Understated Beauty @ Society of Arts and Crafts

In visiting the Society of Arts and Crafts to see their 2012 Artist Awards Exhibit, I was captivated by Abigail Anne Newbold's work, particularly her excavation tools.

Homemaker Series, Transportation with Excavation Tools

Bike and panier with accompanying tools

Paniers: leather, sheepskin, and linen

Tools: walnut with found steel tool heads, brass

2010

©Abigail Anne Newbold

Her combination of finely crafted but old, forgotten (and reclaimed) steel tool heads with gorgeous hand-made wooden handles is simple in concept and understated in execution but stunning to experience. If you get a chance to look at them up close or, better yet, get to touch them, they really are memorable.

Pickax

steel and walnut

Pickax (closeup)

These textured surfaces that she has uncovered from what must have been discarded and rusty tools are just wonderful. In most circumstances, they would probably be overlooked, but she has brought new life into them by celebrating their years of neglect and combining them with beautiful new handles (you can feel their hand-made facets as you hold them).

pitch-rake?

steel, walnut, and brass

pitch-rake? (closeup)

She has also added some fine brass elements to the pitch-forkish rake-like tool (pitch-rake?) above as well as the shovel below. Along with the walnut lumber, it provides an interesting contrast of impractical elegance against utilitarian design.

shovel (closeup)

 

shovel and mini-hoe(?)

steel, walnut, and brass

 I like how the steel raps around the handle on this hoe. I think it reminds me of some kind of old-fashioned candy but I'm having trouble remembering exactly what it is, hard candy? taffy? toffee? I'm not sure, but the style definitely indicates care and fine craft in its making. I think it is wonderful that Abigail could combine it with something impractical so that the work could finally (after so many years of toil and abuse) be appreciated for what it is rather than what it can do.

mini-hoe(?) (closeup)

Whether intended or not, I read her work as a metaphor for life. How scars and toil can be transformed into beauty and how people (not just tools) can and should be appreciated beyond their "practical" value. It is subtle work but I read a real powerful message behind it. 

Residency at Vermont Studio Center

I was at the Vermont Studio Center last week for a one week residency with 59 other Vermont artists. One week isn't really enough time to get a significant amount of work done, but it was a good opportunity to focus on work for a week and meet other Vermont artists.

I've decided to dedicate this year to working on my Flag Proposal Series so I had prepared three of them to work on during my stay at VSC. After a couple of days I realized my goals for what I was going to accomplish were completely unreasonable. I've always known that my process was slow but I thought that if I had a week to just focus without having to worry about cooking and shopping or any of the other various distractions I normally have, that I would get a lot done. I learned that the work is just slow, regardless of how many other things I have to do.

By way of background, this series is part of my efforts to get the American flag replaced with one of my designs. I've completed three already and I hope to get enough of them done by the end of the year for a show. After last week I think this goal may be unreasonable but I'm trying to focus to see how far I can get. I'll be real happy if I can finish six this year.

This first one, a nine-sided flag, has been the biggest struggle design-wise. The middle section is the second I've made for it and I'm still not happy, though I need to look at the images more to decide what to do. I'm also not sure about the orientation either -- horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. 

I'm happy with the direction and progress of this one, trapezoid flag. I still need to paint the center but I'm not worried about it at this point. I think the salamander-shaped, epoxy-filled, knot in the future blue-ish section is a great addition.  

This final one, double-star or double-sun flag, I am worried about because I know how difficult it will be for construct. I need to fit all the pieces together so they overlap but are still offset by about an eighth of an inch. I'm not looking forward to the assembly but at least I have the excuse of having to fix my router and finishing the others before getting back to it. I thought I would finish the other two and get well into this one during my time at VSC but I still have a ways to go on the others and I never touched this one, other than to arrange it. 

The overlapping circles are constructed, and will be painted, like this older piece, Forever Holiday, except with variations of blue rather than red, yellow blue:

To see the direction of the work, here are images of the first ones:

First Flag

shellac on curly maple, cherry, and bird's-eye maple

24" x 41" x 1"

2009

 Starry Night Flag

shellac on curly maple, cherry, and bird's-eye maple

26.5" x 26.5" x 1

2010

  Inverted Chevron Flag

shellac on curly maple, curly birch, and bird's-eye maple

53" x 34" x 1.5"

2010

Casting Convention Aside: Bart Niswonger @ Gallery NAGA

Having seen Bart Niswonger's work a number of times, I've known he was an innovative furniture maker, but his first solo show at Gallery NAGA is surprising in just how dramatically he has been able to innovate. Bart is clearly the type of artist that can't repeat himself. Though his previous work is good enough that he could spend a lifetime turning out variations of his existing designs, and I wouldn't begrudge him at all for doing it - any reasonable person would, instead he has used his previous work as just a starting point.


