Illegal WH artwork on tour
Ray Heizer
-- Illegal WH artwork on tour as recently as last September ... no mention
of Clinton library ...
- -
Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston Globe
September 3, 1998, Thursday, City Edition
Exhibit showcases the marriage of current American craft to historic White
House decor
By Christine Temin, Globe Staff
The Romanoffs had their Faberge Easter eggs. The Clintons have The White
House Collection of American Crafts, precious objects made, like those
jeweled eggs, for the delectation of rulers.
The eggs scattered after the Russian Revolution, ended up in museums and
mansions all over the world. The White House Collection, formed in 1993 at
the Clintons' behest to mark the Year of American Craft, is traveling, too,
on a national tour. Currently it's at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem,
where it offers "both wonderful primer and survey," says Peabody Essex
decorative arts curator Dean Lahikainen.
What it also offers is work on a residential scale rather than the huge
pieces some craft masters are now making. Instead of one of the room-sized
installations glass master Dale Chihuly has been turning out of late, for
instance, there's his "Cerulean Blue Macchia With Chartreuse Lip Wrap."
Relatively modest in size but big in presence, as Chihuly's works tend to
be, it is a fluid, asymmetrical, rippling bowl that flares invitingly, the
delicate splotches of its surface resembling a pointillist painting.
Instead of one of the large-scale fantasies of celebrated furniture artist
Wendell Castle, there's a smallish but witty table-sized clock whose base,
made of two limp-looking pairs of clock hands that seem to have keeled over
with exhaustion, is reminiscent of Dali's surreal paintings of melting
pocket watches. There's a reason for these great American craft artists to
be represented by compact works. Those works were meant for specific spots
in the White House - a tabletop, say, or a mantelpiece. What we have here
is the craft equivalent of the proverbial and much maligned painting to go
over the sofa - work that has to harmonize with pre-existing surroundings.
Take David Levi's blown glass "Bird Jar" for the White House Blue Room. The
bird is blue, too, as are the feet of the jar, whose body is bright yellow.
Perched on a marble-topped table smack in the center of the space, Levi's
little blue bird holds its own in the company of the Imperial eagles that
turn up on the room's Empire furnishings.
Or take Dante Marioni's glass "Yellow Pair," color coordinated with the
Yellow Oval Room. Like many works in the collection, "Yellow Pair" alludes
to the past. The "Pair" borrows the forms of the Greek kylix and oinochoe -
a shallow bowl and a tall, thin vessel - but Marioni brings them into the
present by blowing up their scale.
The lavish book that serves as the exhibition's catalog - "The White House
Collection of American Crafts" (Abrams, $ 35) - is full of photographs of
other serendipitous marriages between contemporary work and historic decor.
The gold interiors of Cheryl Williams's "Prayer Bowls" echo the gilt mirror
and clock in the White House entrance hall. The slim, elongated forms of
Michael Sherrill's "Incandescent Bottles" echo the slim elegance of
Jacqueline Kennedy in a portrait hanging in the Vermeil Room. The rich
browns of wooden bowls by Philip Moulthrop and Ronald Kent complement the
browns of an Empire table in the Grand Staircase. The arrangement of the
collection is a crash course in how to mix centuries and styles.
Presidential craft
The Clintons aren't the first White House occupants concerned with craft.
In 1882, President Chester Arthur commissioned a Tiffany screen for his
official residence. Mostly, though, crafts have been the domain of first
ladies. In his essay in the exhibition catalog, the show's curator, Michael
Monroe, notes that in 1913 Woodrow Wilson's wife, Ellen, furnished the
"Blue Mountain Room" in the White House with fabrics handwoven by women
from the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 1927, Eleanor Roosevelt helped organize
Val-Kill Industries, a workshop producing Colonial Revival furniture, some
of which wound up in the White House, along with coverlets woven in
Virginia under the auspices of the WPA. In 1977, Rosalyn Carter had the
tables in the State Dining Room set with contemporary handmade pottery,
glassware, napkin rings, and centerpieces, all expressly created for the
occasion, a Senate wives' luncheon.
By 1993, when the Clintons moved in, there was general recognition that the
nation was, as Lahikainen puts it, "in the middle of a craft renaissance.
We're now at the point where shopping malls have excellent craft shops."
His own museum, the Peabody Essex, which already had fine holdings in Early
American artisanry, has recently started to collect contemporary crafts.
