Art Garage Holiday Open House II with Artists-in-Residence 12/ 13   Cooperstown NY—Holiday Open House II at the Art Garage,  Saturday Dec. 13, will feature artists-in-residence Robert Seward and Marcie Schwartzman in person, as well as festive refreshments. The gallery will be open 11am-2pm. Both artists display a range of inventive yet functional ceramics in Something Old, Something New: the holiday show. They will informally discuss their artistic processes. Ms. Schwartzman will focus on small, handheld speckled bowls embellished with wide bands of textured glazed “beads.” Seward will answer questions about his array of hand-built ceramics: earth-toned bowls and vases (one actually on rockers!) and sets of one-of-a-kind coasters and tiles of varying sizes, each felt-backed.   Eight other artists’ works will also be display: Mary Lou Ganio (Roseboom), limited-edition wildlife block prints — even block-printed tea towels; Lavern Kelley (Oneonta, d. 1998) , carved birds and a deer; Gail Peachin (South Worcester), manipulated vintage photographs; Enrique Bayron Perez (Cherry Valley) , clay pots; Louis Sherry (Berkshire, d. 2024), brightly painted wooden birdhouse sculptures; Phyllis Shrader (Wimbleton UK and Rome NY), one-of-a-kind embellished earrings; Ada Yonenaka (Bowerstown & NYC), flowing, hand-dyed indigo scarves and  patterned, ‘stamped’ cards;  and Jamie Young (Middlefield and Syracuse), haunting cyanotype nature photographs.   ABOUT THE ARTISTS-in-RESIDENCE: Robert Seward’s work focuses primarily on sculpture in clay. He has experimented with processes (encaustics, burnishing, stenciling) and substances (paper and fiber) that produce complex textures. For this show, Something Old, Something New, he has created a hand-built series of tiles with biomorphic markings inspired by Robert Motherwell, bowls, candle holders, and vases. In his varied larger output, he has been influenced by Anthony Caro, David Smith, Barbara Hepworth, among others, as well as what might be loosely called a Japanese aesthetic sensibility. Seward studied ceramics at the Philadelphia College of Art and at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Before retiring to Cooperstown, he had an academic career in New Mexico, Philadelphia, New York, and Tokyo. He was a professor of media, politics, and technology in the Faculty of International Studies at Meiji Gakuin University for a quarter of a century.   Marcie Schwartzman (Cooperstown, NY) is a fiber and clay artist who lives and works in Cooperstown. She will present variations of elegant series featured at the Art Garage, including hand-held neutral-toned bowls embellished with constellations of white beads.  While attending Johns Hopkins University in the School of Engineering, she studied ceramics at a Baltimore community center. After a move to Richmond, VA, she earned her MA in Industrial Engineering while taking clay classes at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. After raising children and enjoying a fruitful career, she returned to clay in the 1990s, and, in 2003, was apprenticed to Sara Baker in Bloomsburg, PA. There, she honed her skills and developed a fascination with ceramic glazes. A lifelong home-sewer, she began to pioneer the integration of textiles and clay into sculptural forms while exploring the two materials’ shared and complementary qualities. Schwartzman seeks to always remain “loyal to the vessel,” and her work lends itself to “meditations on containment, interiors, dichotomies, and usefulness.” Schwartzman regularly exhibits her work at the Art Garage.   The show is open Saturdays 11-2 through Jan. 17 (tel. 607-547-5327) and every day with a text 315-941-9607 or email leartgarage@gmail.com. (Pls allow time for confirmation.) For images please see FB/Instagram @artgaragecooperstown.