Feature Articles


June Issue 2000

Folk Art Center Celebrates Its 70th Anniversary in Asheville, NC

In Asheville, NC, the Folk Art Center's Focus Gallery will host an exhibition entitled Crossing the Line which features the latest work of two Western North Carolina members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. Also on view at the Folk Art Center through Aug. 20 will be An Innovative Spirit: The Southern Highland Craft Guild Celebrates 70 Years.

In Crossing the Line ceramicist Judith Duff (Brevard, NC) shows her most recent stoneware and porcelain functional pottery while broom maker Ralph Gates of Friendswood Brooms, (Leicester, NC) takes the utilitarian broom to a higher artistic level using broom materials and techniques.

Brooms owe their success as a household tool to the special grain developed for sweeping called "broom corn". In the past, broom corn was grown on family farms for use in handmade sweepers. Historically, brooms were individually made to custom-fit the job and the maker's sense of design. Since the advent of the broom machine in the 1850s, brooms have been made to a standard. They typically have dowel handles with wire-wrapped corn.

In 1973, Ralph Gates, a systems software engineer from NASA, left his job and moved to Western North Carolina to help bring back the art of broom making by hand. Gates' mentor was Lee "Pop" Ogle (Gatlinburg, TN) whose understanding of broom making was passed down through his family. From Pop Ogle, Gates learned various ways to bind broom corn, as well as the many possibilities in shape, size and handle design. Now joined by his son Marlow, Ralph's Brooms have become collectable, one-of-a kind, functional "sculptures" that incorporate techniques dating back to the 1790s. They spend much of the winter scavenging for handles in the forests and riverbanks, making maximum use of natural twists, gnarls and burls. Friendswood Brooms have been collected by museums, galleries and private collectors, and Gates has been featured in many magazines, including "Southern Living".

In Crossing the Line, three separate stories are told through Gates' brooms. One collection, entitled Gifts of the Waters, utilizes driftwood from all over the US in the brooms handles. A second, Chair Today, Broom Tomorrow features handles made from old depression-era chair pieces. The third collection, a humorous study entitled The Horn of Plenty, features a series of brooms that represent our thwarted search for the horn of plenty. One broom, which bears a handle made of antler, is entitled I was looking for the Horn of Plenty, but found only the Antler of Insufficiency.

In her functional stoneware and porcelain pieces, Judith Duff seeks not only to discover avenues of her own self-expression, but also to remind us that simple objects can still be made without dependence on computers or factories. "Uniformity and conformity characterize a world dominated by technology," she writes of the environment in which most of our functional objects are produced.

In Crossing the Line, Duff's hand-crafted pieces relate the energy of a single person's hand and heart. Found in the surface decoration, line quality, and shape of each individually made piece is the hope that it will touch the beholder in some way. Duff's range of capabilities with clay and its processes result in a wide assortment of pieces, addressing a variety of tastes. Because she is just as comfortable with reduction-fired porcelain as she is with wood-fired stoneware, and because her familiarity with a variety of glazes equals that of her design vocabulary, Duff's work is likely to be mistaken for that of several potters. Experiments in pottery can only be made one kiln-firing at a time, therefore a potter's exploration of their medium can be slower and more laborious than those of other craftspeople. It can take months or even years for a potter to find an effect they are seeking. Duff explains that new glazes are tested in almost every firing, and to do that, she admits, "I am not afraid of failure."

When the founders of the Southern Highland Craft Guild met high on a rural mountain top 70 years ago in Penland, NC, there was a shared excitement in the hopes of creating a step forward for the craftspeople of the southern mountains. This group of like-minded individuals, mostly women in social work, each had their own experience supporting craft education and marketing in the economically challenged rural mountains. Together they seized on a solution: Form a Guild dedicated to the crafts and craftspeople of the region. Could they have known their proposed mission would survive and thrive into the next century?

In a very ambitious exhibition at the Folk Art Center through Aug. 20, the Guild looks back at the inspirations that have guided its long history: the crafts that have evolved under its stewardship, and the people upon whom the Guild's character has been built. An Innovative Spirit: The Southern Highland Craft Guild Celebrates 70 Years tells the story of the Guild through works gathered from private collections and the Guild's Permanent Collection of Craft spanning seven decades.

There are three main components or themes carried through the work chosen for An Innovative Spirit:

1.The changing face of craft over seven decades. The Southern Highland Craft Guild is the second oldest organization of its kind, educating people and preserving objects for future generations. In this part of the show, examples of four well-known craft forms (the teapot, the basket, the brooch, and the hand-carved wooden figure) will be shown from each decade, representing eras from the 1930s to the present day. Comparisons between each decade can be made regarding materials, design and process.The calm and unassuming lines of Stuart Nye's silver dogwood pin from the 1930s, for instance, contrast sharply with the whimsical commotion of Nancy Flemming's late '90s mixed-metal fabrication. Sometimes just a decade can forever change artists' approach to their media. Charlotte Tracy's traditional white oak basket made in the '60s bears likeness to those made a century before it. By the following decade, Nancy Braski's abstract, random-weave sculptural basket plunges into brave new territory, a movement that has redefined our expectations of the basket form.

2.The Guild Icons: Certain objects, because of their popularity with the collecting public for many years, have become associated with the Guild, garnering iconographic status. These objects, most of which come from the Guild's Permanent Craft Collection, may seem familiar to craft enthusiasts young and old. What North Carolina craft collector has not heard of Woody's Chairs? And for woodtuming buffs, Rude Osolnik's innovative candlestick design has paved the way for new ideas in the art of woodturning. The woodblock prints of the late Fannie Mennan, wood carvings of the late Edsel Martin, and the dolls of the late Ellen Turner remain in private collections far and wide, bearing artistry that lives on. Guild production centers like Churchill Weavers, Blenko Glass and Riverwood Pewter have consistently produced a distinct line of work for generations, and still sell briskly through the Guild's shops and fairs.

3.The Future of the Guild: This component features work by younger Guild members, or members who work in a more contemporary style. For the viewer, this component gives a sense of the direction of the craft movement in the Southern Appalachian region. This work speaks of today's topics, slicing a bold opening into tomorrow. Work from students and instructors at the Guild's education centers are represented, as well as contemporary work by individual members. Paige Davis' Hostess Candleholder made of welded scrap steel and Rob Levin's Bridge Vessel of glass, wood and rope are examples of new materials and designs which have entered into the contemporary artists' idiom. New work based in tradition is also represented, like Brian Boggs' cherry wood ladderback chair made from hand tools in the manner of those made a century ago. A catalogue is available for the exhibition.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call the center at 828/298-7928.

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