Melanie West

January 2009 | BY Kris Stewart | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: Melanie West, “Nudibranch”

Living in the deep woods of Maine has proved to be a source of endless inspiration for Melanie West. A former architectural photographer, West seeks to replicate the extravagant colors, patterns and forms surrounding her. “Nature never ceases to amaze,” West says, “and I have always been compelled to answer that amazement in my work.”

Her most recent line is a series of bracelets focusing on amorphous forms, suggesting salamanders, cephalopods or snakes. The playful shapes and vivid colors reflect West’s own exuberant nature, and have received recognition from the National Polymer Clay Guild, which awarded West’s work a second-place ranking in the 2008 competition.

West will participate in both 2009 CraftBoston shows, and is represented by several stores along the coast of Maine, including Maine Gathering in Camden. To see more of her work, visit www.ravensclay.com.

To learn more about polymer clay, including its origins and techniques, and to see work from a range of artists, visit www.polymerartarchive.com. Artist and curator Elise Winters developed the site as an essential resource for the study of polymer clay.

Steven Ford and David Forlano

January 2009 | BY Kris Stewart | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: Steven Ford and David Forlano, “Cone Spray”

The artistic partnership of Steven Ford and David Forlano began more than 20 years ago when the students met in Rome during a study abroad program. Painters at the time, the two were drawn to each other’s different approaches to the medium, and began trading half-finished pieces and working new ideas into them.

The pair continue to work collaboratively, not letting a physical separation stop them. In 2005, Forlano moved from Philadelphia to Santa Fe, and now pieces are sent across the country for further development. Their work is inspired by nature, by clusters of seeds and buds that are composed of numerous unique parts. These structures inspire the two to create necklaces, brooches and, more recently, both three-dimensional and textural wall pieces.

Their work has garnered an impressive reputation, and is part of the collections at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Mass., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Galleries representing the two include Sherrie Gallerie in Columbus, Ohio, and Obsidian Gallery in Tucson, Ariz. To see more of their work, go to www.fordforlano.com.

Wiwat Kamolpornwijit

January 2009 | BY The AmericanStyle Staff | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: Wiwat Kamolpornwijit, “Cactus in Bloom”

Some artists are born knowing they’ll work with their hands to create beauty. Others find their calling in a more indirect way. Before the end of 2004, Wiwat Kamolpornwijit made his career as an environmental engineer. Then he helped a friend make and sell polymer clay jewelry for a fundraiser, and the chance encounter turned into a love affair with the medium. “Since then I have played with polymer every day,” he says. He turned his passion into a full-time career two years later, making what he calls a “critical decision” with his heart.

“I like to believe that there is something good in everything,” the Alexandria, Va., artist says. The pliability of polymer clay allows him to explore shapes and design almost without limitations, revealing “hidden or emerging treasures” in his work.

Kamolpornwijit’s sculptural jewelry features organic components set within a contemporary frame, and has garnered accolades including a 2009 NICHE Award finalist ranking. His work is available at RedSky Gallery in Charlotte, N.C., and Haven Gallery & Fine Gifts in Austin, Texas. Visit www.kamolpornwijit.com to see more.

Ann Kruglak

January 2009 | BY Kris Stewart | April 2009, Issue 66 | 1 COMMENT

: Ann Kruglak, “Anemone Tea Pot”

Colorado artist Ann Kruglak is a relative newcomer to the field of polymer clay. She worked in mixed media in the early 2000s, and after retiring recently from a technical career, began working with polymer clay in 2008. Believing that art connects her to the greater mysteries of the universe, Kruglak hopes to create work that will inspire viewers to bring their own gifts of service to the world.

Her work ranges from masks, figurative wall pieces and functional objects like clocks and mirrors to more sculptural work, and encompasses techniques including caning and mokume gane. Kruglak’s lastest venture, “Mystic Dreamer: Art for the Earth,” is an eco-service project with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting the World Land Trust-US, a land-conservancy charity.

Kruglak has already received national recognition for her work, including a first-place ranking in the 2008 National Polymer Clay Guild competition in the sculptural objects category. To see more of her work, visit www.mysticdreamerart.com.

Crafting a Dream House

January 2009 | BY Sara Baker | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: In the living room of the HandMade House, ceramic birds by Pamela Brewer sit atop a coffee table by Ronno Cooke. The “Biedermeier Secretaire” by Jamie House with Denton Bragg stands to the left of the fireplace, a project collaboration by Jan Derr, Diana Gillispie and Jeremy French. Susan Webb Lee’s “Diamonds and Rust” quilt hangs above the fireplace, with a ladder by Lang Hornthal to its right. Photography by Stewart Young

Take 100 artists plus one custom-built home and what do you get? A handcrafted masterpiece.

