Sydney Roper

Clay Sculpture and Mixed Media Artist

Sydney is a self described maker, feeling a compulsion to create for as long as she can remember. She has been drawn to the arts, it was a passion that was encouraged by her family. Sydney recalls finding local clay while living in the West Indies and talking with local potters while she was still under the age of ten. As a small child she attempted to use a small record player as a pottery wheel. Sydney began studying art over thirty years ago. Sydney took her first ceramics course twenty-six years ago and has not looked back. Working with clay felt second nature, fluid, and an organic experience of expression. Despite earning the required college credit hours to gain a degree in Fine Arts in addition to her bachelor’s degree in Education, she declined because she did not wish to display her work. The process of sharing something so deeply personal was a struggle.

She is a wife and mother to six children. Sydney works in a variety of media; fiber arts, oils, printmaking, watercolor however her passion has always been clay. Her aim is that her work is representative of the the conflict of the natural and inorganic, the playful and stern, the dichotomy that is present in daily life. Her early work in clay was primarily hand building (slab, coil, pinch) non functional pieces. Presently she works on both functional and nonfunctional work but would not consider herself a “production potter” in the traditional sense. While some functional pieces may be repeated they are never identical, there is a simple beauty in the handmade that she does not want her work to be void of the human touch that created it. Her work now explores wheel thrown pieces, slab, coil, pinch, altered-wheel thrown, and sculptural pieces that range from rustic organic beauty of form to a whimsical play. Working in her home studio she continues to paint and create daily. She was featured as the January 2019 Artist of the Month at the Baron Park House Gallery in Labelle, Fl.

www.musepotterylabelle.com

www.sydneyfineart.com