The career and work of one of Syracuse’s most celebrated artists will be getting extra attention as part of the PBS series A Craftsman’s Legacy. David MacDonald taught at Syracuse University for 40 years as part of the artist’s legacy that goes back more than 50…when he got his start in art school.
"I started out making ugly little pots like every introductory student does," MacDonald recalled.
But the medium quickly appealed to him.
"I liked the physical nature of clay," MacDonald said. "I liked the idea that you could take this material that has no intrinsic value and turn it into something that is not only beautiful but useful. The fact that I could make something that people could use."
The civil rights movement became a strong influence on his art. MacDonald recalls social and political themes in the way he was decorating his pottery. Later, he remembers an instructor in graduate school helping him change direction.
"So I started looking at African art," MacDonald said. "I started looking at African pottery and African sculpture and African textiles, and how freely they decorated surfaces. I became interested less in decorating the surfaces of my pots with images of anger and frustration, and more interested in images of pride and my African heritage."
Now he finds patterns in many things – from nature to manhole covers to clothes people wear – that could end up in his work. MacDonald admits he got into teaching as a way to make a paycheck while also producing art, partly after seeing other artists work long hours cranking out production pottery.
"When you're a production potter, the creativity in your art tends to atrophy because you have a particular kind of object you have to make because you have to sell it," MacDonald said. "As a teacher, I didn't have those kinds of pressures. I got a paycheck. It gave me the freedom to be more experimental in terms of the ideas that I worked with."
Many former Syracuse University students and other area artists count him as a mentor. He’s retired form SU but still instructs through the Community Folk Art Center and has local showings. His story on Craftsmen’s Legacy airs this Saturday at 3:00 p.m. on public television, WCNY here in Syracuse.
