Tradition in Contemporary Furniture
The Theory and Practice of Goldsmithing
Findings: The Jewelry of Ramona Solberg
If These Pots Could Talk: Collecting 2,000 Years of British Household Pottery
Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas: Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico
Videos
Lino Tagliapietra: Maestro of Glass
Four Hands, One Heart: Ed and Mary Scheier
Harold Balazs: Creating Wonder
Wharton Esherick: Artistry in Wood
Tradition
in Contemporary Furniture
edited by Rick Mastelli and John Kelsey, 2001, Furniture Society, Free
Union, VA, distributed by Cambium Press, Bethel, CT, 203-778-2782; 144
pages, eight essays, illustrated. $30 paperback. Reviewed by Stephen May
With crisp photographs and insightful essays, this book explores how today's furniture makers incorporate traditional motifs into their work. Each chapter offers a different slant. Loy D. Martin, an academic-turned-furniture maker, suggests that regardless of medium or content, studio furniture is a "labor of love" in a seamless tradition that binds contemporary makers to a dynamic craft heritage. An architect/furniture maker, Miguel Gomez-Ibañez stresses the blurring of lines between traditional and contemporary, noting that historically makers have used time-honored forms to bridge changes in popular styles and to reflect their culture and the marketplace. Mark Kingwell, a philosophy professor, deplores the inattention of the world's great thinkers to the furniture in their lives and explains how its placement in rooms reveals much about the occupants. The writer/photographer Jonathan Binzen uses a collector's urban apartment and country house to demonstrate how furniture in comfortable, discerning ensembles creates a place you want to stay in rather than simply observe. The furniture maker Jere Osgood, who has spent much of his career exploring the form and function of the desk, offers intriguing commentaries on the practical considerations and philosophical ideas that inform his designs.
The links between modern art and studio furniture are surveyed by Kathran Siegel, an art and design teacher. She suggests how tricky it is to marry art and furniture and applauds the continuing dialogue in the furniture field between tradition and craft on one side and aesthetic ideas on the other. Discussing avant-garde furniture, the curator and writer Glenn Adamson notes that while tradition is often resisted by visual artists searching for new styles, craftspeople "respect their own past to an unusual degree—perhaps because they flirt with anachronism by their very choice of occupation." He suggests that if cutting-edge studio furniture is to succeed, it needs to be grounded in tradition as the "wellspring of meaning."
Scott Landis, a writer/activist concerned with craft and conservation, examines the approach of Bruce Beeken and Jeff Parsons, who design furniture out of trees from forests near their workshop at Shelburne Farms in Vermont that many makers might shun as blemished wood. Landis explores how they balance comfort, durability, aesthetics and economics to produce chairs in great numbers.
The book presents recent work by 56 Furniture Society members, selected by five editorial advisors and the book's coeditors. Among the outstanding examples: Brad Engstrom's 1,000 Dreams, with 30,000 hand-colored notches, and Kim Kelzer's Chess Table, a riot of hues and patterns. By comparison, Tom Loeser's Multiple Complications 3 and Jenna Goldberg's Tall Cabinet demonstrate what makers can do with black and white.
The second in a series published by the nonprofit Furniture Society, this volume surely advances the organization's mission—to encourage creativity and excellence in and understanding of the art of furniture making.
Stephen May, a
historian and writer on art and culture, lives in Washington, DC, and
Maine.
The
Theory and Practice of Goldsmithing
by Erhard Brepohl, 2001, Brynmorgen Press, Portland, ME, 207-761-8217;
560 pages, translated by Charles Lewton-Brain and Roy Ysla, edited by
Tim McCreight, illustrated. $70. Reviewed by Alan Revere
At long last, the definitive text for goldsmiths. Until now, the art of making jewelry has overshadowed its science. Unlike most other technologies, old or new, that of goldsmithing has eluded the English language until this book was translated from the German. Without such a resource, jewelers have had to rely on a mixed bag of books and experience to understand what they do. But here is a readable, comprehensive reference for those who want to know more about what really happens when they solder, file, saw and create jewels in precious metals. Although jewelry making has remained largely unchanged for centuries, this volume, originally published in 1961 as Theorie und Praxis des Goldschmieds, has the potential to raise the standards and understanding of English-speaking bench jewelers worldwide. To clarify the terminology, according to the author, Erhard Brepohl, who in addition to being a master goldsmith and professor, holds degrees in mechanical engineering and industrial design, a goldsmith is "a metalworker concerned especially with pieces of jewelry and fine decorative utensils of gold, silver, copper, bronze and iron." In the German definition, goldsmiths make jewelry while silversmiths make larger items. With more than 500 pages and loaded with charts and illustrations, this publication answers questions that have perplexed goldsmiths forever: What happens inside the metal when a rolling mill reduces the gauge of sheet? Why does a shear cut and how should it be sharpened? What is it about the internal structure of precious metals that makes them workable? What is age hardening and how is it accomplished? What is the difference between sinking, raising and stretching? In a nutshell, what is the scientific basis for the way tools and materials behave at the jeweler's bench?
