Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardeners
Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardeners
January 24 - March 26, 2022
Syd Carpenter identifies and honors African American farmers and gardeners with her new series, Farm Bowls. By integrating the universal form of a stoneware bowl with architectural and organic forms observed on farms, Carpenter creates emblems of the African American experience and their connection to the land.
The bowl is a universal form that can serve as a ritualistic object, or as a common utilitarian tool. It may rest comfortably in the palm of a hand, or extend expansively as a receptacle. Farm animals, tools, eggs, barns and fences populate the rims and inner recesses of the bowl while the color personifies the land and the skin-tone of the farmers and gardeners that she visited in the South. Several bowls include the shape of the human brain as a supporting base to represent the seed with the bowl as the fruit.
Carpenter is a gardener herself, having grown up in a family of gardeners. She pays homage to her early influences and her mother Ernestine Carpenter through her Mother Pin series. The wood clothespin resembles an idealized female form with its graceful, upright, curvilinear shape. By locating the clothespin in different environments such as swirling water, or decorated with beans or plant forms, the pins become simultaneously mythical and familiar.
Virtural walkthough of Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardeners
Syd Carpenter's opening reception talk
A road trip to Black farms in the South inspired Philly sculptor Syd Carpenter’s solo exhibit at Rowan University, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Syd Carpenter’s Ode to Women and Black-owned family farms, Artblog
Artist Syd Carpenter Identifies and Honors African American Farmers and Gardeners at Rowan U. Art Gallery, Discover Jersey Arts
Syd Carpenter Explains Her Art Gallery Exhibit, “Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardeners", The Whit
Honoring the Land
A special program was presented on Tuesday, February 22, 2022 featuring Syd Carpenter and South Jersey farmers and food activists of color. For more infomation: Honoring the Land
Laurie Mason, 2021
Stoneware, 14 x 12 x 20 inches.
Indiana Hutson, 2021
Stoneware, 11 x 24 x 23 inches.
Farm Bowl with Chicken, 2021
Stoneware, 11 x 18 x 21 inches
Mother Pin Transitions, 2021
Clay, graphite, water color, rototiller blades, 14 x 48 x 22 inches.
Ramshackle Fence, 2008-2012
Earthenware, graphite, acrylic, 30 x 75 x 9 inches.
Images from the opening reception on February 3, 2022
About the Artist
"Working as an artist has been the source of all that has been meaningful and a source of joy in my life. Art is my common ground around which revolves my interaction with family, teaching and community. The enthusiasm and commitment I bring to my teaching is an outcome of the level to which I am engaged in my art while community involvement allows me to share the value I place on the visual with those who may otherwise disregard its impact upon their lives. Family is a constant source of inspiration both as image and encouragement. I don't believe artists make the decision to become artists. They are born. The hope is that they find the will to pursue their vision, an environment in which to develop , and a culture respectful of their contributions".
Syd Carpenter earned her B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. She has exhibited her work extensively throughout the region and nationally. Her work is included in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Tang Museum of Art at Skidmore College, Montreal Museum of Art, Petrucci Family Collection of African American Art, Renwick Gallery of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Jengdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jengdezen, China and many others. She is currently Professor of Art, Peggy Chan Professorship in Black Studies at Swarthmore College, PA.