The opening night scene at Popps Packing for Tom Phardel’s “Inner Core.” The art world is a great breeding ground for a cult of personality, but a less likely genesis for the kind of quiet, genuine regard most people seem to hold for sculptor and ceramic artist Tom Phardel. Popps Packing was buzzing with stalwarts of the old-guard Detroit art scene for his solo opening, “Inner Core,” which featured a range of pieces as calm and quietly inviting as the artist himself. “I’ve always loved the man and his work,” says artist Michael McGillis. “He was there when I was in school and has remained as a grounded, nearly immutable presence since.” One of Phardel’s many infinity-loop pieces. Phardel has cultivated quite the fan base during his tenure as Chair of Ceramics at the College for Creative Studies, but the work currently on display at Popps has its own appeal, regardless of context or shared personal history. Infinity loops abound, on walls, in concave vessels, or carved out to form a kiva-like opening in surfaces that suggest cracked and barren Mars landscapes. Figures seem to stand in the depressions of canoe-shaped totems leaning against the walls, one with Art Deco detailing in oxidized copper, the other as sleek and modern as a propeller blade. A canoe-shaped vessel hides a figure at its core. There is a push and pull within each piece, a battle between positive and negative space that speaks to the show’s conceptual conceit that, “There are portals exposing hidden interior spaces, surfaces that have acquired a visual language of usage, time and ephemeral translucent elements that transmit only the essential outlines of form and color.” We plunge into the basin of a raku-finished white bowl, only to find orange peaks poking up into the negative space. Contrasting the sere, crackled finish on some of the works are smooth glazes in matte blue or red, or a toothy, pitted cliff-face splitting to reveal a hidden pool. What should be discordant instead forms a warm collection of surfaces, perfect vessels for an infinite loop of contemplation, and surfaces primed for the projection of our own inner narratives. A raku finish gives some of Phardel’s work a rough, desert feel.  

With perfectly smooth surfaces on others, that you can lose yourself in. “Inner Core”  continues at Popps Packing through this weekend, where it draws to a close in the midst of the Porous Border Festival – a free, two-day art event on May 16-17. This Knight Arts-funded weekend of celebration takes place all around the border between Hamtramck and Detroit, and is organized by the valiant souls of The Hinterlands Theatre Ensemble. Chido Johnson during a wire-car workshop at Popps, related to his project for the Porous Borders Festival. A dry run of Shoshanna Utchenik’s “Pollinator Parade” for Porous Borders. With an astonishing range of Hamtramck and Detroit artists, neighbors and businesspeople staging events, activities and installations, it promises to be a wild weekend, with events too many and varied to enumerate here. Be sure to mark the dates on your calendar to come out and play, or else tune in next week for a rundown on all the happenings!