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WITH DENNY GERWIN Associate Professor, Art
In the center of campus behind Trexler Student Center, sits the one-story Tillett Building. Built in 1937, it is a haven for studio art majors, and it’s also where you’ll find Professor Denny Gerwin. Gerwin, who has been with Queens since 2012, feels at home here and is most proud of its newly finished back porch and wood-fired kiln, made possible by the generosity of alumna Betsy Gandee Whittington ’73, who studied with former Art Professor Rick Crown.
Te addition of the 1,200-square-foot back
porch accompanied renovations to the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement in 2019. Tillett’s 3D art studio houses 14 pottery wheels, a glaze chemistry lab and a wood shop. Te 3,000-square-foot studio can best be described as an organized mess for innovation. It is also Gerwin’s primary studio, where he creates pottery and sculpture in support of his scholarly activity.
1. One of Gerwin’s former students once tried to create a scaled-down version of the solar system using balls of clay. Gerwin knew this would stick to the walls of the wood-fired kiln, so he identified another student’s too- thin porcelain bowl that Gerwin predicted would crack in the kiln. Knowing that both projects were destined for uniquely unintended outcomes, Gerwin convinced the two students to collaborate by placing the “planets” inside of the bowl. The result? A strange looking dish filled with elements from the galaxy. The best part? Gerwin’s partner, Melanie Champagne, found the piece at the annual student art show, and loved it so much that she purchased it. It now hangs in the couple’s living room. Gerwin, who loves telling stories as fodder for other lessons, enjoys this example of risk taking and accepting the unknown.
2. Gerwin always keeps a collection of notes from former students close by. “Thank you for helping me find myself in my work and jump start a journey I hope never ends,” says one from Amanda Downs ’16. Another from Hunter Gray ’19 references a pair of combat boots that sits in the studio for students to wear as they weld and expresses gratitude for all the new experiences Gerwin’s sculpture class provided him.
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3. Created by Gerwin, this 24-inch “figure vessel” came from a 3-foot-by- 5-foot drawing of three similar shapes. This shape fit into the negative space between two more familiar shapes, and Gerwin notes its unusually tight waist is in proportion to its hip and upper flare. The crystalline glaze is something Gerwin developed 12 years ago by modifying a recipe for a green glaze that grew pink and grey crystals into this blue-black glaze with violet crystals.
4. In the studio also sits a pair of combat boots that were gifted to Gerwin by a faculty-mentor at Central Michigan University, where he taught from 2010-
2012. “They were brand new combat boots that belonged to the faculty member’s son, who died serving in Afghanistan,” explained Gerwin, adding that they now protect the feet of students who aren’t appropriately dressed for the more dangerous aspects of working in the studio.
5. Carefully arranged on the tops of shelves around the studio sit ceramic pieces gifted to Queens by visiting artists brought in by the Queens University Art Club. The visiting artist collection is bisque ware—items that have not been glazed but are fired into a flowerpot consistency. The artwork
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