with Syd Carpenter and Bill Valerio

March 21, 2026

Celebrate our 50th anniversary year by joining us to talk with our Founders & Foundations about their experiences at The Clay Studio over the years.

Learn more about the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST) and its impact on artists’ creative practice. Join artists Syd Carpenter, Karina Puente, and Douglas Witmer, as well as Michael Mergen, POST coordinator, to hear how POST offers a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of a visual artist.

Syd Carpenter is a sculptor working in clay and mixed media. She focuses on African American farms and gardens as a source of form and content attributing this interest to her mother, Ernestine and grandmother, Indiana Hutson, both of whom were master gardeners. After leaving graduate school she and husband Steve Donegan founded the 915 Spring Garden Studio Building, a facility for over 100 artists. There she began producing ceramic sculptures now included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, Montreal Museum of Art, Swedish National Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Tang Museum of Skidmore College, RISD Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum , James Michener Museum and the Woodmere Art Museum.

Her awards include the United States Artists Fellowship, Anonymous Was a Woman, Pew Fellowship in the Arts, National Endowment in the Arts.

Philadelphia-based artist Syd Carpenter and the Michener’s Curator of American Art, Laura Turner Igoe, Ph.D., present an exclusive preview of the upcoming exhibition "Syd Carpenter: Portraits of Our Places." This online conversation delves into Carpenter’s work and explores its connection to generational African American owned farms in the South.

A virtual tour through the Rowan University Art Gallery exhibition, Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardners, featuring new work by artist Syd Carpenter, on display through March 26, 2022.

Ceramic artist Syd Carpenter on her "Places Of Our Own" series, inspired by the African American farmers who stayed on their land. Preview from the HOME episode. HOME visits craft artists whose environments are filled with meaning and metaphor. Featuring Biskakone Greg Johnson, North House Folk School, Syd Carpenter, Wharton Esherick, Sim Van der Ryn, and Helen Drutt English.

Syd Carpenter talks about her current works and how she began her life in the arts at an early age. From major themes in her work to techniques and methods of production, this conversation covers a lot of ground.

Syd Carpenter's work is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Atlantic Richfield Corporation, Nabisco Brands, the University of Illinois, Art in General, New York, Philadelphia Convention Center, Bell Atlantic Corporation, Canton Ohio Museum of Art, Erie Museum of Art, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen China,and in numerous private collections.

Ceramic artist Syd Carpenter on how she works with her students at Swarthmore College. Bonus video from the HOME episode. HOME visits craft artists whose environments are filled with meaning and metaphor.

Featuring Biskakone Greg Johnson, North House Folk School, Syd Carpenter, Wharton Esherick, Sim Van der Ryn, and Helen Drutt English.

Syd Carpenter's opening reception talk for Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardeners, an exhibition showcasing her latest clay sculptures, at the Rowan University Art Gallery from January 24 – March 26, 2022. The video includes images of the artworks. Carpenter’s new series, Farm Bowls, identifies and honors African American farmers and gardeners by integrating the universal form of a stoneware bowl with architectural and organic forms observed on farms.

Syd Carpenter is a sculptor currently focused on African American farming and gardening.

From September 8, 2012 through December 30 2012, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown has an exhibition featuring 10 artists. It is called "Creative Hand, Discerning Heart: Story, Symbol, Self" and this film profiles the sculptor Syd Carpenter.

Syd Carpenter creates ceramic sculptures that relate to African American farms and gardens of the American South. This long time Swarthmore art professor is one of the Philadelphia region's most talented and imaginative artists. She has pushed the medium of ceramics into new realms of creativity.

Learn more about the work of sculptor and ceramicist Syd Carpenter with Michener Art Museum docent, Kathi. Video is appropriate for students in grades 8-12. Carpenter's work is currently on view in the exhibition, "Syd Carpenter: Portraits of Our Places" through February 28, 2021.

For more information and educational resources related to this video, visit LearnMichener.org.

Exhibiting artist Syd Carpenter participates in an intimate discussion about her life, work, and practice. See "Syd Carpenter: Portraits of Our Places" on view through February 28, 2021.

The programming schedule for the 2021 Virtual Conference is structured around daily themes and keynote speakers to inspire, reflect, and create equity action in ceramic art and education. Wednesday's theme will be Advocacy & Activism; Thursday's, Global Community; Friday's, Education; and Saturday's, Responsive Practice. Each day's keynote speaker will offer vital perspectives on the current issues in contemporary societal culture. The conference will also feature over 50 art exhibitions and present the 2021 NCECA Annual Social Recession, 2021 NCECA Juried Student Exhibition, and 2021 NCECA Multicultural Fellowship Exhibition. Join us in embracing change, challenges, and community.

Ceramic artist Syd Carpenter on her process. Preview from the HOME episode. HOME visits craft artists whose environments are filled with meaning and metaphor. Featuring Biskakone Greg Johnson, North House Folk School, Syd Carpenter, Wharton Esherick, Sim Van der Ryn, and Helen Drutt English.

Craft in America

Ceramic artist Syd Carpenter on her Mother Pins series. Bonus video from the HOME episode. HOME visits craft artists whose environments are filled with meaning and metaphor. Featuring Biskakone Greg Johnson, North House Folk School, Syd Carpenter, Wharton Esherick, Sim Van der Ryn, and Helen Drutt English.

Craft in America

Swarthmore College Professor Syd Carpenter is an award winning ceramic sculptor whose recent show at the Sande Webster Gallery in Philadelphia was inspired by her years of gardening and research into the history of African American agriculture.

Woodmere Art Museum has collaborated with Montreal’s The Stewart Program for Modern Design on a new video entitled Syd Carpenter: Places of Our Own. The video, which features an interview of Philadelphia-based artist Syd Carpenter in her studio, includes footage of her garden, which is a source of her creative inspiration. It also shows Carpenter’s site-specific landscape sculpture at Woodmere Art Museum, La Cresta (2021), created in partnership with her husband, artist Steve Donegan.

Carpenter’s work reflects her strong personal connection to gardens and farms. In the video, she discusses her recent series of farm-themed ceramic bowls, which convey the history of African American stewardship of the land. The series is the result of Carpenter’s extensive research - visiting farmsteads in the South owned by African American farmers and learning about the multi-generational history of each farm. Her meticulously detailed ceramic bowls feature farm crops, eggs, and vernacular forms such as sheds, tools, and fences, often on surfaces representing plowed farmland. Each bowl is named for an African American farmer, honoring them as individuals who would otherwise be forgotten by history.

Clay Art Center

Join Syd Carpenter as she presents her ceramic sculptural works, and discusses the influences of African American farming and gardening on her pieces.

Meet ceramic artist Syd Carpenter featured in the HOME episode.

HOME visits craft artists whose environments are filled with meaning and metaphor. Featuring Biskakone Greg Johnson, North House Folk School, Syd Carpenter, Wharton Esherick, Sim Van der Ryn, and Helen Drutt English. PBS broadcast premiere December 16, 2022.