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Cover
Feature: Prehistoric Mosaic Jewelry of the American
Southwest.
Mina Norton A Playful Classicism. Laura McCabe
Beadwork Fusions. Devta Doolan An Aesthetic of Simplicity.
Breaking the Mode. Kee-Ho Yuen Orchestration
of Contraries. Exhibition Uncommon Metals. Venue
American Craft Show in Baltimore. Bead Arts Trajectories.
Venue CRAFTBOSTON. Exhibition Power
Dressing. Marketplace House of Gems.
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Cover
Feature: Prehistoric Mosaic Jewelry of the American Southwest |
by
Robert
K. Liu |
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Over
two decades ago, archaeologist Grahame Clark (1986) incisively examined
why precious materials were regarded as expressions of status. Since
the Upper Paleolithic, ivory and shell have been accorded such status;
for instance, the Aegean mussel, Spondylus gaederopus, was widely used
some five thousand years ago for personal adornments in Neolithic Europe,
the Balkans and in the Aegean, especially by those living along the
Rhine and the Danube basins, providing evidence of both their value
and long distance trade of some twenty-five hundred kilometers (Clark
1986, Ifantidis 2006). This mirrors to some extent the use of Spondylus
shells and jewelry made from their shells in the prehistoric American
Southwest, West Mexico, Mesoamerica, and many cultures along the Pacific
coast, from Mexico to Peru (Liu 2005). Here, the longest distance traveled
by rafting spondylus traders was about thirty-eight hundred kilometers,
between Ecuador and West Mexico (Anawalt 1998). Even prehistoric Hohokam
of Arizona covered between two to six hundred kilometers in their expeditions
to gather marine shells from the Pacific coast (Bayman 2002: 83, Doyel
in Crown and Judge 1991: 241). Photographs by Robert K. Liu/Ornament,
courtesy of the Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, California
or the Arizona State Museum, Tucson.
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Mina
Norton |
by
Robin Updike |
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A
PLAYFUL CLASSICISM
On an autumn afternoon in her studio Mina Norton is seated behind an
industrial sewing machine, head bent over her work as she guides one
of her nearly finished knit jackets under the machine’s needle.
The machine stitches a delicate arabesque of golden chain stitches onto
the front placket. It is the final decorative touch. At Norton’s
feet is one of her two beloved dogs, an extrovertish Corgi that likes
to keep one ear cocked for the delivery guy. The other dog watches from
its perch on a nearby sofa. A radio is tuned to a classical music station
and the plangent strains of a piano concerto waft through the room.
It is a charmingly serene scene. Photographs by Jacques De Melo.
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Laura
McCabe |
by
Pat Worrell |
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BEADWORK
FUSIONS
With recent discoveries of perforated shell beads, the history
of personal adornment with beads is now thought to extend back one hundred
thousand years. Beads have crossed cultural lines, geographical boundaries
and spiritual divisions to become a tradition embedded in modern times.
Beadweaving artist Laura McCabe feels strongly about history and traditions
in general, and especially those concerning beadwork. In fast-paced
modern times geared more toward computers, manufacturing and instant
gratification, beadweaving may strike some as too time-consuming and
too exacting. But this enthusiastic artist works hard to keep the traditions,
techniques and appreciation of the ancient craft alive.
“In a world of human differences, beadwork is a common link, fulfilling
the most fundamental human needs,” says McCabe. “There’s
something magical about beads. As objects, they’re fascinating.
I just
love looking at them. Beads have such an ancient history, intertwined
with humankind. I feel like I’m continuing the tradition in some
manner.” Indeed, it is history that links almost every part of
her life, from her physical environment and educational pursuits to
her passions and her work. Photographs by Robert K. Liu/Ornament
(left), and by Melinda Holden (right).
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Devta
Doolan |
by
Carl Little |
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AN AESTHETIC
OF SIMPLICITY
Well on his way to marking three decades spent in the pursuit of creating
remarkable jewelry, Devta Doolan takes a seat in a sunny corner of
his Portland, Maine, studio on a Saturday morning in autumn to talk
about the evolution of his work. Doolan reviews a rewarding career,
with guiding principles, sidetracks and triumphs. It is when he gets
to the latest work, what he is working on right now, that Doolan becomes
fully engaged. This artist who dislikes repetition is embracing the
new once again.
With the exception of a few tangents along the way, Doolan’s
aesthetic has always been about simplicity, and his recent work pushes
that concept to prominence. While pieces may be technically intricate,
the mechanisms are less visible. Someone with knowledge of invisible
clasps and laser-welded sleeves might express admiration for what
he has pulled off, but the lay person is apt to respond directly:
“This piece is really beautiful.” Photographs by
Hap Sakwa.
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Breaking
the Mode.
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by
Carolyn L.E. Benesh |
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In
a thought-provoking assemblage of fashion drawn from its vast permanent
collection, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art pushes the boundaries,
as well as delightfully, but more often forcefully knocking them down,
in the assertively titled Breaking the Mode. This recent exhibition
(September 17, 2006 to January 7, 2007) joins other books or exhibitions
contemplating interesting subversive elements (today often, dare we
say, an ironically conventional component of current couture). It examines
the formerly entrenched conventions alongside the newest designers with
their ever-changing rules about what is aesthetically pleasing and fashionable.
This includes Against Fashion, Clothing as Art, 1850-1930, written and
published by Radu Stern, in 1992, and re-published by The MIT Press
in 2004; and the current Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion
and Architecture, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art, also in
Los Angeles (November 19, 2006 to March 5, 2007). A spirited, driving
need for the dissolution of the customary boundaries of the fashion
world is clearly detectable in late twentieth-century fashion's inspiration
and eager imitation of the pervasive influences of modern art and architecture.
Fashion, like craft, cannot just be fashion (as craft can no longer
fit within its traditionally shaped subject), but must join the ranks
of art and architecture, as all aspire to reach the ultimate aesthetic
of its particular holy grail. All photographs ©
Museum Associates/Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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Kee-Ho
Yuen |
by
Glen Brown |
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ORCHESTRATION
OF CONTRARIES
Bringing together contrary forms in pursuit of visual
poetry can be a risky maneuver for the artist. Like a chemical reaction,
the union of distinctly different elements in a work of art may only
lead to anticlimactic neutrality, as when a base negates the effects
of an acid. On the opposite end of the spectrum, this practice of mixing
dissimilar components may generate something volatile and unrestrained
that ends in the artistic equivalent of a messy laboratory detonation.
Complexity, after all, is a hair’s breadth from chaos, and art
can easily fly apart. Ideally, the artist’s union of disparities
will produce something midway between an inert solution and an explosive
compound: something that bubbles and crackles perpetually but never
overspills its borders or splatters itself pointlessly across the wall.
For the viewer, this kind of art is always a surprise, a bit of magic,
not simply because its effective meshing of contraries is improbable
but because in the end it is so successful that despite its unlikelihood
it seems to have emerged naturally, even inevitably. Photographs
by Kee-Ho Yuen.
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