Tetkowski - "Glacial Talon" Abstract earthenware v-shaped rough exterior sculpture

Neil Tetkowski • American (b: 1955)

Glacial Talon C: 1996 • Earthenware 47" x 25" x 8"

The son of “adventurous art academics” grew up differently than other suburban kids. By the age of 10, Neil Tetkowski had visited museums and medieval cities throughout Europe holding his parents hands as they established the study-abroad program for the State University of New York. While his friends on Grand Island, near Buffalo, played Little League, Neil darted among the terra cotta buildings of Siena, Italy, playing with an entirely different set of friends. The two worlds were distinct and covered in different shades of summer dust. “The burnt sienna colors of the Tuscan landscape were deeply impressed in my mind,” remembers Neil. Back home on Grand Island, the dirt was darker, the landscape greener. A boy who saw so many different cultures while growing up, saw fewer boundaries as he grew into a mature ceramic sculptor.

In 2001, Neil sat in his Manhattan apartment. He had left a comfortable life on Grand Island to surround himself with people who viewed his odd cultural experiences as normal. His mind was active and he had grown fond of big ideas. To him, clay was a metaphor for the earth and he thought about mixing clays from two warring nations to create “something with resonance.”

Quickly the idea elevated to mixing clays from all the countries in the world to make a grand, symbolic statement. And, at that point, the importance of a good wife became obvious. “That’s a great idea. Why don’t you take it to the U.N.?” she offered.

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Five years later, his magnificent sculpture, Common Ground, went on display at the U.N. Tetkowski had formed the Common Ground Project. Then he poked and prodded the bureaucratic veil surrounding the U.N. to find people with the willingness and influence to make his dream reality.

Once he earned the U.N. endorsement and a grant from the Ford Foundation, he organized a global team to gather clays from every nation. Mixing the clays together, he created a terra cotta disc placed delicately atop a polished stainless steel globe. It was as though the earth had been sliced open, exposing the common ground beneath all the cultures of the world.

The young boy whose hands played in the red clay of Italy met the child who played with the dark black earth of upstate New York, and found they, indeed, had common ground.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Gift of Bill & Liz Hunt, 2009.4

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“By the age of 10 he had visited museums and cities throughout Europe, so became more interested in art than Little League. A tough choice in upstate New York.”

2.
“He views clay as a metaphor for the Earth, and uses it to make statements about the unity of humans everywhere. Dust to dust, as they say.”

3.
“Is it any surprise that a man with such a culturally diverse background ended up creating a breathtaking sculpture displayed at the U.N., celebrating the commonalities of all mankind?”

4.
“His sculpture ‘Common Ground’ was created from clays gathered from all the nations of the world. And, no, you can’t buy those kind of materials at Wal-Mart.”

Tetkowski Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1955

Born in Grand Island, New York. His father taught design at the State University of New York. His mother was a high school art teacher. Both parents loved to travel.

1960

His parents started a study abroad program for the State University of New York. As a result, the family moved to Siena, Italy, where young Neil began elementary school. The surrounding countryside of Tuscany, with its burnt sienna colors and terra cotta buildings, had a profound effect on Neil.

1960s

The Tetkowski family made frequent trips to Siena and other places in Europe. By the age of 10, young Neil had visited museums and cultural attractions throughout Europe and became seriously involved in art and music.

1973

Graduated from Grand Island High School. By this time he decided to become a potter and attended Alfred University where there was a noted ceramics program. He resisted becoming a “misplaced potter” and looks for ways to create ceramic art that is relevant to his time.

1980

Earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from Illinois State University. In the same year he took a position as Assistant Professor at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

1983

Received an Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. The following year he was resident artist at Artpark in Lewiston, New York, before returning to the Buffalo area as an Assistant Professor at the State University College of New York at Buffalo.

1986

Received a Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. It was during this time that he looked for ways to create objects that filled a viewers entire field of vision. He became well known for creating a series of ceramic discs, three and four feet in diameter.

1991

Executed a performance art piece titled, Ground War. During this piece he smeared himself with a blood-like material and created a 3 foot disk while jazz musicians performed in the background. Bullets, cartridge belts and rifle clips were used to make impressions in the clay. The completed work was displayed in Hiroshima, Japan. Tetkowski staged a number of similar performances during this time.

1993

Growing up, he had roots in both American and European cultures. Seeking a place where his cultural background was considered normal, he eventually settled in New York City where he still lives. He has always maintained close ties to Grand Island where his mother still lives.

2002

After 5 years of work, he spent 3 weeks at the U.N. building in New York City sculpting Common Ground, a work of art symbolizing unity and our shared humanity. The work included the handprints of a 100 year old woman and a new born baby. The raw material for this sculpture was made by mixing clays from all the countries of the world. It was displayed at the U.N. for 3 months.

Later 2002

Expanding on some of the unity themes developed in Common Ground, Tetkowski created Generations in Time sponsored by the city government of Kanazawa, Japan, to mark the 40th anniversary of its sister-city program with Buffalo. Handprints from people of every age, 1 to 100, moved outward in a chronological spiral “representing a universal time clock of life and expresses our human interconnections.”

2009

Returned to Tuscany, near the city of Siena, where he had spent so much time as a child, to create large-scale sculpture at the Ditta Cresti terracotta factory in Petroio. The program was arranged by Fabio Mazzieri, a well known painter and former director of the Instituto d’arte Duccio di Boninsegna, an art school in Siena.

2010

Much of Tetkowski’s more recent work explores cultural, ecological and political themes. During the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he did an environmental installation titled, Oil & Water, based on the collision of two of the world’s most sought-after resources.

2011

Fabio Mazzieri arranged a second exhibition of Tetkowski’s Petroio sculptures, along with some 2-dimensional works. These were shown in the prestigious galleries of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, a place where Tetkowski had played as a child. Four other artists participated in the exhibition, titled, New York: A Journey of Four Artists.

Today

He is the Director of University Galleries at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, and lives in Manhattan. In 2015 the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Ontario staged: Rethinking Mythos: A Mid-career Retrospective of Neil Tetkowski.