Carole Sivin (1936-2020) was a mixed-media visual artist perhaps best known for the sculptural masks she made for theaters and dance companies in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Sivin was born and grew up in Saratoga Springs, NY. She earned a B.S. in arts education at SUNY Buffalo, and studied painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She was in residence in 1989.
Sivin originally trained as a painter with Peter Busa in Buffalo, NY. There, she made 8-foot-long heavily textured landscapes. She then took up several forms of printmaking at the Museum School in Boston. The texture of deeply etched intaglio plates moved her closer to ceramics. Sivin studied watercolor painting with Gao Yihong in Taipei, Taiwan, and the abbot of Shinjuan, in Kyoto, Japan. She also learned ceramics from Makoto Yabe in Kyoto.
She taught design at Philadelphia University, and was artist in residence at the Hotchkiss School, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, MacDowell, and the Aegean Center for Fine Arts in Greece. Her work has been exhibited widely, including in places such Hungary, Wales, Japan, and Puerto Rico. She has had solo exhibitions in at Nexus Gallery in Philadelphi, at the University of Pennsylvania, St. Joseph’s University, LaSalle University, and Haverford College. Her 1986 book, Maskmaking: Saving Face, is now in its third printing.
