"I try to instill in students that to make objects, work based on something personally meaningful will be more rewarding and ultimately more successful. ... It is essential that students take ownership of what they are making; that they make it theirs."
Professor of Art Roberta Griffith credits her students with pushing her to new creative heights. Whether it’s their energy or the structure she says they bring to her life, they must be doing something right.
Griffith, who served as chair of the Art Department for 17 years, also can add Hartwick Teacher/Scholar of the Year, chair of the Humanities Division, and Fulbright grant recipient to her list of accomplishments. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Since joining Hartwick in 1966, reviews and photographs of Griffith's artwork have appeared in books, newspapers, magazines, and exhibition catalogs in the United States, Spain, France, Mexico, and Japan. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally for more than 40 years in more than 30 solo shows, 92 invitational and collective exhibitions, and 71 juried shows. In 2003, her work in ceramics, ceramic installations, painting, and drawing was displayed as a retrospective exhibition in the Yager Museum of Art & Culture.
During Griffith's time as chair of Hartwick's Art Department, the College's Studio Art and Art History majors were established and the department was accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. But her contributions to art stretch far beyond the Hartwick campus. Griffith is the American correspondent for Ceramica magazine in Madrid, and is a world traveler who pulls from her interest in Pre-Columbian art as an influence on her work in clay. Her Fulbright grant took her to Spain, where she studied art for two years. Back home, Griffith was the 2001 recipient of the Charles W. Hunt Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts and Service to the Arts Community from the Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts in Oneonta.
