Carolina Arts Unleashed

In what is beginning to look like a continuing series – the “Pottery Exhibits Not in Seagrove, NC, Series”, we have an exhibit in Charleston, SC, called Mentor: Honoring the Historical Relationship Between Master and Apprentice, featuring the works of nine mentors and their students. Unfortunately, this exhibit is only up through June 7, 2009. I should have gotten to this show long before I did, but the good thing is – Cone 10 Studios features the works of the nine artists, who are playing the role of student for this exhibit, on a regular basis. When you do a monthly paper, there is not much time in-between one issue and the next.

I read in some material at the gallery that, “Mentor first appears in Greek mythology as the guardian of Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, during the Trojan War. Athena, Odysseus’ wife, later disguises herself as Mentor to advise and guide Telemachus on how to proceed in life. Thus, began the pairing of an experienced counselor and trusted friend with an unseasoned novice.”

The nine combinations of mentor/student are: Joan Byrd/Susan Gregory; Susan Filley/Pana Wilder; McKenzie Smith/Caroline Cercone; Nina Liu/Arthur McDonald; Robert Westervelt/Betsey Carter; Michael Welliver/Anne John; Juanita May/Chip Burr; Setsuya Kotani/Fiorenzo Berardozzi; and the super mentor/student team – Sid Luck/Jason Luck – father/son.

And, guess what? Sid Luck is from Seagrove, NC. I can’t make this stuff up folks.

The exhibit was co-curated by Fiorenzo Berardozzi and Caroline Cercone.

Caroline Cercone

“The Master/Apprentice or the Mentor/Student relationship has spanned thousands of years, and is a cross-cultural affair,” said Fiorenzo Berardozzi. “These relationships have created a global exchange of philosophical ideas for the world of ceramics, and they are constantly evolving.”

“We wanted to recognize the significance of the mentor in both the continuity of Art History, and the artist’s personal history,” said Caroline Cercone. “Artists emerge and evolve out of cultural and individual circumstances. The link between the history of the larger art community and the individual artist is often the mentor.”

Arthur McDonald

The exhibit features 60 works by the nine mentor/student teams and the works run from traditional pottery objects like tea pots to contemporary wall sculptures made of mixed media. In some cases you might ask yourself if the student ever looked at what the mentor was doing, but imitation is not always the way this relationship develops. While with others you can see the relationship in style and technique. You might find yourself asking – how does a painter mentor a potter? You may even find a new meaning for the word mentor.

If you get a chance to see this show before it is over – that’s great, but if the timing is not on your side, you should visit the gallery and see the works of the nine student/artists, who may already be or will soon be mentors themselves – as the cycle continues.

P.S. When this gallery first opened with the name Cone 10 Studios, for the life of me I had to wonder from where that name came. Did it mean there were 10 artists working in some kind of collective – like bees working in a honeycomb or something, but now that I’ve been following several pottery blogs I’ve learned the the word Cone followed by a number means a certain degree of heat reached in firing pottery in a kiln. I’m still not sure if the number 10 is super hot, but the gallery’s name now makes more sense to me and perhaps to others who may have also wondered.

These blogs – they can be very educational if you keep up with them.

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