Organized into sections on metals, other materials, chemistry, handworking skills, silversmithing, machining, joining, finishing, special techniques, plating, settings, findings and repair, the book presents the information logically and succinctly in a form that will satisfy serious inquirers yet not intimidate novices. The visuals clarify and expand on the text, which can serve as both a manual during training and a technical reference work. Encyclopedic, it offers a complete course of study for students at all levels, covering just about any way metal can be manipulated by a jeweler at the bench.
The publication in this country of "the Brepohl" (as the book is referred to by its German audience) is cause for rejoicing among English-speaking jewelers (not to mention others for whom English is a comfortable second language). Charles Lewton-Brain, Roy Ysla and Tim McCreight deserve credit for their monumental achievement in delivering this essential text to a wider audience.
Alan Revere, a
German-trained goldsmith and founder/director of the Revere Academy of
Jewelry Arts in San Francisco, is the author of Professional Goldsmithing
and other books.
Art Textiles of the World: USA, edited by Matthew Koumis, 2000; 96 pages, essay by Ilze Aviks, $35; Reinventing Textiles Vol. 2: Gender and Identity, 2001, edited by Janis Jefferies, 157 pages, 16 contributors, $28; Portfolio Collection: Anne Wilson, 2001, essays by Tim Porges and Hattie Gordon, 48 pages, $21; Portfolio Collection: Caroline Broadhead, 2001, essay by Jeremy Theophilus, 48 pages, $21. All illustrated, paperback, Telos Art Publishing, Winchester, England, Fax: +44-1962-864727 or sales@telos.net.
These books represent three series from Telos Art Publishing, founded in 1995 by Matthew Koumis to bring contemporary textile art to an international audience. Art Textiles of the World: USA, a slender, well-photographed volume, profiles 10 established American artists—Kyoung Ae Cho, Virginia Davis, Deborah Fisher, Ann Hamilton, Linda Hutchins, Jane Lackey, Susan Lordi Marker, Charlene Nemec-Kessel, Jason Pollen and Jane Sauer—who represent the widely divergent work falling under the rubric "art textiles," the term Koumis prefers to "textile art." Some manipulate cloth, others build sculptural forms or assemble found objects, or stage interactive installations. The artist and writer Ilze Aviks situates those profiled against the unsettling currents of art discourse today. "The art textile can be transgressive, subversive, and challenging, or empathetic, connective, seductive," she writes. The book is not helped by the protesting-too-much tone of Koumis's introduction in which he stakes out an embattled stance for textile art vis à vis the art world. His ardor for textile art (and for his wife, a textile artist) prompted him to found Telos. The Textiles of the World series also features volumes on the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan and Australia.
Reinventing Textiles Vol. 2: Gender and Identity is the second in a series meant as a forum for discussion of the issues informing contemporary textile art. Among the topics in this interdisciplinary compilation of essays by an international group of 16 artists, writers, curators and theorists are "The Fabric of Palestinian National Identity," "The Dress: Bodies and Boundaries" and "Nordic Textile Traditions and Visions."
The monographs on
Caroline Broadhead (England) and Anne Wilson (U.S.) are, respectively,
volumes 3 and 6 in the Portfolio Collection, which profiles leading textile
artists around the world. Broadhead, formerly a jeweler, creates installations
of suspended dresses that suggest human presences or their shadows. Wilson
uses human hair, table linens and hand-stitching to explore personal memories
and family histories.
Findings:
The Jewelry of Ramona Solberg
by Vicki Halper, Bank of America Gallery, Seattle, WA, in association
with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 206-543-4050; 60 pages,
introduction by Helen W. Drutt English, illustrated. $35 hardcover, $19.95
paperback.
This catalog of a
traveling retrospective of Ramona Solberg's work, now at the Museum of
Craft & Folk Art, San Francisco (April 16-June 15), presents the multifaceted
life and career of the Northwest jeweler. Vicki Halper's essay details
Solberg's colorful life (including her wide travels and two stints in
the Women's Army Corps during World War II and after), her career as an
inspiring educator and her contributions to jewelry, such as her use of
found objects and mingling of works from different cultures. The full-page
photographs represent the jewelry in intimate detail.
