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Art Review: Unusual craftsmanship brews up teapot exhibit |
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A show about teapots — quaint, quirky, beautifully crafted, and more sculptural than functional — is on view at JRB Art at the Elms. The show contains 43 teapots created by 33 artists. Jurors were Charleen Weidell, art chair at the University of Central Oklahoma, and Barbara Broadwell, UCO faculty member.
A teapot with literary aspirations is provided by Florida artist Mark Nathan Stafford. Stafford’s ceramic creation takes the form of the head of a perplexed looking, slightly open-mouthed "Poet.” Almost equally unexpected is a white glazed earthenware "Dogwood Praying Teapot” that resembles a crouching hybrid creature that is half tree and half canine by California artist Jeff Irwin.
Edmond artist Christine Hackler contributes a copper teapot with a floral spout that looks like a "Lumpy Lotus” sitting on a leafy bed, and Maine artist Reagan Fuqueron offers us a cube-shaped, wooden "Tea Barn.” Denver artist Anne Hallam, raised in Wisconsin, decorates her strangely elegant silver "Memory” teapot with leafy vines and a landscape scene, then displays it on a base suggesting a farm fence.
Georgia artist Eileen Braun combines the elegance of English porcelain with miniature, multi-colored twists of telephone wire, in a dark teapot, also decorated with tiny white dots, which she calls "Stepping Out.” Norman artist Birthe Flexner relies on a long green spout and exaggerated handle to give a strong sculptural dimension to her "Wood Fired Tea Pot with Dots” in a work that combines form and function beautifully.
Vines seem to be growing on a cracked metal structure held up by a concrete "leg” in an offbeat copper, enamel, cement and porcelain teapot by Colorado artist Amy Bailey, called "Breakage and Exposure.” Leaving even less doubt about its lack of usefulness is "Dis: Function,” a small "teapot” by Wisconsin artist T. F. Faris which has a silver, hole-filled body and a broken handle made of "wood carved by a bird.”
A salt-fired stoneware "Oil Can Teapot Set” with two cups by Mississippi artist Robert Long actually looks quite functional, on the other hand, in spite of its unappetizing sounding title. The exhibit is recommended viewing during its run through Dec. 26.
— John Brandenburg
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© Joy Reed Belt 2010
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