Books December 2001/January 2002
Rags to Riches: 25 Years of Paper Art from Dieu Donné Papermill
Northern Clay Center 10th Anniversary
Challenge VI-Roots: Insights & Inspirations in Contemporary Turned Objects
Franciscan, Catalina, and Other Gladding, McBean Wares: Ceramic Table and Art Wares 1873-1942
Art of the Basket: Traditional Basketry from Around the World
The Art of the Book: From Medieval Manuscript to Graphic Novel
Art After School: A Successful Way to Reach Youth in Your Neighborhood
Vital Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940-1960
Quilting Lessons: Notes from the Scrap Bag of a Writer and Quilter
Rags to Riches: 25 Years of Paper Art from Dieu Donné Papermill
edited by Mina Takahashi, 2001, Dieu Donné Papermill, Inc.,
New York, NY, 212-226-0573; 112 pages, foreword by Chuck Close, essays
by guest curator Donna Stein, Susan Gosin, Trudy V. Hansen, illustrated.
$25 paperback.
Since its founding
in 1976 as an experimental laboratory for artists working with handmade
paper, Dieu Donné Papermill in New York City has provided more
than 300 artists with the opportunity to engage in collaborative projects
in both two and three dimensions. This fine catalog of a traveling exhibition
of 90 works by 39 artists, at Maryland Institute College of Art through
December 16, presents a history of the papermaking studio, a survey of
the "technics and creativity" in contemporary papermaking and
an interview with Dieu Donné's artistic director, Paul Wong. The
show includes commissioned pieces by Lynda Benglis, Alan Shields and Michelle
Stuart, and works by 36 established and emerging artists who have worked
at Dieu Donné, selected to cover such techniques as watermarking,
painting, stenciling, collage and embedding, and casting. In addition
to the exhibit checklist, the book includes a chronology, histories of
the artist residencies and the studio's editioned works, a list of artists
and a glossary.
Northern
Clay Center 10th Anniversary
2001, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN, 612-339-8007; 76 pages,
texts by Emily Galusha, Mary Barringer, Robert Silberman, John Driscoll,
illustrated. $12 paperback.
Subtitled Ten Years
in Retrospect: A History and a Teaching Collection, this attractive spiral-bound
catalog commemorates the fruitful first decade of the Northern Clay Center
as an educational institution and exhibition venue dedicated to furthering
the ceramic arts. The makers of the 53 objects pictured were selected
from the more than 200 artists, regional and national, whose sculpturalor
functional work has been exhibited there. The center's history is presented
in an illustrated timeline, and thoughtful commentaries by Mary Barringer,
Robert Silberman and John Driscoll offer the viewpoint of, respectively,
creator, critic and collector.
Challenge
VI-Roots: Insights & Inspirations in Contemporary Turned Objects
2001, Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA, 215-923-8000; 216 pages,
essays by Michelle Holzapfel, Christopher D. Tyler, Robin Rice, illustrated.
$35 paperback.
The 50 artists included
in this catalog of the sixth exhibition in the Wood Turning Center's juried
international Challenge series were asked to explain what inspired them
to make the lathe-turned objects they submitted and also to convey that
inspiration in tangible form. For some, the inspiration was purely aesthetic—another
art form, even a piece of music. For others, it was personal—a sense
of family, a broken marriage. This emphasis results in a graphically varied
book: each work is pictured opposite the artist's statement accompanied
by a visual representation of the inspiration. In their essays, exhibition
curators Michelle Holzapfel, a turner, and Christopher D. Tyler, an arts
administrator in Nova Scotia, consider the pieces they selected from 230
entries, touching on such themes as surface, decoration, repetition and
architecture. The writer Robin Rice discusses how the artists in the show
strike a "fruitful balance between influence and originality."
The exhibition opened at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Collegeville,
PA (September 8-November 11), and will tour through 2003.
Glidden
Pottery
by Margaret Carney, 2001, Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic
Art, New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, NY, 607-871-2421;
139 pages, essays by Ron Kransler, Wallace C. Higgins, illustrated. $30
paperback.
In its 17 years of
existence—1940-1957—Glidden Pottery, in Alfred, New York, produced
mold-made and hand-decorated stoneware in dinner and "art" lines
that were popular, affordable and chic. Garnering awards and included
in museum exhibitions, Gliddenware epitomized 1950s "good design;"
it could be glimpsed on television programs like I Love Lucy and
was often an unnamed status symbol in food product ads and cookbook illustrations.
