E. Saffronia Downing, teaching fellow
By Jeremy Powers ’24
Saffronia Downing, an artist whose work reflects the histories of land and the relationship between people and the environment, is a teaching fellow joining the College of the Atlantic community for the academic year. Her work revolves primarily around clay, and she is teaching courses focused on the study of ecology, art, and ceramics.
“I am really excited by the whole concept of an education based around human ecology, and how people fit into systems, especially because my practice is all about looking at systems and tracing them through different cultural and natural permutations,” she said. “So COA feels like a really good fit for the kind of teaching that I want to do.”
Downing works with wild clay to map material residues across time and place, foraging local material to create site-specific installations and sculptures. She is the co-creator of the digital publication Viral Ecologies, “a multipronged investigation of emergence.”
“I’m really interested in helping artists realize the processes behind their art practices, and to start to investigate and broaden those processes, and to see that as part of the art itself. It’s not just what goes on the pedestal, but it’s the whole process of what made that work,” she said. “Looking at it like that can offer a lot of new ways to engage with the materials and concepts you’re working with.”
COA’s teaching fellow program is intended to broaden students’ horizons by bringing educators from across the spectrum of approaches and practices to campus. Downing’s inclusion in the program is a great example of this, said COA Allan Stone Chair in the Visual Arts Catherine Clinger.
“Saffronia is excellent, exciting, and offers a departure from previous offerings by bringing human-ecological insights from having practiced in different places with varied approaches,” Clinger said.
Downing holds an MFA degree in ceramics from the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in studio art from Hampshire College. She taught the course Knowledge Lab: Craft Ecologies in the sculpture department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Downing is the recipient of awards and residencies such as the Oxbow School of Art Fellowship, ACRE Residency, and Salem Art Works Studio Artist Residency. She recently completed a year-long residential fellowship at the Lunder Institute For American Art at Colby College.
Her work has been featured in publications such as Sixty Inches From Center, Newcity, LVL3, and Number. Her work was recently featured in exhibitions at Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center (Chicago, Illinois), Bad Water (Knoxville, Tennessee), Resort (Baltimore, Maryland), and The Franklin (Chicago, Illinois).
Downing said she is excited to meet others who are thinking about and working within the intersection of art and natural science. “I’m also excited to explore the park. I’m trying to hike as many mountains as I can. It’s my first time living near the ocean—it’s really cool,” she said.
In her free time, Downing likes to cook. “I have a farm share at COA Beech Hill Farm, so I’ve been enjoying trying really hard to use up all my vegetables,” she laughs.
