The Woodmere presents Planting in Place, Time, and Memory

At Woodmere’s Smith Hall, Carpenter’s works are organized both chronologically and thematically, helping visitors understand and appreciate her evolving creative practice. The first room (Antonelli I Gallery) displays early vessels, made after graduating from Tyler School of Art in the 1970s. Four gourd-shaped terracotta jars with flat bottoms are crafted using both slab and wheel techniques. Set on a warm orange pedestal, their surfaces resemble soil cracked by drought; each features an architectural-style lid. A House for Mr. Biswas (1982) hints at Carpenter’s future work with its quirky play of texture and imagery.

Carpenter’s investigations with what clay can do evolved over the next decade. In the same gallery, wall reliefs such as Of a Like Mind (1986-87) feature a large face atop a shelf holding female torsos that reference fertility. Nearby are three massive heads on pedestals, titled Children 3, 4, and 5 (1990). While they were being made, Carpenter imagined them talking to each other. It occurred to me that their mysterious expressions might reflect nascent ideas as internalized self-portraits. Their imagined dialogue was a way to understand what is essential for the possibilities of clay’s form and meaning. Carpenter’s work is grounded in identity, lived experiences, personal symbolism, experimentation, and a spiritual regard for the medium.

Honoring the earth and its stewards

Clay comes from the earth, so, naturally, creating and cultivating are twinned activities for Carpenter in both the studio and the garden. In the 2000s, Carpenter reflected on her matriarchal history of gardens as she tended her home yard. A book that strongly influenced her ideas was Richard Westmacott’s African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South (1992).

A road trip to visit multigenerational Black-owned farms in Georgia, South Carolina, and the Gullah Islands offered firsthand insights into the historical importance of marginalized people maintaining responsibility for the land as a source of livelihood. This trip inspired the series Farm Bowls and Farm Portraits, seen in the Corridor and Antonelli II Galleries. Although titled with names like Everelena Cannon (2009) and Sara Reynolds (2014), these works are not traditional portraits of heroic landowners but collage-style sculptures that reference topographical maps, plowing patterns, tools, fences, and other agrarian symbols. Their surfaces evoke the warmth and physicality of dark skin or soil warmed by the Southern sun. Like young plants, Carpenter’s sculptures are complex, requiring patience and time as they unfold under the viewer’s gaze.

Facing family

Notions of family are vital to Carpenter. Also in the Corridor Gallery is a series titled Mother Pins: works on pedestals and walls in homage to Carpenter’s mother, Ernestine. The trope is fashioned in the woman-like shape of vintage wooden clothespins that her mother used. Carpenter deploys these pins as symbols of maternal strength and resilience. Mother Pin Arise (2018) is a Mother Pin that resembles a deity-like form standing atop an assemblage of shapes, which include chains, a small house, and a female portrait head. The Mother Pin seems to cite Claes Oldenberg’s monumental kissing Clothespin near City Hall.

Family also surfaces in works honoring Carpenter’s beloved brother, Frank, who suffered a life-altering disability while serving in the military. Carpenter cared for him for many years before he died. In the Schnader Gallery, several realistic portraits capture hints of Frank’s personality and charm. In Frank in Tow (2008), his likeness—wearing a porkpie hat—appears atop a tall, vertical, limb-like form. At its base, a bird perches between two wheels. Carpenter has explained that the bird symbolizes her mother, who in this sculpture eternally watches over her son. Nearby, a seemingly conventional portrait bust of her husband, Steve, reveals a more intimate layer on closer inspection: a miniature self-portrait of Carpenter sprouts from his head like a permanent thought bubble.

Safeguarding cultural memory

Carpenter safeguards cultural memory through sculptures that evoke emotion, invite reflection, and weave together the personal and the historical. Her work stands in stark contrast to the recent dismantling of the President’s House Slavery Memorial exhibits by the Trump administration. In this light, looking closely at art becomes more than aesthetic appreciation; it can also be an act of resistance, reconciliation, and healing.

There are two other associated exhibitions featuring Carpenter in our region: Home Bound in Wood, Steel, and Clay runs through April 5, 2026 at Ursinus College’s Berman Museum in Collegeville, and Re-Union: Syd Carpenter, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Judy Moonelis, Sana Musasama, and Winnie Owens-Hart runs through March 29, 2026 at the Francis M. Maguire Art Museum of St. Joseph’s University in Merion.

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