Founded by Glidden Parker, a graduate student at the New York State College
of Ceramics at Alfred University, the firm utilized the talents of many
connected with the school. Among them was the Chinese-born Fong Chow,
who during his time at Glidden in the 50s, was responsible for many innovative
patterns. This catalog of an exhibition at the Schein-Joseph Museum earlier
this year presents a history of the pottery, biographies of Parker and
the principal designers, popular glazes, patterns and decoration, brochures
and line drawings of nearly 300 forms.
Franciscan,
Catalina, and Other Gladding, McBean Wares: Ceramic Table and Art Wares
1873-1942
by James F. Elliot-Bishop, 2001, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA, 610-593-1777;
240 pages, illustrated. $29.95.
During the mid-20th
century, California was at the forefront of pottery manufacturing, and
Gladding McBean & Co. in Lincoln was one of the most prolific firms,
answering a steady demand for table-, kitchen- and artware, tiles and
garden pottery. Part commercial history, part compendium of collectibles,
this book tells the story of the company from its founding in 1873 to
its acquisition in 1984 by Wedgwood. Popular patterns like Montecito,
Coronado and Rancho are pictured in superabundance; vintage photographs
and antique catalogs fulfill the nostalgia quotient.
Art
of the Basket: Traditional Basketry from Around the World
by Bryan Sentence, 2001, Thames & Hudson, New York, NY, 212-354-3763;
216 pages, illustrated. $45.
This survey reveals
the manifold correspondences between baskets made in widely differing
and geographically distant cultures. Organized in sections—materials,
techniques, decoration, everyday basketry and wider applications—the
illustrations and text focus on common solutions to design and construction
within a range of styles. A spread on applied color, for example, juxtaposes
baskets from Borneo, Sweden, Bali, Myanmar and the Pacific Northwest.
The book includes advice on collecting, a glossary and a listing of museums
with basketry collections worldwide.
Textiles
from Guatemala by Ann Hecht; Embroidery
from India & Pakistan by Sheila Paine; Miao
Textiles from China by Gina Corrigan; Printed
and Dyed Textiles from Africa by John Gillow
2001, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 206-543-4050; each
88 pages, maps, illustrated. Each $19.95 paperback.
The new Fabric Folios
series, each volume by a specialist in the field, draws on the celebrated
textile collection of the British Museum. Meant as sourcebooks for designers
and makers, they each feature between 20 and 30 textiles, vividly photographed
with many detail shots. Four distinctive traditions are brought to life
and set in context: Guatemala's colorful woven textiles in bold designs
and a wealth of motifs; the woven and sumptuously embroidered costumes
of a minority group from China's Guizhou province; printed and dyed cloths
from diverse regions of Africa; and the embroidery adorning costumes and
household textiles in India and Pakistan. Glossaries and bibliographies
are included.
Glass
of the Avant-Garde: from Vienna Secession to Bauhaus, The Torsten Bröhan
Collection from the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, Madrid
by Torsten Bröhan and Martin Eidelberg, 2001, Prestel Verlag,
New York, NY, 212-995-2720, in association with Exhibitions International,
and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; 192
pages, English and Spanish, photographs by Angela Bröhan. $65.
Between 1900 and 1940,
glass design and production reached an artistic peak in Austria, the Czech
Republic and Germany. This handsome catalog of 200 works assembled by
Torsten Bröhan, a scholar and collector, not only chronicles the
achievements of such design institutions as the Wiener Werkstätte,
the Deutscher Werkbund and the Bauhaus, it also examines the influence
on glass of the art movements of the period. Well-known artists and designers
such as Josef Hoffman and Wilhelm Wagenfeld are represented along with
lesser-known figures like Otto Prutscher, Adolf Beckert and Nora Ortlieb.
The essays by Bröhan and Martin Eidelberg, an art historian, touch
on the relation between art and industry, avant-garde ornament and the
engraver's art. The touring exhibition is at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum, New York City, through February 24.
The
Art of the Book: From Medieval Manuscript to Graphic Novel
edited by James Bettley, 2001, V&A Publications, London, England,
distributed by Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 800-345-1359; 208 pages,
illustrated. $49.50.
