I had the good fortune to see in its last week an unusual exhibition at the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon. Although it will have ended by the time this letter is posted, the transporting environment of the garden remains: located in Washington Park, it occupies a high position overlooking downtown and, when weather permits, offering a gorgeous view of Mt. Hood. The exhibition took an even longer view, linking continents. The small show, called “Parallel Worlds: Art of the Ainu of Hokkaido and Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest” presented a half dozen Ravens Tail and Chilkat robes and an equal number of ceremonial garments by the Ainu, early residents of the main Japanese islands who were displaced by the Yamato people from the south ages ago and now mainly live on the northern island of Hokkaido, where they preserve what is left of their distinctive culture.
The thesis of the show, organized by curator Diane Durston, was visual associations between the textile expression of two cultures, located at the same latitude but separated by the vast North Pacific. The similarities have been remarked upon before, but there is no proof of contact; this exhibition may have ...
Collectors are an interesting breed. They are attracted to objects and wish to own them; they commit to a relationship; their money follows their heart. No two collectors are alike, anymore than any two artists are alike, so the opportunity to visit a private collection is always a distinct experience. Rene di Rosa, a California businessman and since 1963 a vintner, devoted himself to artists and artworks of the San Francisco Bay Area. Among the 2,000 works by about 800 artists in the collection he has assembled with his artist-wife, Veronica, are ceramic pieces by Viola Frey, Robert Arneson, Jim Melchert, Stephen De Staebler and a few others.
Frey is preeminent among the ceramists, because one of her figures is set at the entrance to the Gatehouse, the first gallery visitors encounter when they come to tour the di Rosa Preserve, a more-than-200-acre blend of art and nature in the Napa Valley. Two other very large Frey works appear on the lawn adjacent to the di Rosa home, a stone building with a bell tower topped with a conical cap that was built as a winery in the ...
Considering that it's home to a long-standing community of ardent skateboarders, where else but in California might you expect to see an anthology of skate art from the 1960s to the present? In what promises to be a refreshingly fun and enlightening show, over 300 skateboard decks by artists and skaters from across the country come out of the garage, the attic or off the shelf for display in “Full Deck” at Walnut Creek’s Bedford Gallery starting July 5th until September 13th. With unique hand-painted decks, recent commercial boards, historic decks, photography, painting, prints, sculpture and video the exhibition will illustrate how the culture of skateboarding has grown hand-in-hand with visual arts. Bedford curator Carrie Lederer states, “The colorful images on the bottom of a skateboard are one of the purest forms of self-expression: highly personal and mostly created without artistic boundaries—just like skateboarding itself.”
Among its many offerings, “Full Deck” will include one-of-a-kind hand-stained decks by Skip Engblom, co-founder of Zepher Skate Shop, early boards, circa 1960, from pro skater Sam Cunningham, rare commercial decks such as Element and Enjoi from the collection of Mark Whiteley, editor of SLAP magazine in San Francisco, and selections from ...
What better way to celebrate the start of summer than with an afternoon of art and craft? The first annual Makers Market, an outdoor marketplace of handcrafted treasures, will open shop on June 27 and 28 at New York’s Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City. For those who can’t wait to get a glimpse of the many wares, there is a preview event on June 26 at 6 pm in the park, at which, for $50, attendees can enjoy cocktails by St. Germain and hors d'oeuvres on the waterfront as the sun sets over the Manhattan skyline.
The 30 makers featured hail from all across the country, and run the gamut from jewelry designers to potters to glassblowers. Though from diverse disciplines, they all have in common innovative designs, fine craftsmanship and a passion for their work. Among those represented are Eric Silva, a maker of eco-conscious wearable sculpture; Sanam Emami, a crafter of intricately patterned pots; and Hope Ginsburg, a master molder of sponge and felt. The products will be dispersed among the Park's collection of massive sculptures, craft poetically intermingling with art. The abandoned landfill turned exhibition space ...
rEvolution: 105 Years of Jewelry & Metalsmithing at The University of the Arts
Philadelphia Art Alliance
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 14th - July 26th, 2009
“rEvolution: 105 Years of Jewelry & Metalsmithing at The University
of the Arts” is a survey, of sorts, of the many jewelers and
metalsmiths who have taught at the Philadelphia College of Art/
University of the Arts over the years. Like many art schools,
UArts first offered hands-on metals instruction in the early 1900s.
