ACC Reads 2013: Favorite Passages Part Two

As we make our way through Christopher Benfey's three part memoir, Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay, we wanted to again highlight some of our favorite passages, this time from part two. Benfey focuses the second section of his narrative on Black Mountain College in North Carolina and the experimentation in art and education taking place there between the 1930s-50s under the direction of his great aunt and uncle, weaver Anni Albers and painter Josef Albers, as well as other influential artists of the time including Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and the potter Karen Karnes and her then husband, David Weinrib.

Later Benfey explores the work of Ruth Asawa, the Japanese American artist and student of Black Mountain known for her wire and bronze sculptures, and pays a visit to Karnes at her studio in the remote reaches of Vermont. From there we learn more about Black Mountain and how the ideas produced in this time and place in history continue to be influential today.

A few key observations from Benfey:    

I can see now that I was retracing, in some half-conscious way, earlier journeys, trying to feel between finger and thumb some thread of trauma and survival from those earlier generations. I wanted to know how suffering had found us, and what we had made of it. I wanted to be able to touch it, like the frayed edge of my serape, with its jagged and esoteric key design.

...

Walking up the monumental staircase [at Robert E. Lee Hall at Black Mountain College], Anni was puzzled to see notices nailed to the marble columns. On closer inspection, she found that the columns were made of wood. It was a first lesson that American things were not always what they appeared to be.

...

For Josef and Anni Albers, however, the meander was the quintessentially American shape. "Nowhere has it been cultivated more through all periods," Josef noted, "than by the Amerindians from the northern Tlingits to the most southern Araucanians, in building, sculpture, painting, and particularly in weaving and pottery." After their arrival in America, the Alberses came to see the meander as an emblem of their own winding path through the world.

...

I came to realize, as we spoke, that [Karen] Karnes belonged to a fast-disappearing generation of artists who had lived through an amazing flowering of American art and culture. During that period, she had been both a witness and a participant. Her gnarled and sensitive hands had handled clay for 60 years, and clay had taken her on some unexpected journeys.

...

…I felt that this divide at the heart of Black Mountain might have been more specific, something on the order of Nietzsche's division of the artistic impulse into Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies. On one side was everything that Josef and Anni Albers represented: the quiet, orderly, self-effacing, conscious, and clean-edged exploration of the nature of materials and the principles of design…There was a countervailing spirit at Black Mountain, however, and David Weinrib was the perfect embodiment of it. That spirit was anarchic, chaotic, performative, self-expressive… I realized that Black Mountain College, for the 24 years of its existence, had drawn its energies from the tensions of this divide. What is remarkable, in retrospect, is not how quickly the experiment died but rather how long it held together for so many vibrant people.

A wine and cheese reception with author Christopher Benfey will be held from 6-7 p.m. on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, at the ACC's Baltimore Wholesale Show. Following the reception Benfey will give the keynote address, "Why We Care About Craft: A Backward Glance at Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay." Click here to  purchase tickets to Benfey's address.

Also, don't miss our meeting of the ACC Reads book club, hosted by Celeste Sollod, the Baltimore Bibliophile, on Friday, February 22, 2013, at the American Craft Council Show. In addition to our in-person meet-up, we invite all participants to share their impressions of the book, fun facts, and unique connections to craft by following us on Twitter at @craftcouncil and using the Twitter hashtag #ACCReads. You don't have to be a Twitter user to participate - just check here for the latest Tweets tagged #ACCReads.