Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Invitational Exhibition:
Artists Who Work in Series
A Woman's Journey
Height from 14" – 42" X 12" X 11" (2004)
Architectural clay (gas-fired), oxide wash, pebble glaze & gouache, series of 10 vessels
Handmade book on display with A Women’s Journey Vessels (photos of Janice Purdum Sturdevant from 1922 to present
I dedicate this series to my mother, Janice Purdum Sturdevant, the mother of five children, and ten grandchildren.
One of the most profound ways that my mother shaped my life was through her own tactile connection with the world around her. She instilled in me a sense of tactile connectedness with clay, a love of things that are made by hand, and an openness to embrace people and be embraced in return.
I experience my mother as a primordial healer, a giver of life, love and reassurance — a woman who embraces those around her. She communicates so much through touch. As her child, I know how safe I felt in her arms. She taught me that human relationships are the most important things in life, to be cherished above all else.
So I created this series to thank my mother for her loving and tactile impact on my life as an artist, teacher, and mother.
Although my artwork has been usually tied to the figure, I felt no need for it in this series. What remains is the vessel, a universal symbol of the female. As I look at my family, friends, and even myself, I am fascinated by those characteristics, like a smile, a stance or movement that date from childhood and remains constant throughout our lives. They constitute our signature features that others know us by. As the series progresses, the vessels become deeper, more vibrant, and more graceful, like my mother. I invite you to touch them.
Excerpt from Review by Kurt Shaw, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, March, 2004:
Unlike some artists who are trapped in their own expertise, unable to abandon it or even experiment beyond it, Ceil Sturdevant is able to move in different directions in order to build upon the vernacular she has already created out of gas-fired architectural clay and unusual surface treatment. Typically, Sturdevant's works are tied to the figure in some way or other and feature rough, oftentimes pebbly, glazes accentuated with gouache over painting. Here in a series of 10 vessels, the importance of those surfaces are heightened even more. She has abandoned all notions of literal figurative interpretations and instead chosen vessel form as a metapor for femininity, particularly as it relates to her childhood memories of her mother, and more specifically as those memories related to touch. And to emphasize this she invites her audience to just that, which is a wonderful idea that brings Sturdevant's concepts full circle for anyone inclined to do so.
Excerpt from Pittsburgh Post Gazette by art critique Mary Thomas for “A Woman’s Journey:”
The figure is also the subject of Ceil Leeper Sturdevant’s exceptional “A Women's Journey” though it's highly abstracted. The artist shows gutsy confidence with a medium that offers special challenges to those who work large, and the 10 pieces here, while pursuing a particular motif, are also a gathering of like but varied forms that demonstrate the range of her technical wizardry. Inspired by her mother, the very tactile work conflate vessel, an ancient symbol for women, and sculpture, with the implied figure as a looming emotive presence. Sturdevant taps archetypal references, such as the spiral, to promote elemental if subconscious response from the viewer toward these highly successful works.