Throw Down With David MacDonald

Groove time: David MacDonald, in his Syracuse University art studio, holds one of the tools of the ceramics trade, used to trace designs into the soft clay. Interestingly, MacDonald does not sketch his work beforehand, but lets the pattern flow from his thoughts while he’s working on the clay. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTOS

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But a haircut isn’t the biggest change in MacDonald’s life. This spring marked his last semester as a ceramics professor at Syracuse University after an unbroken stretch of 27 years; he has since been granted emeritus professor status. Over that time he has become known for his distinctive pots, especially his plates, many of which are large enough to serve as shields. He carves a rich variety of patterns into the works: zigzags, diamonds, swirls, waves, dots and cross-hatches. Spare use of glazes, most often earth tones, accentuates these patterns. His signature marks resemble the concentric rings of a tree trunk or furrows in a field (or a brow).

MacDonald, who holds a bachelor’s degree in art education from Virginia’s Hampton Institute and a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the University of Michigan, draws the intricate designs freehand by dragging a small wooden implement directly through wet clay. That way if he doesn’t like the result, it’s easy enough to start again.

Originally from Hackensack, N.J., MacDonald, 63, looks all over the globe for inspiration. By examining and appreciating the art of different cultures, many of which live on the brink of extinction like the Eskimos and the Kung of the Kalahari Desert, he hopes to learn deep truths about what it means to be human. His wife and her passion for quilting inspired his most recent work. MacDonald explains in his artist’s statement that his experience of art is as much about communication as it is self-discovery. He generously shares all he learns, both through his teaching and directly through his work. 

As a sort of valedictory to his retirement, the Everson Museum of Art will be honoring MacDonald “for his artistic vision and support of the arts” at their annual fund-raising picnic at the museum’s Community Plaza, 401 Harrison St., on Thursday, June 19, 6 p.m. Music and food will be available. Tickets to the fund-raiser begin at $200 per plate, but $160 is tax deductible for those keeping track of such things. For more information, call 474-6064 or visit www.everson.org.

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Q: What in your early life inspired you to be an artist?

A: My older brother used to draw a lot. I admired the attention he was getting and as a result started drawing myself. My parents would go shopping on Friday evening and with a family of nine children they brought home a lot of bags. A single paper bag would keep me busy for a couple hours.

When I was in junior high school I used to hang out at Union Street Park. The Parks and Recreation Department of Hackensack hired this painter we called Mr. Shimpsky. He went from park to park holding drawing and painting lessons. He drove an old wagon, rusted with the tail dragging because it was so loaded down with art materials. Most of the kids that I grew up with weren’t very interested in art. I would hang around consistently to take advantage of his instruction. I started visiting him at his workshop and various galleries. He introduced me to the world of art. My family were workaday people. They didn’t know anything about art: collecting, viewing art or going to a museum. Mr. Shimpsky opened that world up to me.

The only thing that I was excited about going to school for was art. During my sophomore year at Hampton I chose painting as my major, I spent one semester as a painter. But my adviser said to get a job after you graduate with a B.A. maybe you should go into art education instead. In the education curriculum there were certain courses I had to take and one of those was ceramics. I had no idea what ceramics was and the night before the first class I looked it up in my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. The definition was vague and so I had no idea what I was going to be studying.

But I found there was something about ceramics that I enjoyed. It was much more physical than painting. You had to mix the clay, you had to wedge the clay and throw it on the potter’s wheel. I had pretty good hand-eye coordination so learning to throw on the wheel wasn’t as difficult as it was for some. As an athlete {MacDonald was captain of the track and cross-country teams at his high school and received a track scholarship to Hampton Institute} I was very in tune with my body and I understood the importance of repetition and practice. I thought it was neat to watch the instructor. To see a pot miraculously appear from a lump of clay was like magic. You take this lump of dirt that has no intrinsic value and transform it with water and fire into something beautiful and permanent.

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I think the thing that really sold me on pottery making was the fact that I could make things people could use. We had just finished an assignment and my professor at the time, Joseph Gilliard, was unloading the kiln. I thought I’d walk through and take a look at how the firing went. A cup that I had made was on the table. He said, “You can use that cup in your dorm to drink coffee.” I picked up the mug and cut my next class, made a cup of instant coffee and drank it. That was when I decided that I wanted to spend as much time as I could, even my life, making things that were useful.