Thomas
Mann: Metal Artist
by Andrei Codrescu and Lloyd E. Herman, 2001, Guild Publishing, Madison,
WI, distributed by North Light Books, Cincinnati, OH, 800-289-0963; 128
pages, foreword by Michael W. Monroe, illustrated.$35.
In a career that began
in the 1960s counterculture, Thomas Mann has established himself as the
maker of "jewelry objects" in what he calls a "Techno-Romantic"
style, using industrial materials collaged with old photographs, familiar
shapes such as hearts and other narrative elements, and as an entrepreneur
turning out some 250 designs a year in his New Orleans studio. In this
monograph, the independent curator Lloyd E. Herman discusses Mann's influences—among
them, Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp—development and signature
style, while Andrei Codrescu, a writer, surrealistically attempts to compare
Mann with the German novelist whose name he shares.
Ceramics
in America
edited by Robert Hunter, 2001, Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, WI,
distributed by University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, 603-643-7100;
292 pages, illustrated. $55 paperback.
An interdisciplinary
journal, this handsome new annual publication from the Chipstone Foundation
explores the broad cultural role ceramics has played in North America
from the first European settlement to the development of American ceramic
industries and into the present. There are scholarly essays such as "European
Ceramics in the New World: The Jamestown Example" and "Slip
Decoration in the Age of Industrialization," an archaeologically
oriented section called "New Discoveries," book reviews, and
a checklist of articles and books on ceramics in America published 1998-2000.
If
These Pots Could Talk: Collecting 2,000 Years of British Household Pottery
by Ivor Noël Hume, 2001, Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, WI,
distributed by University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, 603-643-7100;
492 pages, principal photography by Gavin Ashworth. $75.
Part social history,
part catalog, part memoir, this hefty volume by the London-born Ivor Noël
Hume, now resident archaeologist at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia,
brings British history to life by exploring the collection of everyday
ceramic objects he collected over a 40-year period. The works, shown in
photographs mostly by Gavin Ashworth, include pots from the period of
Roman occupation to the early 20th century. A glossary, a list of scaling
measurements and inscriptions, and a bibliography are included. A selection
of ceramics from Hume's collection, which he has bequeathed to the Chipstone
Foundation, was recently exhibited at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Tradiciones
Nuevomexicanas: Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico
by Mary Montaño, 2001, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque,
800-249-7737; 374 pages, illustrated. $50 hardcover, $29.95 paperback.
This survey of religious
and secular arts, music and dance, food and healing arts, and literature
spanning the 16th century to the present was commissioned as a textbook.
Mary Montaño, a magazine writer, distilled information found in
scholarly monographs into a more accessible format. In addition to the
objects shown, the text is illustrated with archival and current photographs
of Nuevomexicanos engaged in cultural activities. Each chapter has a chronology,
bibliography and glossary.
Videos
Lino
Tagliapietra: Maestro of Glass
2000, 30 minutes. Produced in HDTV by Mark Pingry Productions,
Inc. www.linotagliapietra.com.
$29.95.
Four
Hands, One Heart: Ed and Mary Scheier
2001, 45 minutes. Written and directed by Ken Browne. Ken
Browne Productions and the Currier Gallery of Art, in collaboration with
the University of New Hampshire Office of Sustainability Programs and
the University Library. 800-206-4788. $24.45.
Harold
Balazs: Creating Wonder
2001, 28 minutes. Directed by Ann Coppel and produced by Coppel and
Northwest Designer Crafts-men, Living Treasures Project, www.livingtreasuresproject.org.
$30.
Wharton
Esherick: Artistry in Wood
2001, 25 minutes. Written and narrated by Mansfield Bascom. Produced
by the Wharton Esherick Museum, 610-644-5822. $30.
Art
Glass: Looking at the Basics
2001, 36 minutes. Produced by Kathleen Gaffney. AGI Productions, 425-255-1483.
$32.95. Reviewed by Robert Silberman
For a while, I had the strange feeling that there was only one craft video in the whole world. Every time I tuned in to my local public television station it seemed to be pledge week, and they were showing Chihuly over Venice. And I always seemed to come in at the same spot: the Chihuly flying circus at work with the locals in some picturesque European location, playing loud music and turning out great glass baubles before celebrating their successful collaboration with mouthwatering cuisine. Art, travel and food wrapped into one, the perfect PBS concoction. Just before the grand finale in Venice, however, the pledgemeisters always stop the show to appeal to viewers in search of more than a mug or a tote bag, asking them to ante up the big bucks and be rewarded with "A Beautiful Masterpiece by the Most Important Glass Artist in the World." That's when I reach for the remote control. These recent titles are a reminder that there are indeed other videos about craft.
