Potter and painter Henry Varnum Poor understood that building a house might bring
him fame, but could he have foreseen that his home might restore his artistic legacy?
Laurel Porcari sculpts architectural glass in her New Orleans studio. Glass requires technique and some heavy lifting. It is a hot, physically demanding process. Porcari embeds drawings and textures in the medium. Asked to describe the kiln-formed works, she speaks conceptually about mapping and flow, about scale and place. Given these terms and her Big Easy address, it's easy to presume that the artist's designs reference the broken levees and flooded neighborhoods wrought by Hurricane Katrina. They don't. Porcari doesn't go in for the literal.
Joyce Lovelace wonders what to make of the generation of craft artists born between 1958 and 1964. Who are they? What do they think? And, of course, what do they make?
Heath Ceramics, founded in 1944, grew into an unconventional amalgam of craft, design and manufacturing, and has gone on to become one of the most celebrated, slighted and generally misunderstood workshops…
Lenore Tawney's life spanned a century of change: turbulence, wars, upheavals and unimaginable technological advances. She herself was a catalyst for an artistic revolution. Yet her presence was serene and spiritual as she fearlessly pursued a vision that emanated from a deep inner devotion to living and working wholly. Her vitality was grounded in an openness to new ideas and new people-the embrace of the human condition as a journey.
Robert Sullivan wondered why the two Portlands loom large in the world of craft in the United States. After two weeks exploring both cities and their environs, he has some ideas.
The North Carolina artist Randy Shull likes to explore all sorts of media-from furniture and sculpture to painting and woodcarving. However, he may have met his biggest challenge renovating his own house and then that of a friend right down the street.
Lily Kane gets to know the Brooklyn-based brothers William and Steven Ladd, whose projects-elaborate beaded objects in personalized packaging-flow freely between the worlds of fashion, design, art and craft.
