Please join us for the opening of Foundational Touchstones, a new Offit Gallery exhibit by Aimee Ehrman, 2024 Myers awardee for the Gottesman Libraries commissioned art program, who undertook a significant project to engage with the long enduring structure of Teachers College, Columbia University.

Foundational Touchstones features ceramic artworks inspired by the historic buildings of Teachers College, Columbia University — its textures, shadows, smells, stones, and concrete — especially on the exterior walls of Zankel, Macy, and Thompson. Aimee’s vessels, sculptures, and wall mounts are made from clay that has been imprinted with old and familiar stone. The artworks are fired in the kilns of the historic Ceramics Studio, located in 59 Macy, to create interesting and experimental pieces with rich and diverse shapes, patterns, and finishes — pieces that tell a story about the connection between embodied learning, experience, growth.

Aimee Ehrman is a ceramic artist-educator who examines the intersection of embodied learning and ceramics, and how the embodied practices of ceramics can be explored in higher education. She is deeply interested in exploring what happens during the moments of making with clay, and how we think and learn with and through our engagement with clay. Through constant exploration with the material, and as an active artist and educator, she brings her movement and ceramics practices to the classroom, where she challenges students to both experiment with the material and consider the role of the body as a tool. Aimee’s individual art works and installations are held in private collections and exhibited in galleries nationwide. Aimee, is part-time faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she is also a doctoral candidate for an Ed.D.C.T. in Art and Art Education, and has also earned an Ed.M. She has a M.F.A. from SUNY New Paltz and a B.A. from Baldwin Wallace University.

Where: 305 Russell / Offit Gallery

The opening reception and art talk will incude a tour of the artworks exhibited; conversation with the artist Aimee Ehrman; and a special performance by Claremont Strings and Ensemble, our longest running professional group of musicians.

Complementing the art exhibit is a new Everett Cafe book display, Sticks, Stones, Clay, and Bones: Embodying Tradition and Learning, that continues in Offit Gallery.

Persons not affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University may RSVP using online support; use the drop down menu to enter your interest and details so that a confirmation e-mail can be sent.

Members and affiliated members of Teachers College, Columbia University may use the registration button below.

Poster image: Courtesy of Aimee Ehrman.