Turning a new home into a reflection of yourself is always a labor of love. You bring in things that you’ve loved for years: a comfortable chair, a colorful quilt, your wedding china. Then you get to work on the challenge of finding the perfect art to fill the rooms—pieces that complement the person you are and the space in which you live. It’s a process that usually never ends.

Imagine what the results would be if you turned the entire process on its head, bringing artists and designers together to incorporate art into every aspect of the home, before ground for the building had even been broken.

That’s exactly what the “HandMade House at the Ramble,” a design experiment in the mountains of Asheville, N.C., has done. HandMade in America, a nonprofit organization representing craftspeople, and Biltmore Farms, the developer of The Ramble Biltmore Forest community, invited 100 regional artists to incorporate their work into the design of a custom-built home.

“We are discovering that new creative relationships are being forged between the artists, makers and design professionals as they work together,” says Geraldine Plato, executive director of HandMade in America. The project considered art in every phase of construction, including handmade cabinets and countertops and a f loating master bath vanity. Each room is filled with handcrafted furniture, wall hangings, rugs, pottery and various works in other mediums by artists including ceramist Akira Satake, mixed-media artist Don Stevenson and metal artist William S. Rogers.

The home was open to the public in the fall and winter months, and is now on the market, all art included. In addition to its unique handcrafted charm, it also meets the green building standards of North Carolina’s HealthyBuilt Homes Program, with features like geo-thermal heating and cooling and a rainwater harvesting system.

The partners are also publishing a handbook to help other developers create similar handmade houses. For more information, visit www.handmadeinamerica.org.

Finding Joy in the Fine Print

January 2009 | BY Gayle Hargreaves | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: A small sampling of the artist’s prodigious output. Photography by Alexander Nesbitt

From her historic Rhode Island home, Ilse Buchert Nesbitt creates delicate woodblock prints on an antique printing press.

After many hours of carving tiny letters into blocks of wood, or setting type by hand (all in reverse as the printing practice requires), there are moments when Ilse Buchert Nesbitt’s eyes and mind begin to play tricks. Ordinary lettering flips and appears backwards to her. She laughs about this and shakes her head. “It is kind of minor insanity, cutting letters in wood.”

Nesbitt is a master of the woodblock print. Her work represents local New England scenes, as well as themes from her travels in Europe, Japan and across the United States.

Over the last 50 years, Nesbitt has produced an extensive body of work—fine art prints, illustrated collections of poetry, limited-edition books and a popular series of Christmas cards—using a simple knife, blocks of wood, metal type and two antique presses, an 1897 Golding platen press and an 1830 Acorn hand press.

: The Gideon Spooner House can claim an unbroken heritage as a home for merchants and people who work with their hands.

Nesbitt lives and works in a two-story 18th-century clapboard house in Newport, R.I.’s historic Point neighborhood. The building is named for Gideon Spooner, a shoemaker who lived and worked there between 1835 and 1863, but the structure is actually much older. Early records are a little sketchy, but a carpenter named Philip Morse probably built it between 1720 and 1758. Spooner expanded the building in the 1830s and 1840s by building an addition, raising the roof line and adding Greek Revival trim.

The Gideon Spooner House can claim an unbroken heritage as a home for merchants and people who work with their hands. In addition to a carpenter and shoemaker, the house has sheltered storekeepers, a painter, dressmaker, barber, shipwright and, fittingly, Nesbitt—an artist and painter—and her late husband Alexander, a teacher, calligrapher and type historian who died in 1995.

Nesbitt says they chose the Spooner House because “it had a shop, a house that we could live in and a little garden. It was the ideal place to bring up a family.” The couple’s two sons grew up in the workshop with them.

For more of “Art & Design 2009: Finding Joy in the Fine Print,” pick up the April 2009 issue of AmericanStyle today!

Moving Fauxward

January 2009 | BY admin | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: Green couches sit outside the bedroom wall, where artist Beth Piver’s acrylic on canvas work, “Separate,” hangs. Photography by Tim Jacobsen

Beth Piver and Andy Vick creatively solve art and design problems in their Cumberland, Md., home, with fantastic results.

When Beth Piver and Andy Vick found their two-story loft space in a brick building in downtown Cumberland, Md., it was a blank canvas. The 6,000-square-foot space was airy, open and painted a crisp white— and covered in “acres of mauve carpet,” Piver says.

In lieu of replacing it or refinishing the floors underneath, Piver saw the carpet as a design challenge. Today, it’s the last thing you notice. Painted mannequins greet you at the entrance to the third floor, the couple’s main living space. Blue and purple faux fur covers the walls of their bedroom.

A massive banner reads, “America’s largest circus sideshow presents strange people entertaining in person.” The hood of a Ford truck, which serves as the base of the dining room table, rests in front of two expansive windows. Squares of LED lights beckon from the living room wall.

