Where Form Meets Function
Art
CLIFF LEE was an overworked and exhausted neurosurgeon whose life was forever changed when a patient suggested making pots would help him relax. The doctor, born to Taiwanese parents, was forbidden to touch clay as a child. In his culture, clay was the equivalent of dirt, and only the poor and uneducated became potters. Still, Lee was intrigued with the idea. He installed a potter’s wheel in his basement and fell in love with the medium. At 27, he abandoned his successful career in medicine to create award-winning vessels from his Pennsylvania-based studio.
Lee’s sensuous Flambé Teardrop Vase can be viewed along with more than 100 other examples of American ingenuity in “Craft in America: Expanding Traditions,” through January 27 at Balboa Park’s Mingei International Museum. The two-year touring exhibit is augmented by the companion book Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects and a PBS TV documentary series that premiered earlier this year.
The show is significant in a historical sense because it reflects American culture and artistic trends. There are works from the Arts & Crafts Movement, the 1930s Work Projects Administration program and the post–World War II Studio Craft Movement. What is particularly compelling is the way utilitarian items express the personality and expertise of the artist. Like longtime married couples who can complete each other’s sentences, master crafters have a lengthy and continuously evolving relationship with their chosen medium. And they use that medium to communicate. The artists of this exhibit transcend the strengths and limitations of wood, stone, glass and fiber to create functional fine art infused with attitude.
The “Craft in America” projects were a decade in the making. One of the great challenges was choosing artisans who created the best work in their category over the course of two centuries.
“We had to be very selective,” says chief curator Jo Lauria, who also wrote the companion book with creative director Steve Fenton. “For every one person included in the exhibition and book, there may be 60 others worthy of inclusion. It’s a hard decision for any curator, but we had to decide based on mastery of a medium.”
One of the featured masters is the late Allan Adler, known as the “silversmith to the stars.” He handmade exquisite silver teapots, tableware and jewelry for a celebrity client list including Frank Sinatra, Steven Spielberg, President John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt. In the 1950s, he was commissioned to create the Miss United States crown and Miss Universe crown. The glittering gold and silver tiaras are displayed in the exhibit.
Visitors will also see Double Rocker by Sam Maloof, and George Nakashima’s Connoid Bench with Back, a walnut seat with a back support fashioned from hand-shaved hickory spindles. Both exemplify the painstaking woodworking techniques that have made furniture by these artists coveted by collectors.
While many works showcased are well-known, Lauria was determined to include seldom-seen objects. The 8-foot-high portal titled Gate, created by blacksmith C. Carl Jennings, is believed to have been stored away since the California Design Exhibition in 1971. The maze of delicate iron bars, tipped with asymmetrical copper rectangles, evokes the vision one sees when looking straight up at the lacy branches of a lofty tree.
“Jennings is a very underrecognized and underappreciated artist,” Lauria says. “His gate has a light feeling, which thrilled me to death. Having been in this field for 15 years, I go to a lot of exhibitions and see the usual suspects. I wanted to avoid that. I wanted a few surprises in there.”
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