If you like skillful archaizing with just a bit of “Swedish Modern” angularization, Pierson’s bronze bud vases, bulbous ceramics and gargantuan clay and bronze pot (similar to one at Syracuse) will be just your mug of mead. The sculptor-craftsman tries to simulate the majesty of antiquity in his footed tub-shaped bronze vessels which have been stamped in patterns of lozenges, asterisks and cuneiforms. He even employs the arduous “lost-wax” process. But the irregularities of ancient works or the asymmetry of Zen pottery were never pre-planned. Pierson’s artifice is showing more than his artistry, despite the handsomeness of some of the surfaces. Everything is too awkward to be true.

—Rosalind G. Wholden