Designing Impact
Art, Food and Community at the Same Table
This spring, Hartwick Art Professor Stephanie Rozene guided students through an ambitious ceramics course, giving them experience working with clients, meeting production deadlines and designing objects for real-world use.
The course is known as The Dinnerware Project and features a collaboration with downtown Oneonta’s Autumn Café. Through it, Rozene’s students designed and produced hundreds of pieces of dinnerware for a two-night meal and silent art auction to raise funds for local food assistance programs.
This is the third time Rozene has taught the service-learning course in partnership with a local restaurant, and the second time working with the Autumn Café.
“Much of my own studio practice centers around collaborative work with chefs, and the intersection between food and the table and the politics of the table,” Rozene said. “When we come together around a table, it’s not just about feeding ourselves. It’s also about the conversation that happens, and it’s about the community that’s built.”
The course emphasized collaboration, both among students and with the Autumn Café’s culinary team, including Executive Chef Sean Wall.
Working in teams of two to four, students designed and produced a six-piece dinnerware service for the event while navigating the challenges of large-scale production, with each team making 75 pieces.
The collaboration with the restaurant included leaving behind 10 to 15 pieces of each course as a thank-you gift for the restaurant. This work will stay in circulation at the restaurant, and students can add that their work is in use at a professional restaurant on their résumés.
For Rozene, the project demonstrates how creative work can extend beyond the studio and into everyday life. In addition to developing technical skills in ceramics, the project introduces students to the professional expectations of working artists while encouraging them to consider how their creative work can serve communities.
“It is certainly a labor of love,” Rozene said.
The project also demonstrates how a Hartwick education can connect creative practice with service, preparing students to use their skills in ways that strengthen communities and careers.
