Hollering a history the land never forgot
- Syd honours the Black farmers of America through her ceramic sculptures
- She works in open-ended series and works without glazes
- Syd was a Professor of Studio Art at Swarthmore College until 2025
Syd Carpenter turned down medical school to study painting at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in the mid-1970s. "My mother was an artist who never got to live her own dream, and she supported my decision," explains Syd. Her early development in art and craft was carried by the currents of a stimulating community: fellow professors, artists, biologists and anthropologists who enriched her own ideas and making. "Gardening has always run alongside my ceramic work," she adds. As a child, Syd used to watch her mother plant irises on a hillside, absorbing impressions she understood only later. After 30 years of teaching, Syd took a step back from academia in 2025 to focus entirely on her studio, where she lives and works every day. In 2026, three simultaneous retrospectives trace her creative evolution.
INTERVIEW
I was skilled in painting, but I did not find it compelling enough. Clay felt exciting. I fell in love with the culture, firing kilns, and the wonderful fact that people not only collected my pots, but used them!
My driving force is black farmers who cultivated the land from the early 20th century to today. We were brought here for our knowledge of the land, which was erased. The titles of my works are actual names of real people I have met or researched. In lectures, I get audiences to read them aloud, to acknowledge the forgotten.
Glaze has not been near my pieces for decades. I love the colour and fleshiness of wet clay, and I have found ways to make this look permanent, with graphite and acrylic. This approach is connected to my painting years! The fleshy, lustrous surface of my works is an emulation of black skin.
Do not get distracted by the ease of getting on the internet. You have to deliver on your craft: be in the studio making, and then attend openings and lectures, see what other people are doing, take workshops, expose yourself. All of that will synthesise into experience, perception and committing yourself to your craft.