Blacksmithing maestro Samuel Yellin was one of the first; Sharon
Church, Rod McCormick and Lola Brooks are the principal teachers
today. Church and McCormick curated the exhibit.
The first room is dedicated to the earliest years of metals
instruction. Most of the display consisted of images of student and
instructor work taken from old PCA catalogs. There’s also a small
piece of Yellin ironwork, probably a sample for a client. It might be
tempting to think students back then were primitive by today’s
standards, but some of the photographs depict accomplished and
ambitious objects.
Several examples of Richard Reinhardt’s work were on display.
Reinhardt was ...
Okay, so I’m a late convert. I’ve been hearing about the indie craft fairs for a long time, and for at least a year I’ve been saying, privately and publicly, that I welcomed a phenomenon that made craft affordable by committing to the commercial models of internet sales and the outdoor fair. Such fairs have never vanished, not even from New York City, but they have now found forceful advocates in a younger contingent of makers. At last I managed to get to the Renegade Fair in Brooklyn’s McCarren Park last weekend. It was not exactly what I imagined, though. I was expecting more punk and a harder edge. I expected the youth orientation to make me, a boomer generation artifact, feel slightly out of place. The name, after all, promises irreverence.
Instead, within minutes I discovered that I felt quite at home. That was when I made my first purchase—a pair of earrings snipped from the colorful printing on metal cans and sold by Anna Johansson (http://www.Annabuilt.com). Recycling! Not merely “affordable” but downright inexpensive! I almost felt that I’d slipped back into the 70s, but with a few differences, if this fair is typical. It seemed to me ...
Along the highway and at homes and workshops hidden deep in the vine-riddled deciduous forest or tucked at the edge of gently rolling fields are well over 100 ceramic business—shops, potteries, museums—of Seagrove, North Carolina. On the outskirts of town, the main road is labeled Pottery Highway. What other highways of the world bear such a label?
Central North Carolina has been a ceramic production center since the 18th century due to its excellent deposits of clay. For a long time the business was an off-season supplement to farming. Some of the potteries are family operations that go back many generations. The commerce hasn’t always been good: changing times reduced the need for storage vessels, and prohibition cut the need for whiskey jugs. By the early 20th century the preferences of tourists from the north led to the introduction of brighter colors and smaller sizes. But still today the ware is functional (with a certain percentage of novelties), and you can pick up serving dishes or casseroles for $20 and up.
One of the great stories of the area is a relatively new business, Jugtown Pottery, established in 1922 by two “outsiders”—Jacques and Juliana Busbee of Raleigh. They ...
Radical Jewelry Makeover IV
Penland School of Crafts
Penland, North Carolina
June 21-July 3, 2009
If you’ve ever rummaged in a drawer and found necklaces, rings or brooches you no longer wish to wear but which have intrinsic or sentimental value, you’re a likely candidate for the donor phase of Radical Jewelry Makeover, a “traveling community mining and recycling project,” which is now going into its fourth incarnation in this two-week workshop at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. The central aim of RJM, as set forth by its originators, Christina Miller, and Susie Ganch, both professors of metalsmithing, is to teach makers at all levels how to produce innovative jewelry from recycled sources and proudly place responsible jewelry in the hands of the consumer.
RJM is an outgrowth of Ethical Metalsmiths, an organization co-founded in 2004 by Miller with the metalsmith Susan Kingsley, to create awareness of the toxic effects that mining for metals used in jewelry making is having on the environment and to “stimulate demand for responsibly sourced materials as an investment in the future.” The idea behind RJM is to create, as Ganch and ...
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