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September Issue 2004
Gallery WDO in Charlotte, NC, Offers a Tribute Exhibition to the Penland School of Craft
Gallery WDO in Charlotte, NC will feature the
exhibit, Good Honest Work! A Tribute to Penland School of Crafts
from Sept. 7 through Oct. 9, 2004. The exhibition will feature
works by Toshiko Takaezu, Cristina Cordova, Randall Darwall, Shane
Fero, Hoss Haley, Karen Karnes, Marc Maiorana, Craig Nutt and
Byron Temple.
The Penland School of Crafts is celebrating its 75th year. Gallery
WDO is celebrating its 10th. The galley has shown the work of
many of the residents and teachers whose works are part of the
special ingredients that combined make Penland. Gallery WDO, the
only "objects" gallery in Charlotte to consistently
offer important museum quality work, has selected nine artists
who are part of the "Penland legacy" embodying the best
in honest craftsmanship and imagination.
Toshiko Takaezu (b. 1929), born in Hawaii of
Japanese descent, has been working in clay for over 40 years.
She is one of the most important contemporary artists working
in clay. In her 80's, she is has earned the honor of being designated
a national treasure. Her work has developed steadily throughout
her career as she has moved from producing functional vessels
to abstract sculptural forms. Over the years Takaezu has continued
to draw on a combination of Eastern and Western techniques and
aesthetics, as well as her love of the natural world.
For Takaezu, the practice of building vessels in clay is intimately
linked to everyday life: "In my life I see no difference
between making pots, cooking, and growing vegetables. They are
all so related. However there is a need for me to work in clay.
It is so gratifying and I get so much joy from it, and it gives
me many answers in my life."
Throughout her career, Takaezu has explored
a select repertoire of forms, often focusing on the vertical closed
vessel that has become a symbol of her work. While her earlier
pieces were almost exclusively wheel-thrown, as she began envisioning
larger forms she incorporated hand building techniques as well,
which allowed her to grow her vessels vertically and eased the
circular restrictions of the wheel. The simple, cohesive structures
Takaezu is now well known for are united by their common form
but gain individual character through the painterly aspects of
their surface decoration.
Takaezu's spontaneous approach to glazing, in which she walks
around the vessel freely applying glaze through pouring and painting,
balances her more methodical building process and allows her to
add an improvisational element to her work. Another important
aspect of Takaezu's involvement in clay has been her roll as a
teacher. Her love for clay is infectious, and she has shared it
in many forms. In addition to her 23 years of teaching at Princeton
and the many workshops she has performed, she has given her time
to generations of apprentices. The many awards and honors she
has received, from the Hawaii Living Treasure Award to her honorary
doctorate degree from the University of Princeton, demonstrate
the wide range of people and institutions that find inspiration,
history, and meaning in her work and life.
Cristina Cordova is currently artist in residence at the Penland School of Crafts. Her sensitive and haunting ceramic and resin figurative sculptures have won her high critical praise and a loyal following.
Randall Darwall is one of America's premier weavers and colorists. His annual collections are never repeated and each scarf or shawl is a work of art. These scarves are collectibles recognized the world over by connoisseurs of the art of weaving.
Shane Fero is one of the most admired flameworking
glass artist working today.
Hoss Haley - Much of the inspiration for his work comes from industrial
forms.
Vermontartist Karen Karnes is one of the foremost
ceramic artists living in the United States today. Born in New
York City in 1925 and educated at Brooklyn College and Alfred
University, she was a student at Black Mountain College during
the summer of 1946. In the early fifties she and her husband headed
the ceramics department at the short-lived, but influential Black
Mountain College. The avant-garde artists, Robert Rauschenberg
and John Cage were among the many creative minds at Black Mountain
College during this period in history. Another leading figure
in ceramic art today, the late Peter Voulkos also taught a summer
course in the early 1950's.
After leaving Black Mountain College Karnes moved to Stony Point,VT,
a rural area one hour from New York City. It was during the twenty-five
years spent here that she honed her skills in traditional manner
of pottery. Karnes reveled in her role as the local potter because
it allowed for personal relationships. This simple way of life
awarded her great pleasure with modest economic rewards. Karnes
currently lives in Morgan,VT. She, more than anyone else alive,
is the grandmother of American ceramics. Known for her stoneware
casseroles, she also makes wheel-thrown sculptural vessels that
have heft and grace, often with a soft sensuous mouth; her palette
is focused on greens, blues, and purples. Karnes first exhibited
with the Ceramic National at the Everson Museum in 1950, won the
Fletcher Challenge Merit Award in 1992 and a gold metal from the
American Craft Council in 1998. Public collections that include
her work are Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.
In Karnes' wood-fired pieces, the ash from the kiln creates a speckled effect which gives it a light and airy quality. The anthropomorphic shapes of the vessel lend a sensual quality. Light flows through the space of the vessel through a small opening in the center. Her work unmistakably remains grounded in the traditions of pottery even though her latest pieces are rooted in Modernism. When Karnes' studio and house in Morgan, caught fire in 1998, Karnes knew it would be only minutes before the entire structure burned to the ground. By the time the firefighters arrived, nothing could be done except keep the fire, which had started spontaneously in the old wooden framing above one of the kilns, from spreading to the nearby guest cabin. With the support and encouragement of the craft community, she reestablished her studio and has continued to produce significant work.
Marc Maiorana, the current metal resident at the Penland School of Crafts, is a young artist to be admired and watched as he develops his elegant minimalist style.
Craig Nutt is one the most important studio furniture artists in the United States. He creates furniture and sculpture in his studio near Nashville, TN. Nutt's meticulous craftsmanship is infused with a sense of freedom and spontaneity drawn from his early work in painting, assemblage and improvised music. He employs a wide variety of wood working techniques including turning, carving, traditional joinery and steam bending as well as oil painting and lacquering techniques to works that often draw inspiration from the garden. Nutt's imaginative works are found in many major museum collections as well as in private homes and corporate collections.
Byron Temple, 1933-2002 is also featured. Exploration of Scandinavian design combined with the already strong influence of his years of working with Bernard Leach, in England, enabled Temple to produce work, which is straightforward, almost classical in its restraint, and inviting.
Works by the artists Toshiko Takaezu, Randall Darwall, Shane Fero, Hoss Haley, Craig Nutt, and Byron Temple are in the Mint Museum of Craft + Design's exhibit The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience on view through Jan. 30, 2005.
For more information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 704/333-9123, or on the web at (www.gallerywdo.com).
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