Ukraine, USSR

Leonid Siveriver’s latest cycle of work reflects a synthesis of over twenty years of multidisciplinary evolution. Though no one in his family was artistically inclined, he claims that in his earliest childhood memories, he was always drawing or painting. By the age of eleven, he requested to be enrolled in an art school in his native Ukraine. The instruction, characterized by the rigidly classical approach of Eastern European and Soviet education, though an excellent foundation for developing skills, was very limiting.

Immigration

In 1971, at the age of fourteen, Siveriver immigrated with his family to Israel, where he was exposed to the spectrum of Middle-East, Western European and American culture and expression. Israel in the ‘70s, though small and struggling, offered much broader horizons to a culture-hungry adolescent than a small town in Ukraine. He recalls that one of the great stimuli of his youth was encountering jazz. Decades later, his passion for jazz remains an undercurrent in his visual work: improvisation within boundaries. Knowledge rooted in discipline allows innovation, a breaking away.

Art education at his high school in Israel was minimal, but at least the approach was very fresh. Exposed for the first time to rudimentary ceramic techniques, mostly handbuilding and some basic glazing techniques, sparked his drive to develop as an artisan. The environment was, as yet, insulated , with very little art on offer. He invested time in doing his own drawings and set design for the school theatrical productions. Age eighteen: compulsory conscription. Three years in the army halted all progress - a period he describes as “totally dead”. Upon discharge, he was desperate to get back into the most stimulating environment available.

The Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts, Jerusalem, Israel

Leonid laughs at the anecdote relating to his application to the Ceramics Design Department at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. It was all because of timing. His release from the army was relatively late for the application deadlines to various departments; all, that is, except for one. So, although his primary interest was sculpture, he was accepted by the Ceramics Department, thinking that he would transfer to the Fine Arts Department during the following semester.

Early in the academic year, he saw, for the first time, a demonstration of wheel throwing, sparking a lifelong love affair with this unknown medium . “I was totally mesmerized,” he recalls.

Bezalel offers a well-rounded curriculum, requiring exposure to many mediums as well as liberal arts electives, technical disciplines such as photography and animation, and art history. In the early 1970s, the pioneering Gedula Ogen, best known for architectural ceramics and sculpture for public buildings, headed the department. Other profound influences were Lydia Zavadsky, internationally reknowned for wheel works on a grand scale, and versatile Edith Adi (pronounced Ee-deet Ah-dee), an expert on surface treatment.

Siveriver recalls that his class was a remarkable collection of students. They propelled each other forward with a lively, friendly competition that, for many of these post-army young people, pushed them to a near-delirium of constant creativity.

The Ceramics Department was very large, with many large kilns and sufficiently spacious work areas for even the most ambitious projects. He became fascinated with building very large forms on the wheel using the sectional technique, the signature style of the USA’s Toshiku Takayesu. Fortunately, though the Department required a certain number of projects that emphasized functionality, the teaching staff was supportive about a student’s direction for personal expression. Siveriver fulfilled the required assignments, but his focus early on was expressive form.

At Bezalel, students explored the entire firing spectrum, from the lowest range all the way up to the highest stoneware/porcelain range. Students were also required to execute projects in industrial disciplines of model and mold making, casting, and mass production.  Lathe-turned plaster, sledging, and even employing plaster-filled balloons were techniques taught for modeling both functional and sculptural forms. Clay-body and glaze composition were also required, as well as chemistry and applied geometry.

Within this spectrum of disciplines, each student was encouraged to develop a personal direction. Interdepartmental electives were also encouraged. Siveriver concentrated on drawing, photography, and clay, art history and history. And jazz.

Italy, 1983

After receiving his BFA, Siveriver began to ponder a way to realize an old dream: seriously studying stone carving. Israel had no established facility to offer, but via the “artists’ grapevine” he heard about Pietrasanta, a small village in Italy near Carrara. The summer of 1983 he spent traveling through Rome, Tuscany, and Umbria, up to Venice. In Florence, he caught up with friends, through whom he met the eminent American monumental sculptor, Stanley Bleifeld. Bleifeld very generously guided him through the various marble carving studios and bronze foundries that are the economic base of the town, with facilities serving artists from all over the world. He found a tiny apartment and started working with both the Tommasi Bronze Foundry and the Antognazzi Marble Studio.  Both establishments became, for him, living schools of artisanship, and for nine months he absorbed most of the important principles of the two disciplines. “Pietrasanta was an amazing experience. To be around artisans, to witness the pride in their craft was beautiful to see. And to have been part of an international community of artists was very important for my development.”

