About 1,200 handmade ceramic bowls will be displayed in an annual event this Friday to celebrate partnership between Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, Clayscapes Pottery and the Interreligious Food Consortium.

At the Empty Bowls fundraiser, which will be held in the lobby of the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, guests will be able to pick out their handmade soup bowl to take home in exchange for a $20 donation.

There will be a wide arrangement of handmade art pieces that can be filled with a serving of soup with a side of bread from a list of more than a dozen local restaurants including Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Pastabilities and Strong Hearts Cafe. Each restaurant gets to bring an original soup recipe to be showcased.

The money raised from the event will benefit the Interreligious Food Consortium, which helps 70 food pantries and meal sites throughout Onondaga County, according to the IFC’s website.

The fundraiser began within a student organization, the Shaped Clay Society, in the early 2000s as an idea to merge the art world with the community, said Errol Willett, the ceramics program coordinator in VPA. In the club, Willett said students banded together with an idea to give back while doing what they enjoy.

“It’s really exciting to see students engage in art practice that’s outside of academics and get to give back to the community,” Willett said.

Each year, the Shaped Clay Society holds “Bowl-A-Thons” in which students and community members alike are welcome to come to the ceramics studio and make pots for the Empty Bowls fundraiser, Willet said. This year, they made more than 1,200 bowls. Clayscapes Pottery, a local clay supply store, donates about $1,000 worth of supplies to be used in creating the bowls for the event, Willett said.

In this year’s display of bowls, a portion of rescued pieces from the well-known Syracuse China will be displayed. Willett said Syracuse China, which is not in business, was an important part of Syracuse for years, and he and students got the chance to go to their warehouse to handpick pieces which they then re-glazed and spruced up for the event.

Claire Thibodeau, a graduate student studying ceramics at SU and the president of the Clay Shaped Society, said the ceramic community is such a strong group and it is good to get involved in Syracuse community.

“It’s an important thing for artists to be involved in the greater good,” Thibodeau said.

Published on September 28, 2016 at 11:58 pm

Contact Baylee: bawri100@syr.edu