Ellie Jornlin ’22
From January 10 through February 20, the Burgin Center for the Arts’ Cofrin Gallery will be hosting Donte J. Moore’s exhibit, the “Umbilical Regeneration: The Retrospect.” The exhibit features work from Moore’s time as an undergraduate and graduate student, as well as the time in between.
Moore is a ceramic artist from Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from James Buchanan High School, received a bachelor of arts degree at Shippensburg University, and earned his MFA at the University of Delaware. In 2015, he earned the William D. Davis Drawing Award and was nominated in 2016 to receive the APSCUF/SU award by the faculty of Art & Design at Shippensburg University. Moore has exhibited work at The Pennsylvania State University, Baltimore Clayworks, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, The Delaware Contemporary, and internationally at Heit Berlin, Germany.
Moore says, “The pottery wheel and I are a strong metaphor for the world in which we live, machine versus human. Once intended to enhance the world and simplify our lives, modern machines are constantly transforming human behavior, distancing us from one another, distorting reality through a constant need for machine interaction.”
“Umbilical Regeneration is influenced by machine perfection, sometimes falling short of the handmade quality, the wabi-sabi so to speak, the beauty of imperfection, the human quality. What is perfection, who determines and defines it, man or machine?”
The first wheel that Moore began throwing on was donated to JBHS by Mercersburg’s ceramics instructor, Wells Gray.
Art teacher and gallery manager Sydney Caretti says, “It’s amazing that he grew up only blocks away and now has returned for this retrospective!”