Q: I was going to ask what attracts you to clay as a medium but I think you just covered that. Much of your work in clay is abstract and richly patterned. Could you discuss some specific ways your heritage informs your style?

A: I started at Hampton, a predominantly African-American institution, in 1963, at the height of the civil rights movement. Everyone there was trying to manifest these concerns and issues in whatever program they were in. Once I learned some basic skills, my work took on a sociopolitical message or purpose that continued through graduate school. 

After the first couple of years here at Syracuse I had an epiphany. An elderly white woman approached me during a reception for one of my one-person shows at the Community Folk Art Center and asked me if “anger and frustration was the only thing that African-Americans feel.” I don’t recall my answer, but it started me thinking about what my work was about. It was about being a victim.

Q: Can you describe what your work at the time was like?

A: It was lurid bright colors, images of anger and frustration: bullets, racks, screaming black men, black fists, all of the standard images of that time. I learned a technique for transferring photographic images onto ceramic surfaces and I used images from magazines and newspapers—police brutality and things like that. But I wanted to make the work very attractive. Lots of bright colors, shiny glazes, gold and silver lusters. Only after a few seconds would you realize what it was about. I wanted my work to be able to transcend the issue of the day. A hundred years from now, if someone didn’t know what the civil rights movement was, they would still be able to feel the energy and the power in it. The message should never be more important than the art.

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When that woman asked me, “Is there anything positive that an African-American artist can express besides anger and frustration?” I had a “duh” moment. I am the heir to an artistic tradition which goes back thousands of years: the art of the African continent. I began investigating that and my work started to change from social protest to a celebration of my African heritage. Over the years I developed a decoration system that reflected a lot of patterning and surface textures that I saw on African vessels. Most of the patterns I first used were direct translations of African patterns. I still draw on that source. After 10 or so years of looking primarily at African art I started becoming curious about other cultures that had a tradition of geometric design on their work. I started looking at textile design, body decoration, architectural details, especially Islamic tile designs which rely heavily on geometry. The work I’m doing now is an amalgam of all these sources, but I tend to feel that you can still see the underlying African influence.

Q: You are a founding member of the Community Folk Art Center, which now resides at 805 E. Genesee St. What can you tell me about the center: your role in it and its role in the community?

A: The Community Folk Art Gallery was created in 1972, I believe, by Herbert Williams, who was hired for the new African-American Studies program at SU. Professor Williams was hired to teach courses in African art but also to start a gallery that would display African-American art. Being a founding member meant nailing up Sheetrock, painting walls and sanding floors. I was just one of the people who believed in it enough to be willing to spend a number of weekends transforming a former bakery into a gallery. It worked out very well.

Sometimes what makes someone important is not what they do when they’re alive as much as what they leave behind. Herb Williams was able to accomplish a lot because he inspired people. He was so passionate about his dream of having an art center that would be responsive and nurturing to minority artists that unfortunately wouldn’t get as much attention or help from mainstream art communities.

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It originally started out as a place to exhibit art but it transformed to a place where classes were offered as well. We just moved to a new space the year before last and the board is already talking about expanding. If you look at our weekly schedule, there’s no room to schedule anything else. Every room, every nook and cranny, is either filled or scheduled. Artists are like gases: We expand to fill the volume. If you think back to September 1972 a bunch of people hanging Sheetrock—we’ve come a long way but we still have a long way to go.

Q: Aside from Joseph Gilliard, are there other artists who influenced you?

A: Robert Stahl was one of my ceramics professors at the University of Michigan. He passed away a number of years ago. In the 1960s and early 1970s you could probably count on one hand the number of African-Americans that were teaching ceramics at the college level. Mr. Gilliard was one and Robert Stahl was the other. Bob Stahl was a very important influence to me. Mr. Gilliard taught me the skills and the technical part of ceramics. Bob Stahl showed me how to use those techniques to express myself.

Q: You’ve served on the Everson’s Acquisitions and Exhibitions Committee. What can you tell me about that process?

