Dorothy Pulsifer
Ceramic Retrospective
Boyden Hall
February - April 2022
Although I have worked as an artist in many mediums, clay has been the material that I have worked with throughout my career. I took my first ceramics courses in grad school at U Mass Amherst and throughout my career as an educator have taught ceramics and art courses beginning at the Junior High in Amherst and then eventually, of course, at Bridgewater.
I started teaching at Bridgewater in 1973 when the clay studio was on the ground floor of Boyden Hall. Then in 1976 we moved to the Art Center on School St. where we had much larger studios in a beautiful historic building. I had the opportunity to also teach in other areas to include: Art Education, 2D design, Art for Special Ed, Intro to Art and eventually I introduced a Glass studio class.
Throughout my career as an artist ceramics remained a constant and eventually I had a home where there was plenty of room in the basement for a studio. Having my own studio and kilns enabled me to produce more work and to create glass panels that require more space. Although glass is not represented in this exhibition there are several examples on campus. One glass panel of the “Bridgewater Bear” is on the 2nd floor of the library and a much larger “Bear” is in the Thornburg Fitness Center.
The work in these cases is primarily functional stoneware although I did also enjoy making small sculptural pieces and larger work such as birdbaths and furniture in combination with wood. Ideas for my work came from many sources to include museums, galleries and travel. As an educator I had the opportunity to travel extensively in Europe, to Japan and to several South American countries always returning home with sketches, notes and many photos as sources for future work and to include in presentations in the classes I was teaching.
Throughout my career I have shown my work in many galleries and museums –to include the Fuller Craft center and the Blue Herron Gallery in Wellfleet. Now I have work in the True Grit Gallery in Middleborough center. If you have not had the opportunity to visit this gallery I highly recommend it, not because my work is there, but because it is a local high quality gallery in a beautiful building.
One concluding thought as I was writing this brief statement: Teaching at Bridgewater and working as an artist has for me been a privilege. There has never been a day when I wished I had chosen another career.