Lino Tagliapietra: Maestro of Glass commemorates the Italian master's visit to Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, at the invitation of the glass artist and professor Stephen Rolfe Powell. It's a nice, unassuming piece of work, with some good-humored travelogue moments of its own, as Tagliapietra is shown being taken to the Kentucky Derby and a horse farm, to a distillery, and to the Louisville Slugger factory, where he is given a baseball bat especially inscribed with his name. In the studio, Tagliapietra shows why he is one of the great figures in contemporary glass, displaying the assurance and skill that come from a lifetime of experience. I don't see how anyone can resist the magic of watching him at work, or the appeal of his personality. With all due respect, then, I still find Powell's description of him as an artist breaking with tradition in a "quest for personal expression" problematic, and not helped by invoking "timeless beauty." All the same, if there's going to be a cult of personality in the glass world, I'd rather it were a cult of Tagliapietra.
Four Hands, One Heart is a touching and well-made portrait of Edwin and Mary Scheier. It traces their long "happy interdependence," from meeting under the auspices of the WPA, ca. 1937, through work as puppeteers and potters in Tennessee, and their many years at the University of New Hampshire and in Mexico (which resulted in designs for weavings fabricated by natives and some striking wood sculptures), and a final move to Arizona. It is sad when first Mary and then Ed must give up ceramics, but wonderful to see Ed, spritely at 90, experimenting with computer drawings. The interviews with long-term friends and admirers contribute to the picture of the Scheiers as an exemplary couple, loving, supportive, hardworking and talented. Yet I wish the extended biographical celebration had been complemented by a little more discussion of the work—how it relates to the work of other potters, to folk art, to modernism, to Africa and Mesoamerica. The video ends with a "video gallery" that surveys the Scheiers' achievement over seven decades, and provides a final sustained reminder of just how impressive the work is. [The video was released in October 2001 by American Public Television and will be carried to 100 PBS stations nationwide for two years.]
Harold Balazs: Creating Wonder is the fourth in the series on "Living Treasures" sponsored by the Northwest Designer Craftsmen. Chalk up another winner. Balazs, who lives in Mead, Washington, comes across as a lively character with a gift for working fast and well, with unlimited inventiveness and energy. One person remarks that Balazs "always assumed he could do anything." On the evidence, he can, with a tinkerer's problem-solving ability reminiscent of Calder. Balazs seems to have flourished when given the opportunity to work on large-scale projects, especially ones linked to architecture, as if the bigger the challenge the more inspired his response. He has a special gift for calligraphic patterns and low-relief modeling, but he's not the kind of artist who plays the same note over and over. His talents have been demonstrated in a wide variety of materials, and in projects ranging from stained glass windows for churches and synagogues to large metal outdoor sculptures. Balazs started by using copper enameling for earrings and wound up developing techniques and equipment to create large enamel panels for church doors and even the Seattle King Dome. It's quite an artistic journey over 50 years, and the video captures many of its high points.
Wharton Esherick: Artistry in Wood showcases the artist's studio-home, now a museum, in Paoli, Pennsylvania. Narrated by the museum's curator and in this case tour guide, Mansfield Bascom, it will make you want to find out where the heck Paoli is. (Hint: not far from Philadelphia.) The video traces Esherick's shift from painter to sculptor and furniture designer, and from an Arts and Crafts approach to a dynamic version of modernism. Although it leaves much unexplained about Esherick's life and career, it provides a good starting point, deftly introducing stylistic analysis while showcasing some remarkable works, including his famous cantilevered staircase. Esherick combined an outstanding sculptural sense with the kind of ingenuity that enabled him to see in a batch of hammer handles the basic ingredient for a chair design. As a total environment, the home-studio is his greatest achievement, and this video shows why. The claim that Esherick, who died in 1970, was the most important furniture designer of the 20th century may be a bit hyperbolic, but it would make for an interesting discussion.
Art Glass: Looking at the Basics is a guide for collectors. The video begins with the mandatory bow to Chihuly, Pilchuck and Maestro Lino, somewhat awkwardly handled, then manages to provide an informative introduction to basic processes, executed at a brisk pace and accompanied by interviews with Canadian glass artists and cameo appearances by Bertil Vallien and Narcissus Quagliata. Only at the very end, with reminders to "Buy what you love," "Review the price carefully," and "Express yourself" does the enterprise move from being surprisingly effective to the stuff of which Saturday Night Live parodies are made.
Robert Silberman teaches art history and film studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
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