Hamilton artist Leslie Green Guilbault invites Madison County residents to be a part of local history by taking part in a community art project from noon to 8:30 p.m. on Friday, August 3, at the Cazenovia Artisan gallery. The goal of “The Fingerprint Project” is to use local clay to create a ceramic vessel that residents will decorate, one fingerprint at a time, to create a permanent visual depiction of a community working together to make art.
The project is about creating an artifact that will record three details about Madison County in 2018: the physical properties of the clay in Hamilton, how that clay was manipulated by a local artist to become a functional vessel and how that vessel was transformed as it passed through the hands of an entire county.
The design concept involves nothing more than a pot, paint and human touch. The vessel will travel through all 14 towns of Madison County, and at each stop Leslie will the story of how it came to be made, her approach to art and the unifying concept of the project: That no matter our differences, each of us gets to leave an equal and enduring mark on this pot — a record of our existence in this world and for many, she hopes, a connection to each other and to art as a medium for personal expression.
During the Cazenovia Artisans stop, Leslie will provide a demonstrate from noon to 3 p.m. of how she processed the hand-dug clay and used it to create the fingerprint crock as well as a new collection of pottery and jewelry that will be featured in the gallery during the month of August.
All are invited to the Cazenovia Artisans reception from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on August 3. The crock will also make an appearance at the Cazenovia Farmer’s Market on Saturday, August 4.
