About the artist:

Inspired in part by her studies of the art of the Pomo Indians, California-based artist, Sylvia Seventy, began her exploration of innovative techniques in papermaking in the 70s. “When I started making my vessels, it soon became evident to me that the universal shape of what appeared to be an ancient pottery bowl was an approachable path for the viewer. With or without an art background, my bowls allowed people to let their guard down and be drawn into the complexity of the art vessel, its intricate interior and conceptual allusion.” Her vessels are created over molds, earthy bowl shapes, with embedded bamboo, cotton cord and sisal. From a distance, they look like ceramic or stoneware. On closer inspection, their fragility is evident. Her vessels feature an accretion of items: compositions of beads, feathers, fishhooks, googly eyes, hand prints, and buttons. The walls of Seventy’s vessels contain a record number of processes, that not only mark change, but tracings of time.

B. 1947 Alhambra, California Selected permanent collections: American Craft Museum, New York, New York; Erie Art Museum, Pennsylvania; Renwick Gallery, National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, Wisconsin; Oakland Museum, California; Arkansas Decorative Arts Center, Little Rock; Redding Art Museum, California; Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Champion International Paper, Stamford, California; Union Oil, Geothermal Division, Santa Rosa, California.