Viola Frey's fusion of childhood memories and adult art making, her capacity to interconnect the local and the global, and her wide reading in philosophy, sociology, and aesthetics conferred complex and ambiguous meaning to her work. This talk will connect those strands to the development of her intimate to monumental art with multiple visual references to her deep knowledge of ceramic and art history. Curator and author Patterson Simsspeaks about the context and meaning of Viola Frey's unique contribution to ceramics, followed by a discussion with her contemporary and friend, artist Betty Woodman as well as MAD curator Lowery Stokes Sims.

Starting in 1969, Patterson Sims has held five positions at major institutions such as the Whitney Museumfo American Art, the Museumof Modern Art, the Montclair Art Museum, O.K. Harris Galleryand The Seattle Art Museum. His concentration has been in the modern and contemporary field with a specialty in American modernism and contemporary art along with non-profit arts institution and museum management and administration. He is currently working on projects with several foundations, lecturing, writing, and organizing exhibitions. as well as being the President of the Board of Trustees of iCI, Independent Curators International. At the Whitney Museumfrom 1976 to l987, Sims was the first designated curator of the museum's comprehensive collection of 20th century American art and organized many collection-based and other exhibitions, including co-curating five Whitney Biennial shows.

Artist Betty Woodman is the subject of a critically acclaimed retrospective at the Metropolitan Museumof art in 2006 - Woodman is known for her exuberantly extravagant creations – and who like her close friend Viola Frey - broke the barrier separating craft and high art to intersect with painting and sculpture. Betty Woodman's work both challenges and invokes the traditional elements of vase and vesselhood so imaginatively that it lives in a class by itself. Although ceramics remain her basic medium, her art, with its wild colors and eccentric shapes, has gradually breached the border between craft and high art to intersect with painting and sculpture.