In this first piece, he has cast urethane in his trademark carved ash molds for the base, and created an ash top that he also used as a mold for two other pieces in the show. Though not over-powering in scale or design, I consider it, and its sister piece below, two of the most unconventional and innovative pieces of furniture I've ever seen. Conventionally, one would expect a table top to be flat (I don't remember ever seeing one that wasn't -- or at least wasn't supposed to be), but these have obstacles on them, creators that create a risk for someone placing a drink down on them without paying attention, it may spill. Though I have no idea what Bart's intention with this design was, I think the result is brilliant. It forces the user to pay attention to their actions. With these, you can't just blindly proceed through life, out of habit, not knowing what you are doing, rather, you are forced to think and be aware of your surroundings. The result is a mindful piece that I believe the Buddha would be appreciate. Though using them may not lead to enlightenment, I'm sure they can help move the user in that direction. Perhaps the world would be a better place if all tables came with such features. Maybe this will start a movement that Ikea will eventually catch on to -- we can only hope.

Black Side Table

ash, cast urethane, paint

2012

Black Side Table (closeup)

The simple base on this piece along with its understated opaque white top is in complete contrast to the radically unconventional design. 

Coffee Table

ash, cast urethane

2012

In this image you can see that the cast urethane picks up the ash grain pattern perfectly.

Coffee Table (closeup)

Given the pattern of the mounds in this medicine cabinet, I'm pretty certain it was also cast from the first piece. I like how the addition of yellow in the circles creates a complementary color that, along with the circle grain pattern, results in a nice, unique, polka dot effect. 

Medicine Cabinet
ash, cast urethane, paint
2012

Though Bart envisioned it as a medicine cabinet, I noticed on his website that he has a very broad understanding of "medicine" such that I wouldn't be surprised to see it holding Scotch in his own household. 

Medicine Cabinet (inside)

I'm not sure how the Buddha would feel about Bart's Ball Side Table but, aesthetically, it is my favorite piece in the show. I've seen him use this wave pattern (on the carcass) a number of times before but this time he decorated the peaks with random sized spheres, creating a very playful effect. But the really great thing he did with the piece is in casting a urethane (removable) top to provide a beautiful and interesting flat surface.

Ball Side Table

ash, maple, cast urethane, paint

2012

Aside from the obvious aesthetics, the reason I think this piece is so interesting is that he first cast the urethane on ash (you can see the grain pattern below, the imprint is on the underside) then, before the urethane fully hardened, he was able to imprint the spheres into it so that there is a perfect alignment between the two. 

Ball Side Table (closeup)

Remarkably, he was able to maintain the ash grain pattern in the urethane even as it was distorted by the spheres (you can barely see this below).

Ball Side Table (closeup)

In this final piece, Bart appears to have decorated the cabinet with cast flowers, but he actually used winter squash to create the molds.

Red Yellow Cabinet

ash, cherry, cast urethane, paint

2012

With the door open, you can see that though his work is conceptually radical, he still uses the finest traditional craftsmanship in his construction. 

Red Yellow Cabinet (inside)

By the way, in case you are interested in how Bart cuts the circle/holes in these pieces, as I learned in writing an earlier post, he uses a custom build vertical mill (a tool typically used for drilling in metal) that he modified for woodworking. A reasonable person would never consider going to the trouble but, thankfully, Bart is completely unreasonable. 

Irrelevantly Wood: Ellsworth Kelly @ Boston MFA

In January I visited Boston's Museum of Fine Art to see the Ellsworth Kelly exhibit, Wood Sculpture (September 18, 2011- March 4, 2012) and I have been mulling it over ever since. The show included 19 of the 30 wood sculptures that he made between 1958 and 1996. I was anxious to see it to learn what Kelly, one of the most acclaimed living artists, had done with wood, particularly because I thought it would be interesting to see how he applied his trademark minimalist style to the medium. 

So I saw, and I thought, and I looked some more, and I thought some more, and I read and reread all the reviews I could find on-line, and I talked to as many people as I could find that had also seen the show. The problem is, I didn't trust my own lack of enthusiasm for the show. I was concerned that I was missing something, that I just didn't know enough about art, or what the artist was doing, to really appreciate it. Though I honestly wanted to love the work, I couldn't convince myself to even like it and I was looking for reasons why. But then I came across this bronze Kelly sculpture, which is essentially the same form as three of the pieces in the show, and I realized what the problem is with this series of wood sculptures:

Untitled

Bronze

1986

(Image taken from the Nasher Sculpture Center website)

He was using the wrong medium. The piece above I can appreciate. It is a minimalist form made with a medium that doesn't compete with it. It is one monotone color, a man-made material used to depict an artificial, man-made form. The two work together. The forms Kelly has created in this MFA show, on the other hand, compete with the medium. The more I look at the work, the more I wonder why he chose to make them out of wood. The best I can come up with is that he has a genuine appreciation for the medium and he thought, since he is an artist, he could make something with it. But then, he never took into account what the medium required, he just applied the same art he would make in any other medium and assumed it would work. I don't think it does.

Wood is different than most media that artists work with, it is a once living organism so it has variety and character. The grain pattern has its own designs and the tree has its own history. With minimalist sculpture these things need to taken into account because they stare the viewer directly in the face -- form and medium, nothing else.

