LeAnn Siefferman: Making Conversations
Making Conversations was born as a social practice art initiative in 2017. Using handmade ceramics to spark dialogue around complex social issues, LeAnn Siefferman looked towards her studio art practice for an outlet. She set out to make illustrated dinnerware and used the marriage of art and direct human engagement inherent to handmade ceramics to prompt discussion amongst strangers.
The plates in this exhibition are a selection of pieces from this ongoing initiative.
Presented now, for the first time outside of their original context, Siefferman offers us a glimpse into her experiences with this project.
In a time where the landscape of communication and sharing is undergoing unprecedented shifts & change, this initiative leans into the potential for creative work to spark dialogue face to face, embracing our collective human roots for gathering and Making Conversations.
This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.
Meet the Artist: LeAnn Siefferman
About the Project:
In 2017, I began Making Conversations, a social practice art initiative that uses ceramics to spark dialogue around complex social issues. My first project featured handmade dinnerware illustrated to prompt discussion on gender and identity, homelessness, aging, climate change, mental health, and race and privilege.
From 2017 to 2018, I presented these plates at small, shared dinners among strangers. In collaboration with the Peace & Justice Institute, I facilitated open-ended questions and witnessed vulnerable, powerful exchanges in response to the stories behind the work. The plates on display now are what remain from that project.
I started Making Conversations because there were things I needed to discuss—things I suspected others needed to discuss, too. The project became life-changing. Each illustrated piece reflects a period in which I began processing family trauma, a racist education, and my own experiences with mental illness and climate anxiety. They represent my desire to understand how we treat one another and why.
Engaging with these works is an invitation to ask, What do I believe and why? Where did these ideas come from? Through storytelling, I try to normalize the complexity of being human. I’ve come to know how fear of honest questions, and fear of mistakes can keep us silent and disconnected. My ceramics practice responds to that silence: a tool for making space, especially for the hard conversations. As a white woman, I’m particularly interested in the conversations white people are often afraid to have. Facing these fears, I believe, can lead to personal transformation and racial healing.
I hope my work encourages viewers to reflect on what they long to say but don’t know how. What do you want to talk about? What stops you? Who could you be if you weren’t afraid?
Now, nearly eight years later, I’m exhibiting these plates—imperfect and incomplete sets—because our country remains in crisis. We need one another. And I still believe that conversation—honest, courageous, collective—is where hope and resistance begin
“LeAnn uses clay to facilitate conversation on personal and complicated issues such as mental health, mother/daughter relationships, isolation and belonging, and systems of oppression. Navigating her own needs for acceptance and belonging, LeAnn carves and illustrates the ceramic surface to explore what it means to be a human… being. With each sgraffito mark, she is slowly peeling away at the self-shame and blame we carry for being ourselves. Passionate to prove we are not alone in our experiences, LeAnn wishes to repair what Empire seeks to destroy: Our Unity. She pushes us to re-member in a world that seeks to dis-member.”
About the Artist:
As a ceramics artist, LeAnn uses clay to spark conversation on personal and complicated issues such as mental health, mother/daughter relationships, isolation and belonging, and systems of oppression. Navigating her own needs for acceptance and connection, she carves and illustrates the ceramic surface to explore what it means to be a human… being. With each sgraffito mark, she is ripping away at the self-shame and blame we often carry simply for being ourselves.
Interested in the idea that making ceramics represents an inherent intent to share something personal, LeAnn sees important relationships between the function of the clay body and the needs of the human heart. Using both, she seeks to repair what Empire seeks to destroy: our unity. Can clay transform pain into community? Can it remind us that we are not alone? Her personal storytelling is merely a quest to find “her people” as she invites viewers to re-member in a world that constantly tries to dismember.
LeAnn has been a Ceramics Fellow at the Hambidge Center for Arts & Sciences, a Teaching Artist in Residence at Rabun Gap-Nachoochee School, a Ceramics Artist in Residence at the Dave Drake Studio at The Bascom Center for Visual Arts and has studied at the Penland School of Craft. LeAnn holds a B.A. in Studio Arts from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, a Master’s Certificate in Social Justice from Harvard University, and has studied Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
She creates from her home studio and the City of Orlando’s Pottery Studio. Having also built a career as a nonprofit professional, she works full time as a Development Officer with United Arts of Central Florida. Committed to the justice journey, she has served as an equity consultant for government agencies and nonprofit organizations, and was a guest presenter in a national workshop series entitled “Identity, Social Justice, and Antiracism for the White Community” with Mirna “The Mirnavator” Valerio.
LeAnn lives in Orlando, FL with her husband Jon Busdeker and three dogs, two chickens, a horse, several fish, two bullfrogs and innumerable plants.