August Issue 2000
Dyan And Gary Peterson Works Featured In Focus Gallery in Asheville, NC
Coming to the Folk Art Center's Focus Gallery in Asheville, NC, on Aug. 9 and remaining on view until Sept. 21 are the works of Asheville couple Dyan and Gary Peterson. Within the intimate space of the Focus Gallery, highlighting innovations of individual members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Dyan Peterson's impressive gourd art will provide an accent to Gary's handsome wood furniture in a show entitled Boards and Gourds.
"I was pollinated by the "Fairy Gourdmother,"" Dyan laughs about her sudden inspiration to be a gourd artist in 1995, "I was on cloud nine for a while after I first touched a gourd." Primarily self taught, Dyan's first experience with gourd art changed the course of her life. After experiments with surface treatments on gourds, what developed with this natural, lightweight vessel of myriad shapes and sizes was a fascination which has come to stay. Her work has become nationally known in a short time, and is featured in 12 books, including Lark's release The Complete Book of Gourd Craft and Sterling's Gilding Gourds. Ideas for Dyan's gourds come easily, as she finds there is either an idea waiting for the right gourd, or a gourd that's waiting for the perfect idea. Says craft writer Jane LaFerla of her work, "Dyan is a gourd artist whose fertile mind produces ideas as fast as a gourd vine produces blossoms in June."
Gourds grow readily anywhere in full sun, but gourd artists must give them at least six months to "cure" in the field before harvesting. Once dried, with seeds rattling inside, the gourds are ready to be cut and cleaned for artwork. Dyan decorates with many surface techniques using inks, stains and paints, and also by carving and burning the surface. In this show, the fill range of her work will be on display. Her lightweight gourd jewelry is made either from miniature gourds less than 2" in diameter, or smoothed chips of larger gourds. One gourd, decorated with cutwork, becomes a luminary with an open top. Gourd dolls will also be on display, each made with five dipper gourds, sheeps' wool, feathers, and other natural materials. A bowl with handcarved oak handles will be featured as well as larger decorative gourds that she admits are really "out of the "gourdinary."
Gary Peterson grew up in Pasadena, California, an area rich with Arts and Crafts architecture from the early 20th century. Surrounded by neighborhoods of Arts and Crafts style "bungalows" designed by the famous Greene Brothers, Gary acquired a deep admiration for these handmade structures, their "honest" aesthetic, and the down-to-earth philosophy behind them. When he became a woodworker in 1972, it was natural to follow the common sense approach of these influences in his custom furniture and cabinetry.
The Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction to the ornate, and often mass-produced furniture of the Victorian era. Attention to function, durability and hand craftsmanship were the basis of the Arts and Crafts movement started over a century ago. Says Gary of the furniture of that era, "Antique mission furniture is at least seventy years old, and many pieces are still as functional as the day they were made." Today, Gary's line of hand-made furniture bears striking resemblance to the mission style of Gustav Stickley, with sensible lines and hand-cut joinery.
While not interested in exactly reproducing antique designs, Gary creates original adaptations of the rectilinear designs and conscientious hand-craftsmanship of the era. His materials are authentic, mostly quarter-sawn, solid white oak timber boards, finished with shellac or stains. Gary designs furniture with the same life-expectancy as the period pieces, and if in the unlikely event of damage by mistreatment, each piece is made "highly repairable" for years to come. In each piece visitors can see the careful integration of beauty and function, described at the time as "Art that is Life." In this show, he will display tables, a "hall tree" with a mirror and coat hooks, and several other functional designs.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the center at 828/298-7928.
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