Personalized show
If you didn't already know that the 72 objects in The White House
Collection were by American artists, would you be able to guess their
country of origin? "No," says Lahikainen, "not necessarily." This is
sophisticated, worldly work, neither regional nor following in a folk
tradition. It's completely of the 1990s. Had the collection been assembled
30 years ago, it might have been heavy on somber brown pots, macrame, and
wood that echoed Shaker or Japanese sources. But American craft has grown
up, gone from rustic to refined - and that makes it resonate with the
Federal and Empire furnishings of the White House.
Since that house has more visitors than most - over a million annually -
The White House Collection stands to have a big impact, once the works
return home after their tour. Lahikainen notes that visitors to the Peabody
Essex's presentation of the collection are "personalizing this show,
daydreaming about which work they'd choose if they could pick one to take
home." And which would he choose? Po Shun Leong's complex "Cityscape Box,"
he says, which is based on architecture and archeology of legend and fact.
Constructed of exotic woods, its drawers swing open to reveal secret hiding
places. With a boat, an obelisk, staircases, columns, mountains, and golden
doorways, it looks like a metropolis from a sci-fi film. "You can see what
fun he had making this," says Lahikainen. "It's like a lost world."
At the other extreme from Po Shun Leong's world-in-a-box is the simplicity
and sobriety of Sam Maloof's 1982 walnut rocking chair, the only piece of
furniture in the show. (The White House is already packed with furniture;
there wasn't room for more.) Many furniture makers feel that a chair is the
ultimate design and engineering challenge. Maloof's looks simple, but its
contours are precisely gauged to maximize comfort, and its proportions are
generous enough to accomodate a linebacker. Maloof's chair was donated to
the White House by Barbaralee Diamonstein and Carl Spielvogel; Diamonstein,
a noted cultural commentator, has also contributed a fine catalog essay,
tracing the history of American craft from ancient Native American work,
through the Industrial Revolution and the Arts and Crafts movement that
rebelled against machine-made shoddiness, right up to the eclectic styles
of the present.
While Michael Monroe included artisans from various regions of the country,
he wisely didn't force himself to choose someone from each state. Only 26
states are represented; Washington and California tied for the largest
number of artists in the collection, with seven apiece. Massachusetts has
four: ceramists Thomas Hoadley of Lanesborough and Mara Superior of
Williamsburg; and glass artists Sidney Hutter of Waltham and Josh Simpson
of Shelburne Falls.
Simpson's "Megaworld" was, when he made it in 1994, the largest solid glass
sphere in the world, weighing in at 53 pounds. (He's since made one even
bigger.) "Imagine lifting 50 pounds of molten liquid on the end of a 5 foot
long pipe that you need to turn," Simpson says, by way of explaining the
challenge of the piece.
Most works in The White House Collection were donated by their makers;
Simpson's was given by a collector of his work, Stewart Rosenblum.
Simpson's glassware had already been seen in the White House: Rosalyn
Carter used his wine goblets at that long-ago lunch. But inclusion in the
official collection was "thrilling," he says. "As a craftsperson in a tiny
little town in Massachusetts, to have my art recognized in such a profound
and public way validates all these years I've spent working on this windy
hilltop."
Superior's "A Cocoa Pot" is typical of her witty twists on tradition. A pot
flattened and enlarged so it becomes a tribute to a historical form, it is
decorated with lettering, lacy patterns, and brown specks. "I heard that
Hillary took about 30 of the pieces in the collection upstairs, and the pot
was one of them," Superior says proudly, "so they lived with it for a year
before it went on tour."
Glass and ceramics are the strongest media in the collection, but there are
fine objects in wood, fiber, and metal as well. Akira Blount's "Man in Lion
Costume" is one. A cloth doll with a lion mask that lifts to reveal a human
face, it suggests that an animal can possess traits valued in humans,
including gentleness and compassion.
The White House Collection is, for the most part, a display of
non-functional tours de force of technique and design. You're not likely to
look at the ceramics in this show and wonder whether they're microwavable.
One of the few things you can actually imagine using is a stoneware bowl
just 3 1/2 inches high, glazed with a washed-out red, animated with
calligraphic strokes. Its modesty contrasts with the attention-grabbing
attitude of almost everything else in the show. Its maker: Joan Mondale.
"THE WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN CRAFTS" is at the Peabody Essex
Museum, Salem, through Oct. 25.
On Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m., curator Michael Monroe gives a slide presentation
on the collection at the museum. Tickets are $ 8 for members, $ 12 for
non-members. Reservations must be made by Sept. 14.
On Oct. 4 from 2-4 p.m., artists Josh Simpson and Thomas Hoadley discuss
their works in the White House collection, also at the museum. The event is
free, but reservations are required by Oct. 1.
To make reservations for either event, call 978-745-9500, ext. 3011.