in Philadelphia.