The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 135

Cavener, Beth
(previously Beth Cavener Stichter)
American; (b. 1972, Pasadena, CA; lives in Helena, MT)
2002 MFA The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
1995 BA (sculpture) Haverford College, Haverford, PA

Beth Cavener’s life-size ceramic animals are beautifully sculpted allegories of the human

SELECTED REFERENCES:

condition. The animals in Cavener’s vast ceramic menagerie rearticulate human psychology

Clark, Garth, and Cindi

through animal forms. Sculptural works presented in the 2006 Garth Clark Gallery

Strauss. Shifting Paradigms

show A Modest Proposal are based on individual accounts that the artist collected and

in Contemporary Ceramics:

merged with her own experiences. The resulting animal figures portray various human

The Garth Clark & Mark Del
Vecchio Collection. New

natures materialized in animal form. Cavener’s interest in vertebrate animals such as

Haven: Yale University Press;

rabbits and goats was a continuation of an early series of ceramic insects. Influenced

Houston: The Museum of

by her father, a microbiologist, Cavener spent the first twenty-one years of her life
studying life sciences. During her undergraduate education at Haverford College in
Pennsylvania, and inspired by her sculptor mother, Cavener spent a year in Florence at

Fine Arts, Houston, 2012.
Milosch, Jane, and Susanne
Frantz. From the Ground Up:
Renwick Craft Invitational 2007.

the Cecil Academy of Arts studying sculpture. Shortly thereafter, the artist apprenticed

Washington, DC: Smithsonian

with Alan LeQuire at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, Tennessee, where

American Art Museum, 2007.

she learned about the bronze cast process and mold making. Cavener spent the next

Stichter, Beth Cavener. “New

year building her portfolio before earning an MFA in ceramics from Ohio State University

Beginnings.” In Raku Firing:

in Columbus. Her many awards include a Virginia A. Groot Foundation Award (2005),
a Jean Griffith Fellowship (2006), and an Artist Trust Individual Art Fellowship (2009).

Advanced Techniques, edited by
Bill Jones, 33–44. Westerville:
American Ceramic Society, 2009.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BETH CAVENER WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

Milk and Honey

Humiliation by Design

L'Amante

ALSO INCLUDED IN EXHIBITION

Cavener, Beth. “A Modest

Brown, Glen R. “Beth Cavener

Artscene, Chazen Museum

Proposal.“ Beth Cavener Stichter

Stichter: Animal Unrest.“

of Art. “Beth Cavener Stichter

Untitled Hoof Cups

Gallery. Accessed March 17, 2014.

Sculpture 31, no. 6 (July/

Ceramics.” January-June 2013.

www.followtheblackrabbit.com/

August 2012): 23–27.

Milk_and_Honey.htm

Pappas, Jen. “Come Undone:
the Sculptures of Beth
Cavener Stichter.“ Hi-Fructose
Magazine 26 (2013): 86–96.

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