 “The Fifth Year”

Returning to Jerusalem in 1984, Siveriver discovered raku. At the time, the Bezalel Academy had no master’s program, but talented graduates were sometimes invited to combine an instructorship with further study. This served as a pilot toward developing the school’s masters’ programs, referred to as “Fifth Year”.

A couple of students who had summered in the USA early in the 1980s brought back information about this exciting Japanese technique, including glaze and clay body recipes and photographs. Students researched tools, kiln building and firing, and the technique became established. Siveriver, enthralled with this raw, spontaneous, unpredictable and dramatic craft, felt it answered to something he’d always been seeking internally. “My first horned pieces were done in that fifth year”, he recalls, “and raku was the only technique I could imagine for their execution. “Besides,” he smiles, “I was always a bit of a pyromaniac”.

Aside from teaching at the Ceramics Department, Siveriver taught drawing, sculpture and ceramics at various art education centers around Jerusalem. Towards the end of that year, he was still feeling restless; wanting to travel but still be able to produce. From a sculptor friend he heard about an apprenticeship program in the USA. 

Johnson Atelier

In the fall of 1986, Siveriver began an apprenticeship at the Johnson Atelier in Mercerville, New Jersey. The program offered a non-degree teaching environment for two years, with a technical emphasis. Concentrating on refining the range of techniques learned at the Tomassi Foundry, instruction covered the Lost Wax Process, rubber and plaster molds, metal casting, sand casting, welding, metal chasing, pouring, surface finishing and patinas.  His exploration of form grew out of an ongoing study of ancient cultures.

In the USSR of his childhood, religion was suppressed. In Israel, religions permeated everyday life, from Jewish and Christian ceremonial objects, prominent church and mosque architecture, the sinuous calligraphy and dazzling tile work of Islam, Bronze Age and Roman artifacts and ruins. Siveriver never gravitated toward any formalization of faith, but through his sculpture began to examine a universal language of symbols.

Thus, his work during the atelier years reveals hints of animistic or ghostly forms, altars, and objects suggesting ritual function.

Bread and Butter

At the Altelier, Siveriver met the young sculptor and painter Amy Medford, who became his wife. In 1989 they traveled to Pietrasanta to pursue their work independently for an entire year. When the couple returned to the USA in 1990, the hard work and skills fostered in Italy sustained them in their search for coping with the new reality of making a viable living. Initially, Siveriver began to teach and Medford managed a sculpture garden. Soon, however, they formulated a business plan and launched their model-making enterprise, Avant-Garde Studios (www.ags3D.com) The couple accepts commissions for figurines, action figures and toys, sculptures for public places, museum reproductions, portraits, and even computer models. It took about a decade to get well-established, but equally as important for Siveriver, there was always time for personal development of his work.

In addition, as a result of his work in a state program, the New Jersey School of the Arts  (described as a “school without walls” and now, sadly, de-funded and defunct), he was recommended for a very desirable teaching position.  The job involved creating the Ceramics curriculum for the prestigious Lawrenceville School, and to design and build the Ceramics Department from the ground up. He continues to teach there today.

Evolution

“My work has long developed in two parallel directions,” muses Siveriver. “I love the human body, so figurative work has always compelled me. The decade between the ‘seventies and the ‘eighties was not, worldwide, conducive to figurative work, so I was a bit isolated in my expression. The second strong influence is my fascination for ancient cultures. My focus has always been more intuitive than academic; rooted more in observation and association than analysis. Simple volumes, simple contours – these things move me towards a minimalist expression. The primal power of sources I find in African masks, Celtic sculpture and illuminations, Far Eastern, Islamic, and Native American art offer a wide range of powerful symbols.

The Current Work: Ritual Objects

Siveriver’s current series of works, executed over the last three years, found expression in raku. The ritual origin, the visual aspects, and not least, the unpredictability all are aspects of the expression. This body of work is his first to be almost totally improvised, as all previous work had been carefully deliberated, with numerous sketches and forethought strategies.

“The further along I got with this particular combination of wheelthrown and  handbuilt forms, it became easier to discard preconceptions and planning. It was very liberating, very exciting. It was my expression of jazz! They are open to interpretation, not attempts at homage to ancient cultures. They allow me to merge those influences into something of my own. The combination of raw power and mystery – the sense of the unknown and the ‘un-askable’… this is my search.”