Syd Carpenter

Syd’s project focuses on African American farms and gardens. When considering gardening and farming in America, few images of African Americans come to mind despite the fact that in the early part of the 20th century there were more than 1,000,000 farms operated by African Americans, most located in southern states. That number has been reduced to less than 40,000 today.  Syd will create a series of emblematic ceramic farms and gardens locating them in the landscape on the campus of Swarthmore College.

I characterize the development in my work over the last 20 years as a series of digressions motivated by a search for the right "visual words." I can now look back over the body of my work and identify things that have remained constant. They include the use of clay, combinations of the natural with the industrial and an implied narrative. All of these elements are combined with variations on a spiral or helix, representing a neutrally persistent movement or energy. This movement persists despite incessant obstacles. The spiral has been used to represent water, a snake, moving air, a broom.

I have never been comfortable with the finality of traditional ceramic surfaces. If the forms themselves are subject to change, the surfaces require the same flexibility. In my work, I combine components that are physically and conceptionally in opposition to each other. By focusing on the connections between the object and the surface it rests upon, I am suggesting a momentary contact. If you look away, the sculptures reshape themselves in pursuit of the narrative implied by their titles. I think of these sculptures as representing just one moment in time.