Piver is the artist, architect, designer and general handywoman for the loft space, which saw incarnations as a bowling alley, pool hall and furniture showroom before the couple moved in. The space has grown and changed alongside Piver’s art, which has morphed from jewelry and metal sculpture to painted mannequins, fiber sculpture and mixed media. The synergy is obvious.

“I don’t know which comes first,” Vick says. “What she’s doing artistically manifests itself in the home. And then what she’s doing in the home can do the same thing for her work.”

Editor’s Note: Channeling Your Inner Artist

January 2009 | BY Hope Daniels | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: Mixed-media artist Beth Piver uses paint in every conceivable color to create tableaux vivants like the one above in her western Maryland loft.

I know, I know. The economy is tanking, people are worried about money, jobs and the dwindling balances in their 401(k)s, and suddenly we’re all a nation of savers, not spenders.

Admittedly it’s rough out there. But I really think it’s high time that we all just stop, take a collective deep breath and begin to focus on ways to be creative without breaking the bank.

Not possible? Au contraire! It’s a matter of choices. Do you really want to pull in the rug, bar the door and sit out the recession feeling sorry for yourself? Wouldn’t it be better to pull up the shades, let in the sun and channel your inner artist?

There are myriad ways to tap into the creative side of life. If you’re savvy about looking for what’s available at a price you can afford, you can soak up as much art and culture as your calendar can hold.

Think about designated free-admission evenings at museums, exhibition openings at local galleries and any one of the hundreds of craft fairs scheduled in the coming months all around the country and you’re off to a good start. Not only will getting out into the arts community give you the intrinsic pleasure of surrounding yourself with beautiful things, it carries an added bonus: you’ll be standing up for artists and arts organizations who, in these unsettled economic times, greatly need our continued support.

Then, look around you. What can you do to cost-effectively jazz up your personal space?

: Rhode Island artist Ilse Buchert Nesbitt stacks collections of old woodblocks like books on shelves throughout her studio.

First Lady Michelle Obama is already hard at work with designated White House decorator Michael S. Smith spiffing up the First Family’s new quarters, and we can only hope that the 44-year-old Santa Monica, Calif., designer to the stars (Steven Spielberg and Michelle Pfieffer are among his clients) reaches out to American studio craft artists to enhance the decor.

Speaking of artists and interior spaces, this is AmericanStyle’s annual Art & Design issue. Inside are features on two highly personalized artists’ homes and an artistic collaboration in a custom-built home that is eye-poppingly gorgeous. Read on, and get ready to be inspired.

Hope Daniels
Editor-in-Chief

Arts Travel: Glass, Live in Las Vegas

January 2009 | BY admin | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

Live glass demonstrations can be addictive. The sponsors and promoters of the Glass Craft & Bead Expo know that, which is why they created a two-day event, the International Hot Glass Invitational, to run concurrently with the show, April 3-4.

The action takes place at the South Point Equestrian and Events Center in Las Vegas, where 4,400 seats surround a 30,000-square-foot area replete with multiple 72-inch flat screens to broadcast the live demonstrations. It also offers a private VIP bar with seating for up to 250.

Artists compete to accomplish the largest, most technically and aesthetically astounding piece of glass possible in a two-and-a-half-hour session. The competitors include flame workers Milon Townsend and Nathan Purcell, and glass blowers Afro Celotto and George Kennard.

Arts Travel: Peninsula Project

January 2009 | BY Christine Kloostra | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

: “Meridian,” by John Henry, will be on exhibit at the Boca Raton Museum Art School through May as part of “Drawing in Space: The Peninsula Project.”

Sculptor John Henry has put a new spin on the idea of “traveling exhibition.” Visitors who want to see his current show “Drawing in Space: The Peninsula Project” in its entirety will need to travel to seven Florida cities this spring.

Henry’s large-scale outdoor steel sculptures will be on display at locations in Naples, Miami, Tallahassee, Orlando, Boca Raton, Tampa and Sarasota through May and are accompanied by indoor exhibitions of related work by the artist. For more information, visit www.peninsulaproject.com.

Arts Travel: Hot Glass, Cool Vacation

January 2009 | BY Christine Kloostra | April 2009, Issue 66 | NO COMMENTS

The Corning Museum of Glass has taken its glassblowing demonstrations on the road, but never to the sea—until now.

Book a cruise on Celebrity Cruises’ new “Celebrity Solstice” ship, and you can view the “Hot Glass Show,” a permanent demonstration area installed on the top deck of the boat, developed and staffed by the museum.

Three to four glass artists travel on the ship to perform demonstrations throughout each day of the ship’s itinerary. The glass art theme continues elsewhere in the vessel, with an exhibition area, an extensive art collection and a retail gallery.

The ship’s collection includes works from almost 100 artists, including Toots Zynsky, Jay Macdonell and Sean Albert.

The “Celebrity Solstice” was christened in November. Celebrity Cruises plans to include the “Hot Glass Show” on the next four ships it builds.