Ceramic Works with Spirit
Sy Schwartz has been a student, teacher and maker of ceramic art for more than twenty years. His love of ceramics was sparked during a wheel throwing class at the UC Davis Craft Center in 1988. After several years of self-study and focused practice, he began studying with prominent artists at the Mendocino Art Center, and at Solano Community College with Marc Lancet, a well-known ceramic sculptor and wood-firing expert.
For most of the past two decades, Sy's work has focused on functional pottery and sculptural forms based on vessels. Both the functional pieces and sculpture emphasize texture, gesture, asymmetry, and whimsy.
In the past couple of years, Sy has begun producing figurative sculpture, also sparked by working with Marc Lancet. His figures have been featured in a solo show at the Studio Artists Gallery in Woodland in March 2009, and at the Pence Gallery's exhibit of the juried City of Davis Small Works show (June to August 2009).
Sy's pottery embodies his love of the process of making pots and desire to capture gesture and movement in the ceramic form. Many of the larger pieces are fired by the raku process, which produces bright copper colors where glazed and dense blacks where unglazed. In the last three years, Sy has made numerous teapots, which poses design challenges and enables him to experiment with the form as a vehicle for expressing gesture, motion, serenity, and asymmetry. He sometimes adds feet or otherwise alters the pot to create a sense of motion or a gestural quality that he wants to achieve. Despite their artful designs, these pots are made to function well and to be used daily.
Sy currently teaches a course in wheel-throwing techniques at the UC Davis Craft Center and assists in the ceramics program at Solano College. Teaching ceramics builds on Sy's many years of academic teaching at UC Davis, and provides the joy and satisfaction that comes from helping students experience the transformation of a lump of formless mud into functional and beautiful ceramic ware that they will be able to use for many years.