Errol Willett

Biography

Errol Willett’s research comes out of a lifelong fascination with clay and its use in art, architecture and domestic space.

Ideas in his studio come from a tactile relationship with the material, from its history and from intersections with contemporary art and design. Willett makes work in search of ideas. He is drawn to work that has a sense of expanding and contracting simultaneously, like breathing, and to work that uses structure as ornament. Recent investigations include basket forms, espaliered fruit trees and Islamic patterns. 

The other thread in Willett’s work currently is a research group called Haptek Lab, made up of architects, designers and artists looking at the intersection of ceramics, architecture and industrial production methods. The group is interested in bringing handmade qualities into industrial ceramic production at an architectural scale with the use of digital fabrication and robotics.

Willett is an associate professor in Syracuse University’s School of Art. He served as chair of Syracuse University’s School of Art from 2009-12. He earned an M.F.A. from The Pennsylvania State University and undergraduate studies in art at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Regensburg, Germany. Residencies include the Anderson Ranch Art Center, Aspen, Colorado; AIR-Vallauris, France; and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada.  

Projects include the permanent installation “Overlooked Information. The Carbon Espalier”; the exhibition “Affinity” at the Incheon World Ceramic Centre, Incheon, Korea; and the installation “Staying on Good Terms with Nature,” Everson Biennial, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York. Current research into translating haptic qualities into architectural terracotta can be found at the Haptek Lab.

Education

• M.F.A., The Pennsylvania State University, State College, 1993
• B.A., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1983

Areas of Expertise

Ceramics, glass, concrete, wood