Spanning six centuries,
the books featured here are selected from the huge (over a million volumes)
collection of the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Presented in nine chapters—the decorated page, bindings, documentary
manuscripts, children's books, comics, poetry and experimental typography,
book art, and contemporary art and publishing—the works range from
a 15th-century illuminated French Book of Hours, a notebook kept by Leonardo
and a book of verse illustrated by William Morris, to the paperback cover
of a James Bond novel, the contemporary comic Maus, a spread from
a Babar the Elephant book, and 10 fine examples by artists who have experimented
with the structure of the book.
Art
After School: A Successful Way to Reach Youth in Your Neighborhood
by Jane Brite and Marlene Jaglinski, 2001, Community Arts Consultants,
LLC, Milwaukee, WI, 414-271-1192; 170 pages, illustrations by JoAnna Poehlmann.
$24.95 paperback.
In 1987, Jane Brite, then director of the Walker's Point Center for the Arts, in Milwaukee, initiated Hands On, a free after-school and summer art program serving the primarily low-income and at-risk children and teenagers in the neighborhood and using professional artists to teach the sessions. Observing the benefits of the program over 12 years prompted Brite and her colleague Marlene Jaglinski to write this guide, which describes their experience and advises how to set up and implement a similar program in almost any setting. The authors point out that in addition to the beneficial effects on the young people who participate, such programs offer valuable experience and a source of revenue to artists.
Vital
Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940-1960
by Brooke Kamin Rapaport and Kevin L. Stanyon, Brooklyn Museum of Art
in association with Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 800-345-1359; 256 pages,
essays by Paul Boyer, Martin Filler, Mildred Friedman, Karal Ann Marling,
illustrated. $49.50.
It is the premise of this catalog, companion to a touring exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art through January 6, that with the advent of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, many architects, artists and designers responded to the anxieties of the age with creations that emphasized the human body and living forms. Furniture, sculptures and lamps by Noguchi, Eames chairs and Calder stabiles and jewelry are pictured here and discussed, as are Cadillac tail fins, the kidney-shaped swimming pool, the Slinky and Al Capp's Shmoo. Brooke Kamin Rapaport focuses on "vital" or "organic" imagery in works by William Baziotes, Willem De Kooning, Jackson Pollock and other American artists, while Martin Filler discusses organic form, in architecture, ceramics, glass and metal, as illustrated by the works of Eero Saarinen, Morris Lapidus, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Peter Voulkos, Maija Grotell, Russel Wright, Eva Zeisel, Maurice Heaton, Michael Higgins and Hans Christensen.
Quilting
Lessons: Notes from the Scrap Bag of a Writer and Quilter
by Janet Catherine Berlo, 2001, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln,
402-472-3581; 145 pages. $20.
At the beginning of this gracefully written memoir, Janet Catherine Berlo, an art historian and normally prolific writer who specializes in Native American art and gender studies, has come down with writer's block in the middle of a book manuscript and for months has been immersed morning to night in making patchwork quilts. "I don't answer the phone or the doorbell. My job is all-day, intensive color and pattern therapy. I am piecing for cover. I am quilting to save my life." As she chronicles her "quilt madness," Berlo explores relationships with family, friends and colleagues and her struggle to realize the artist in herself that has perhaps been stifled by her academic career. By turns touching and humorous, the narrative partakes of the "serendipity" and "simultaneity" the author finds in quilting—she includes recipes, bits of quilt history, Native American lore and some insights courtesy of psychotherapy. When finally she ventures back to her scholarly pursuits, she does so with greater spontaneity, a playfulness gained from her "quilting lessons."
Grain
of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft
by Ross A. Laird, 2001, Walker and Company, New York, NY, 212-727-8300;
188 pages, illustrated. $23.
Though he is not a woodworker by profession, the craft of making wood objects by hand is central to the life of Ross A. Laird, a poet, essayist and psychotherapist living in British Columbia, to judge from this meditation on creativity and craftsmanship. In eight chapters based on the ancient Taoist symbols of life energy, Laird describes the process of making a hand plane, a box to hold his wife's grandmother's ashes, a marimba for his children, a garden lantern, handles for a cabinet. His precise descriptions of the inspiration, materials and physical labor involved in each project open out into reflections on his childhood, nature and family. Conveying a moment of profound discouragement that is redeemed by persevering, he writes, "The curious thing about wood is that it does not allow me to give up. It cajoles and prods, it demands that I keep my end of the bargain and bring out its hidden forms. At times it even taught me, this ancient material possessed of its own craftiness."
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