2003-04 YEAR IN REVIEW
VISUAL ARTS
Visiting Artists Highlight Ceramics Program
Public Art Features Pinto Proposal for Palmer Street
Students Express Selves in Figure Drawing
Students have the opportunity to be a part of Harvardís internationally recognized Ceramics Program under the guidance of leading specialists. This year 108 undergraduates and 32 graduate students did course work at the Programís Studio, located at 219 Western Ave. in Allston, and 40 attended special lecture-demonstrations and exhibitions. ìClay All Nightî studio parties continued to be an undergraduate phenomenon with 450 participating. Four hundred public school children at the Mary Lyons Elementary School in Brighton and Graham and Parks School in Cambridge participated in mural projects led by Ceramics Program affiliates.
The Ceramics Program also welcomed artists, visiting artists, scholars, research scientists, and archaeologists to explore this broad field. The programís offerings are open three semesters each year to all levels of experience and include classes, specialized seminars, visiting artist presentations, firing workshops, and a ceramics library. This yearís highlights include:
Christopher Adams '94, MD, returned to the Ceramics Studio for three months as a visiting artist to fulfill the final requirement of his Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons education. As an undergraduate, Adams studied evolutionary biology and developed remarkable bodies of work at the Studio. His ceramic work merges his scientific studies with the sculptural development of complex, biomorphic creations, and was presented by Ceramics Director Nancy Selvage in May at the Division of Engineering and Applied Science conference, Problems and Challenges in Integrated Systems for the Life Sciences. Alisa Sato '04, a pre-med biology concentrator, worked with Adams on her Independent Study in ceramics (related to her study of the pharyngeal jaws of the Damselfish and Saddlewrasse coral reef fish).
Ramona Petersóartist, archivist, curator, educator, and Wampanoag spiritual and cultural leaderówas a visiting artist in the spring. In her classes students learned the techniques and significance of Native American ceramics by making specialized tools and clay bodies from local materials, building coil vessel forms, examining designs and imagery, and attending a teaching exhibition curated by Peters at Harvardís Peabody Museum. In July and August, she taught a class that included traditional firing and cooking techniques, and a field trip to dig native clay.
In 2003-04 the symposium Cultural Roots and Contemporary Expressions of Japanese Ceramics was developed with grant support from the Blakemore Foundation and Harvard's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. Fifth in a series of symposia presented by the Ceramics Program, this symposium will be held November 5-8, 2004, and feature lectures, workshops, and collection tours that examine historic and contemporary Japanese ceramics. Participants will be presented with a set of contexts in which to consider the evolution, continuity, and reevaluation of aesthetic attitudes and material culture. Central to the symposium will be an inquiry into the impact of Modernism on Japanese ceramic traditions and the recurring waves of aesthetic influence that Japan has had on American educators, artists, and Craftsmen
The OFA Public Art Program, established in 1988, invites visiting artists and students to explore the meaning and possibilities for art in public spaces in and around Harvard. Students work with artists who are commissioned to produce new works at Harvard or present their work in public lectures. The purpose is to engage the broadest possible number of students, especially those not involved in the arts, in seeing their familiar environment in new ways. In 2003-04 the influence of artists Jody Pinto and Lee Mingwei was felt at Harvard in very different ways, temporary projects were developed for the next two years, and conversations took place for Harvard's long-term public art planning.
New York artist Jody Pinto visited Harvard this year through the Office for the Arts Public Art and Learning From Performers programs and in collaboration with the City of Cambridge. The Cityís Arts Council engaged Pinto for the Harvard Square Design Project, a modification of the Squareís pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular traffic patterns. Pinto, renowned for her creative integration of art into architecture and landscape architecture, is working with specialists in architecture, transportation planning, civil engineering, lighting design and urban design in the development of improvements. She has identified Palmer Street (which she sees as a ìhyphenî connecting two parts of Harvard Square) as a focal point for her contribution to the Squareís redesign. In April, Pinto led a group of eight Harvard students to Palmer Street to examine the site and discuss her design ideas and concepts, and presented a slide lecture on the project and her work to an audience of more than 100 at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum Lecture Hall.
Also this year, a project by Lee Mingwei that was developed at Harvard by the Office for the Arts during the 2002-03 academic year was shown at the 2004 Whitney Museum Biennial. Leeís work considers unknown, chance encounters among strangers and personal inquiry. In May 2003 his ìHarvard Seers Projectî was presented in Memorial Hall for ten days by a team of undergraduate, staff, and alumni/ae ìseers.î The project was presented again under the auspices of the Whitney Museum of American Art from February through May, 2004, at Altria in New York City.
Boston artist Jon Imber, a recipient of the 2004 Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston Universityís School of Visual Arts, emphasizes the development of studentsí personal expression in his weekly OFA Figure Drawing class at the Currier House Art Studio.
This co-curricular course, offered in the fall and spring, provides an opportunity for students who may not be able to enroll in courses offered by the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies to receive personalized instruction in a variety of drawing techniques.
Students work primarily from models and benefit from both individual and group critiques. The course is open to undergraduates and a limited number of graduate students; in 2003-04 there were 36 enrollments (28 undergraduates and 8 graduate students, with 20 students wait-listed)
