Fulbright-Nehru Scholar to India 2014-15
Purchase instructions: email info@fulbright.org with artist name & details of art piece
Artist Statement
Cynthia Siegel creates figurative work that celebrates our connection to the natural world. She believes that by re-establishing human respect for all flora and fauna, the earth may again find its balance. Siegel reveres the beauty that comes from the passage of time, and the struggle to survive and adapt. In her Bristlecone Series, Siegel is inspired by the tenacity of the ancient bristlecone pine trees, which have endured for thousands of years, both because of and despite their fragile environment. As memory and experience abstract themselves over time in our minds, Siegel encourages her figurative sculptures to transform themselves, in the form of markings carved upon their surfaces. Her intent is to connect with others, bring awareness to our environment’s current state of peril, and to empower viewers to reconsider and recalibrate their own relationship to our earth.
Carving deeply in the clay, figurative sculptor Cynthia Siegel develops a textured skin of imagery that is fueled by a love of storytelling, anthropology, and natural history . Siegel exhibits her sculpture, pottery and works on paper nationally and internationally, receiving awards at the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale and the Cheongju International Craft Biennale. Her work is part of many public and private collections, and is included in such publications as Ceramics Today, Ceramic Art and Perception, and 500 Figures in Clay. A 2014-2015 Fulbright-Nehru Scholar to India, Siegel has presented lectures and workshops in India, Israel, Taiwan, China, New Zealand, and the U.S. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, her MFA from San Jose State University, and she currently teaches in the ceramics department at Cabrillo College. Siegel lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA.
