Rebecca Harvey • Ohio (b: 1961)
Brick C: 2005 • Porcelain 6" x 9" x 3"
The brightly colored world of Andrew Lang Fairy Tale books fascinated a young girl living through family drama. When Rebecca Harvey traded life in Columbus, Ohio for Philadelphia, she remembers reading every one of those tales filled with often overlooked objects given magical powers. But, it was the natural world that held her attention. She made ink out of berries and, apparently, felt more at home outside than in. New experiences seemed to agree with her.
When it came time to choose a career path, her father, who considered art a hobby, pointed her toward the law or medicine. It was made clear that if she wanted to study art, it would be on her dime. So, she enrolled at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She might have been a little headstrong.
Ceramics became her tool to explore the world, and she never outgrew the curiosity of youth. It stayed with her from Philadelphia to graduate school in Michigan, and followed her back to Columbus where she became Chair of the Art Department at The Ohio State University.
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Curiosity drove her around the world to residencies in Germany, Sweden, China, Iceland and Italy. She developed a fondness for the decorative arts because they made history understandable even when language was a barrier. She catalogued wallpaper designs in Sweden and found herself walking the paths of an 18th century botanist, wondering what life was like back then.
Functional ceramics brought history alive for her, connecting her to people who lived centuries before our time. Most of all, she found herself drawn to art that make people think and demands audience participation. An illustration that could be a duck or a rabbit. A teapot that resembles a hot brick iron, or not.
“When art is good it takes you out of where you were.” When we caught up with Rebecca, she was outside Rome, filled with excitement from a morning walk through Tivoli Gardens, the 16th century marvel of plants, water and scenic order. She was in her element, surrounded by remnants of civilization centuries older than America, and looking forward to using dirt and clay from an ancient place to make art connected to today. She wondered if the bright colors in much of her work were connected to something in her youth. What could it be?
Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection
Purchased in Memory of Herta Rainey by her family and Canton Museum of Art Potter’s Guild, 2007.12
4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art
1.
“She loves to make ‘objects almost realized.’ Art that requires viewer participation so they can’t ignore it.”
2.
“She loved the common objects with magical powers often found in Fairy Tales because of their ability to shape the world. Art has the same ability.”
3.
“She’s intrigued by decorative arts because they make it possible to connect to another time and civilization without knowing the language.”
4.
“The clay belt that runs through Ohio has made the state a real hot bed of ceramic arts. OSU started the first Ceramics Engineering program in 1927.
Harvey Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.
