Creating Movement and Flow - A Conversation of Form and Utility
Fall Exhibition featuring Errol Willett and Edward Feldman
This exhibition is an immersive experience that permits viewers to engage with the physical experiences one can encounter in the various stages of the ceramic process. “TO TOUCH” or “NOT TO TOUCH” is a reality that this body of works implore the viewer to contemplate. A collision of Utilitarian from, aesthetic beauty and functionality. While some of the works challenge the function of specific vessels, determining the physical handling of the form, it is generally the subjective choice of the audience that determines whether something becomes an object of viewing pleasure over the functionality of the object. Patrons of the exhibition will traverse through the stages of the maker's process in ceramics and follow each featured artist from the start of the creative process through to exhibition finish. Identified objects are showcased in the exhibition for tactile experience and viewers are encouraged to touch. Dowd gallery will also be featuring a makerspace and lounge area where viewers can get their hands dirty in the creative process or experience a tactile moment with original utilitarian artworks.
Contemplating the utilitarian nature of an object in ceramics is an ongoing challenge in contemporary and historical arts. We see patterns, designs, vibrant colors, textural surfaces, symbols, and text, and become mesmerized by subjective aesthetics that erase functions. Vessels become holders of atmosphere, objectification, and diminish the natural physical experience the material besceeches from creators and patrons in the field of ceramics. In a visual exploration from original material to finely crafted artwork, this exhibition gives a voice to the entire creative process with broad explorations form, color, and technical diversity.
ERROL WILLETT
Errol Willett is a member of the Faculty at Syracuse University’s School of Art and has lived in Fabius, NY since 1999. He served as Chair of Syracuse University’s Department of Art from 2009-2012. He has an MFA from Penn State University and undergraduate studies in art at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Skidmore College and the University of Regensburg, Germany. He was a resident artist at the Anderson Ranch Art Center, Aspen, Colorado; the Peters Valley Craft Center in New Jersey; and the Banff Centre in Canada. Recent projects include ASPN at the Red Lodge Clay Center; the permanent installation, “Overlooked Information. The Carbon Espalier,” at the iSchool, Hinds Hall, Syracuse University; the exhibition “Affinity,” at the Incheon World Ceramic Centre, Incheon, Korea; and the installation “Staying on Good Terms with Nature,” Everson Biennial, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY.
"The ceramic basket series started for me more than a decade ago. The initial inspiration was a Chinese grain basket. What I liked about the baskets is how the interior and exterior space are connected at the handle, and how their structure is also their ornament. After copying a number of historic baskets that helped me learn the form, and studying the basket collection at the Metropolitan Museum in NY, some new ideas evolved. The four-handle basket is called the Spider and is partially inspired by the granite millstones of the last century, once critical to the ceramic industry, now massive monuments to that generation’s sweat and ingenuity. The three handled one was inspired by several soup ladles leaning against one another in a corner of my studio. A combination of containment and service. It said something to me about delivery and content, handle and bowl. The shopping bag series of basket forms is a meditation on modern consumption. The small brown abstract sculpture connects to my interests in architecture and the idea that what allows something to stand can also be what’s interesting about it. The carved porcelain cups are the longest continuous thread in my work, dating back to my student work in the 1980’s. I love the intimacy of the cup, it’s tactile nature, the conversation among potters surrounding this form and its daily role in life." - Errol Willett, 2025
Edward Feldman
Ed Feldman is a ceramic artist living in Cortlandville, New York, where he owns and operates the teaching studio, Claybed Ceramics. He is a SUNY Cortland alumnus, thanks to the EOP program, receiving his BA with a concentration in Ceramics and Sculpture under the tutelage of John Jessiman and Allen Mooney. In 2009, Ed continued his studies- focusing on soda firing- earning his MFA from Syracuse University, where he studied with David MacDonald and Errol Willett. In addition to exhibiting internationally, he has built and developed multiple community clay studios, as well as built multiple gas, soda, and wood kilns. In 2016, he was invited to build the first soda kiln in Sichuan province at The Venice Merchants Tile Factory in Luodai, China.
"As an artist, Ed Feldman has an enduring commitment to cultivating ceramic arts education within the community.
As a potter, I’ve always been drawn to those moments when people come together—whether it’s family, friends, or even strangers—to share food, drink, and time. There’s something ceremonial in those gatherings, a reminder of how long we’ve relied on ritual and connection as a way of being human. My goal is to create vessels that become part of those moments, objects that don’t just serve a function but invite people to slow down, gather, and reflect.
Nature has always been at the heart of my work. I return often to the plants and fungi I knew growing up in the woods and pastures—the luminous interior of a water lily wrapped in its weathered petals, or the hollow volume of a morel mushroom defined entirely by its skin. I love how these forms balance opposites: hard and soft, smooth and rough, inside and outside. It’s those subtle tensions that keep me curious and keep me making.
This newest body of work continues to explore the vessel and its ceremonial role, but in a way that feels less bound by tradition. For a long time, I held tightly to a set of “proper” ceramic processes, but eventually I realized that approach had started to limit me. Letting go of that rigidity and using techniques from outside the functional ceramics world has been refreshing—it’s given me a sense of renewal, and it’s opened the door to new ways of thinking about what a vessel can be."- Ed Feldman 2025
Dowd Gallery is open weekly Monday - Friday, 10 am - 5:30 pm and free and open to the public.
* MAKER SPACE OPEN * 12:30 - 5:30 M-F *
Come in and try your skills at throwing on the wheel or hand-building!
Opening Reception Sept 3, 2025 5 PM Dowd Gallery
"Parts is Parts" Workshop with artist Edward Feldman,
September 11, 2025. Ceramics Classroom, Old Main Bldg.
Hand-on experience
"Creating Motion and Flow" Workshop with Errol Willett
September 25, 6:00 pm. Starting in Main Gallery of Dowd and moves to Ceramics
Hands-on experience
"Parts is Parts" II
October 2, 2025, Cermics classroom, Old Main Bldg.
(workshop may use materials from part 1)
UPCOMING:
Lee Hoag (date to be released soon)
BFA Theseis Exhibition and Graduate Spotlights. (end of semester)