For comparison, Kelly's work as got me thinking a lot about the Hank Gilpin show I saw at Gallery NAGA a couple of years ago. Gilpin's wood sculptures were also minimalist but were brilliant in their ability take the medium into account in constructing the sculpture (specifically, I'm referring to the last three images in this post). In them, he has used his considerable skill to let the beauty of the wood be at the forefront. They are understated in manipulation and design so that the visually power could come from the wood itself. There is no doubt in Gilpin's work why wood would be used, the work couldn't have been made with any other media. In contrast, Kelly's work seems stiff, industrial, and artificial. Though all these things may be worth capturing in art, I don't see why one would do it with wood. In this case the medium seems to be an irrelevant afterthought that was never taken into consideration in designing the work.

But look at the images yourself and tell me what you think, especially if you saw the show in person. Maybe I'm missing something, I'm happy to be proven wrong and even happier to come to appreciate the work. 

As a side note, the museum, understandably, didn't allow photography but, unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a press pass either. Consequently, I took the images clandestinely. In some cases this resulted photographs from angles I didn't prefer, however, through a combination of persistence and luck, I was at least able to photograph everything in the show (though it took about five visits over three and a half hours).

These first five pieces are all relatively small, probably no more than 24 inches in any one direction. From what I've read, I think Kelly made the first three himself (but I'm not sure), all the others were fabricated by Peter Carlson, a well known and widely used fabricator for major contemporary artists.

Concord in Relief I

Elm

1958

 Form in Relief

Walnut

1958

 Palm Relief

oak

1958

Concord in Relief II

Walnut

1978

Regardless what can be said about the design of the above piece, I find the fabrication deeply troubling. I am really appalled that Kelly allowed it to be displayed with such an obvious defect, the tear-out in the bottom right corner of the top section. I'm not really sure how anybody could put this piece together and not notice or care about fixing it. Perhaps Peter thought that such a simple design could have been made by anyone and assigned it to an inexperienced staffer, but then didn't provide any oversight before shipped it off. And maybe Kelly thought it was too much trouble to ship it back. But really? With such a small and simple piece, all there is to see is the tear out (how could your eye go anywhere else?). Worse yet, I'm not even sure how it is possible to get this much tear out with walnut, it is such an easy wood to work. But even so, to fix it would have just taken a couple of minutes. Of course, one could make up some convoluted art-speak explanation about how it symbolizes such and such but since any explanation would be completely contrary to everything else Kelly has every created, the only reasonable explanation is amateurism and laziness -- not really something that you would expect from an artist of this caliber.

Concord in Relief II (closeup)

The piece below is the same design as at least one two tone painting he has done. I feel that this one could have definitely used two colors as well. Selecting two contrasting colored species would have at least added more interest to the work. I think that using the same design as a previous painting for this wood sculpture only highlights a problem with all of these pieces, the monotonous brown tones of the wood within this minimalist framework doesn't add to the design, it just makes it bland. 

Untitled

Teak

1978

This untitled piece is the first of his large scale wood sculptures. Because of the guards, I wasn't able to get a straight on image but you can see a better one here. 

Untitled

Teak

1978

The piece below was used in the promotion of the exhibit. It is also a similar design to some monochrome paintings and sculptures he has made. Again, in comparison, this piece doesn't really make any sense. In a monochrome, the design can be very soothing, but to make this out of wood they needed to glue about 13 different boards together (they didn't even take the time to match the color and grain, each board probably came from a different tree), creating a helter skelter image that competes with the form. Rather than soothing, this piece creates a lot of (I suspect unintentional) anxiety.

Curve XXI

Birch

1978-80

Curve in Relief IV

red oak

1981

Concorde Relief IV

teak

1982-3

One thing I like about all of these floor sculptures is the brazen confidence it takes to create work that requires the displaying venue to drill holes in the floor.

Curve XXXVI

Wenge

1984

Curve XXXVII

sycamore

1984

The piece above is an elongated version of the form below.

Curve XXXVIII

maple

1984

Curve XXXVIII (side view)

 Diagonal with Curve XVI

mahogany

1984

Untitled

Padouk

1984

Interestingly, this piece, Curve XLIII, was the only one in which Kelly used a board with any figure. Unfortunately, even the beautiful quilting in this sapele doesn't really add anything to the piece as whole. The form and the medium still seem to be completely separate objects, irrelevant to one another.

Curve XLIII

sapele

1984

Curve XLII

Zebrawood

1984

Curve XL

English Elm

1984 

Again, the design below seemed to be a good opportunity to highlight two different, complementary, shapes with two different colors, perhaps two different species but I think even better would have been to paint two different colors on wood. As it is, with one color, the piece just seems flat and boring, nothing more to hold one's interest other than the question, "why?"

Curve in Relief V

red oak

1984

The more I thought about this last piece, a fifteen foot high, four(?) inch thick slab of redwood, the more I found it disturbing. Yes, it's monumental size is impressive, but when I think of the tree that the piece came from, I feel sadness and disappointment. He seems to have used an enormous and beautiful redwood tree for its size alone without adding anything. Out of any other material, stone, metal, glass, ceramics, plastic, it would be impressive, he would have created something from nothing, but here, he is taking something great and reduced it to something that is so much less. I think an apology is in order.

Untitled

Redwood 

1996

Untitled (second view)

Untitled (closeup) 

What do you think?