A: Sandra Trop asked me a couple years ago if I wanted to serve on a committee at the Everson. I told her I was already pretty booked up. I was on a board at Kenyon School of Crafts in North Carolina, I was president of the Community Folk Art Center board, I was on a committee at the library here on campus—I was just committed out. But she was very persistent. She said, “I’ve got just the committee for you: It only meets once a month, very short meetings, within an hour we’re finished.” It wound up being a very interesting committee. It’s one of the things I look forward to. It’s involved in reviewing acquisitions and deaccessions {sales of artworks from a museum’s collection, especially in order to purchase other works} and also reviews and approves future exhibitions; dealing with the blood and guts of the museum without having to worry about budget. Let some other committee worry about that.

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The Everson has been an institution that I’ve kind of avoided because of its history in terms of minorities. It hasn’t been a place historically where certain people from certain communities would feel comfortable going into. I don’t know if that’s just the nature of what it is, this imposing structure with uniformed guards at the door. It’s down there in that governmental complex, it feels like a government building. These are not places you go to unless you have to. It’s somewhat foreboding. I don’t know if it’s that or if it’s just a lack of initiative by staff at the Everson to do outreach. I think that has changed and I hope the new director continues it. Whether or not the perception is accurate, it’s the obligation of an institution, especially one paid by tax dollars, to do outreach in the neighborhood it’s in. 

“You can still see the underlying African influence”: Three examples of the types of ceramics David MacDonald produces are titled “Large Stoneware Platter” (from top) No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, all created in 2007. JOHN DOWLING PHOTOS

Q: You started teaching at SU in 1971. Can you describe this role and what it has meant to you in your life?

A: Originally I went into teaching to earn a living. But teaching became a way of life. I have been very blessed in terms of having this opportunity. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing retiring, especially when I look at the list of people who applied for this job, some of whom are very well known in ceramics.

My job at Syracuse has been more than a job. It has given me access to resources I wouldn’t normally have, both physical and intellectual. It has given me the opportunity to grow in ways I probably wouldn’t have if I were at home working independently. Faculty aren’t always paid what they’re worth but the prestige and the respect you get as a professor at a major academic institution goes a long way.

“Large Stoneware Storage Jar,” 2006.

What I will miss most about SU  is having an opportunity to work with a lot of young people who are very talented and very dedicated. Being able to teach a class of intro ceramics in which they learn for the first time how to throw. You’re part of that experience, sort of like being present when your child takes his or her first steps. At the beginning of the semester you see fear in their eyes and frustration and they’re saying, “What am I doing here?” I’ve always enjoyed teaching the beginning level because the problems are fairly simple and straightforward.

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I keep telling them that you’ll see me haunting the halls. I’ll have to give up my office but I’ll camp out in my car. Being awarded emeritus professor status allows me continued access to the facilities and resources and I’ll just see if I can figure out another way to be of use to the university. I’ll probably pour a lot of the energy that I’ve spent here in ceramics down at the Community Folk Art Center.

Q: Are you looking forward to the picnic?

A: No. No, I’m not. I’m not one for parties. I think one of the reasons why I ran the mile and the 2-mile and one of the reasons why I got interested in ceramics is because you spend a lot of time alone. Being an artist you spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts. Even when I was growing up I was a fairly private person. But I will do it because I appreciate the respect and recognition that it indicates for what I’ve done. I think there are many people in Syracuse that are more worthy than I am but I couldn’t talk them out of it. I’ll be there, talking with people, but what I enjoy the most and what I look forward to is coming back home to the studio and getting to work. 

Q: My editor, Molly English-Bowers, used to live in your neighborhood. She wanted me to ask you about giving quarters to kids on Halloween. What’s that all about?

A: It was actually my wife’s idea. And the motivation was in some ways self-serving. We would buy all this candy and wind up eating it all before the kids came and got it. Because we’d only buy candy we’d like. We thought that maybe to prevent that we should give them something other than candy. We raised three children so we know how much candy they bring back and how it’s a constant struggle to keep them from eating it all the following week; how unhealthy candy is in that large a volume. And what they’ll probably do is take the quarter and buy a candy bar. We still do it.

Potter’s yield: David MacDonald checks on some of the ceramic bowls he recently created. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO