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ACC Shows
ACC Shows
At every American Craft Council show, the ACC gives out Awards of Excellence to a group of exceptional exhibitors, who are selected by guest jurors. It's a thrilling event: Show-goers gather with jurors and ACC staff, then everyone marches off in a grand parade to surprise the winners in their booths.
This year in St. Paul, ceramic artist Mark Pharis was the juror. Pharis, a one-time student of Warren MacKenzie, is an esteemed professor at the University of Minnesota, where he has taught in the department of art since 1985. He has exhibited and taught across the country, and his work ...
ACC Shows
Four artists were honored today with Awards of Excellence at the ACC Atlanta show.
Junco Sato Pollack, an associate professor at the Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University, served as juror.
Patricia Palson won for her ebullient handwoven wearables. Pollack praised Palson's color palette and the timeless quality of her jacket designs.
Gina Pannorfi was honored for her rich felted pieces, many of which have an almost topographical texture. Pollack called the work "intuitive."
David Bryce won for his figural sculpture. Pollack liked the "sense of drama" and "unfinished, unresolved line" of Bryce's figures.
Glass artist Michael ...
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Fresh from the floor of the 700-artist show, we're excited to report the winners of the 2011 Awards of Excellence. This year's jurors were Elisabeth R. Agro and Heather Gibson of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The six artists recognized for their work are:
Taikyun Kim (Edison, NJ), whose hand-sculpted metal jewelry of oxidized silver overlaid with platinum or 24 karat gold evokes the cosmos. In Kim's work, the judges saw "a true unique voice," unlike that of any other jeweler in the show.http://taikyunkim.com
Lisa Klakulak (Asheville, NC), whose incredible range of works in felt blew away the jurors. The consummate fiber ...
ACC Shows
The following talk was given March 11, 2011 at the American Craft Council show in Atlanta as part of a "Lunch & Learn" event.
This morning I asked a few people at the show what word they would use to describe the experience of being here, seeing wonderful art objects, talking with artists, seeing the imaginative work of the 200+ craft artists here. I asked, "How would you say you feel being here?"
People used words like "amazed" and "inspired" to describe how they felt, which is certainly how I feel at shows like this one. One woman said she was "in ...
ACC Shows
There are about 75 booths packed with ceramics here at ACC Baltimore, presenting a certain time-space challenge for a medium junkie such as myself. (That's time, as in never having enough of it to spend in each artist's booth, and space, as in having just one carry-on bag at my disposal.)
A few of of the many that caught my eye:
The Oxide Pottery crew (Chatham Monk, Justin Rice, and Joe Monk) brought an assortment of fantastic work from their fledgling shop (opened in November 2009), including both wheel-thrown and hand-built ceramics in a range of rich, groovy colors.http://www.oxidepottery.com
Dustin Harris, whose ...
ACC Shows
The Awards of Excellence Walking Tour is - hands down - my favorite part of every ACC Show. Everyone gathers at the Council booth, and off we go to surprise the winning artists. This year's San Francisco jurors were Mike Holmes, co-owner of Velvet da Vinci, and Ted Cohen, an exhibition designer who works with institutions such as the Museum of Craft and Design and the Museum of Craft and Folk Art. It was a supreme treat to listen to these veterans of the studio craft world as they bestowed four awards of excellence.
Here's what they had to say:
...
ACC Shows
Choosing favorites among the more than 200 jewelry exhibitors at the ACC Baltimore Show this year is frankly impossible. Just getting to see them all is a challenge, and the array of innovative work is nothing short of mind-boggling.
But we'll take an admittedly inadequate stab at summing up the jewelry part of this ginormous exhibition. Among the many jewelry exhibitors, three aesthetics stood out: tidy, exuberant, and fuzzy.
We'll start with fuzzy. A number of artists are incorporating color in their work not by setting stones but by adding felt to their metalwork. Cara Romano recently added felt-plaid swaths to her ...
ACC Shows
So there was lots of wild, lavish jewelry on display at the show. But, perhaps surprisingly, there were also a few makers of very tidy, understated pieces. Some examples:
Matthew Smith has several lines of work in silver, but they are all refined and orderly in their charm.
Hilary Hachey makes lariat neckpieces notable for their asymmetry but also their overall geometrical uniformity.
Eric Silva uses a most organic material - shed antler - in his work, yet the overall effect is quiet and minimalist.
Gustav Reyes works with wood, and the result is not only sculptural but also sleek ...
ACC Shows
On display the past few days in Baltimore were a thousand examples of the sort of oversized, exuberant pieces that have been fashionable for a while: gigantic rings, bracelets that might work as weapons, and neckpieces that function as collars, even shawls.
Still, there were surprises among the effusive jewelry at the show:
The surface of Emanuela Duca's cast-silver pieces looks like molten material, on which lays a little treasure - often a pearl, offering a striking rough-smooth contrast.
Melissa Finelli makes rings of sleek silver hemispheres, from which a bunch of irregular tendrils seem to be extruding.
Arthur Hash shapes ...
ACC Shows
You take a risk when you run a big cover story about big jewelry, as we did in the December/January issue of American Craft.
You run the risk that somebody will say, you want big jewelry? I'll show you big jewelry.
That happened at the ACC's show in Atlanta last week when I met Dawn Wain, a jewelry maker whose neckpieces are less like pendants and more like chestplates. That's appropriate because, in a sense, Wain is arming the women who wear her giant pieces, equipping them to feel "beautiful, connected, and whole," as she says. She wants women to feel ...
ACC Shows
Unexpected textures abound at this year's ACC show in St. Paul. Sleek adjoins nubby, craggy erupts from lustrous, and subtle variations make lovely work even lovelier.
Kim Geiser's enamel jewelry is a study in rough and smooth. The artist uses stencils to add designs to her modernist pendants and recently started scratching graphite markings on the surfaces of her glossy pieces.
Many of Marietta Theodorou-LeMieux's ceramics are almost glasslike in their sheen. But sometimes she adds a glaze that forms a pasty, lavalike texture in the kiln, creating a remarkable surface contrast.
Jaana Mattson, whose focus is custom jewelry from ...
ACC Shows
A number of artists at this year's St. Paul show are applying their skills - with ceramics, glass, fiber, metal, and wood - to beautiful lighting. Here's a quick list of some that caught my eye. There's still time to see this fantastic work in person, too: The show is open today until 5 o'clock. If you're not in the area (and even if you are), click on the artists' bolded names to visit their websites.
Lauri Wilson makes lovely kiln-formed glass objects. Her table-top lamps are gently curving pieces of it, the lights tucked behind, illuminating the rich ...
ACC Shows
Previously, we recounted the winners of the Awards of Excellence at the 2011 American Craft Council show in St. Paul. Juror Mark Pharis did the honors this year. Pharis is a former student of Warren MacKenzie, and he teaches ceramics at the University of Minnesota, where he's been an instructor since 1985. Susan Mahlstedt, Lynn Joris Reintsema and K. Meta Reintsema, and B.J. Christofferson were all honored for outstanding work, and Ikuzi Teraki and Jeanne Bisson of Romulus Craft were honored for exceptional booth design.
If you missed the show, but would like to hear Pharis' remarks about each winning ...
ACC Shows
We had a chance to chat with longtime ACC show exhibitors Sara Mathews and Molly Grant of Cordwainer Shoes at the San Francisco show. Their handmade shoes are beautifully crafted, made out of fine leather and free of synthetic materials and toxic glues typically found in footwear. Here's what they had to say about shoes, shows, and the council's pet policy.
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ACC Shows
Steve Uren is a furniture maker based in Michigan. He was inspired to start woodworking by his grandfather, and now his furniture is shown at shows and galleries across the U.S. Make sure to check out his one-of-a-kind wood creations. ...
ACC Shows
Lori Katz is a ceramic artist based in Virginia. She maintains a studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA, and is an instructor at the Art League School and the Workhouse Arts Center. Her work is included in public and private collections throughout the world, including the US Embassy in Bandar. This is her first time at the ACC Show in St. Paul.
Stay tuned for more video interviews from the 2011 St. Paul ACC Show. ...
ACC Shows
We had a chance to talk to jewelry artist Lou Ann Townsend before the opening of the San Francisco show this morning. She and Mary Filapek are known as Mary and Lou Ann, and their sterling silver jewelry, inlaid with polymers (and inspired by the mighty atom), is breathtaking. Check out the video below for more from Lou Ann.
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ACC Shows
Ruth Walker and Suza Woolridge use their backgrounds in chemistry to make beautiful colors come to life in their fiber work. They make art to be worn, and they exhibit together at ACC shows. ...
ACC Shows
Adam Crowell is a wood artist currently based in South Carolina. He creates melodic percussion instruments that are part functional art and part musical instrument. Make sure to check out Boxed Music Drums for more samples of his work. ...
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