Furnishing art
Two exhibitions showcase New England's unique style in furniture and crafts
The gods of furniture have blessed the Boston area since the day the Pilgrims landed and found forests galore. Abundant wood meant abundant material for beds, cabinets, tables, and chairs.
The early settlers were agrarian folk, though, not trend-setters in design. Their revolution was religious and then political. The furnishings they created in the New World looked pretty much like what they'd left behind in the old one. Gradually, though, New Englanders developed a unique sense of style that peaked at several points. One of the more recent ones came with the Program in Artisanry, which Boston University founded in 1975, hiring top-notch faculty to teach students how to work with wood, metal, ceramics, and fiber.
BU ditched the program a decade later: Then-president John Silber's withering eulogy was that it had been a training ground for cottage indus-
tries that would allow women to work at home. The PIA migrated south, to the Swain School of Design in New Bedford. In 1988, it moved again, this time to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, which it still calls home. Meanwhile, in 2001, the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton decided to devote itself exclusively to craft. What could be more fitting than a show honoring its neighbor, the PIA? Hence "Craft Transformed: Program in Artisanry," an exhibition divided between the Fuller and the University Art Gallery at UMass/Dartmouth. The two shows and the handsome catalog that accompanies them trace the history of a program that has turned out a disproportionate share of the top craftspeople in the country.
The celebrated ceramist Chris Gustin taught at the PIA from 1980 to 1998. "The caliber of students and the core faculty is fantastic," he says. "If you had to fantasize about a working environment in terms of the people, you couldn't beat it."
While at the PIA, Gustin developed his signature style: anthropomorphic vessels that look like slouching flesh. One is in the UMass exhibition.
Mitch Ryerson, whose work is in the Fuller show, graduated from the program in 1982 and went on to become a much-in-demand furniture designer. The PIA, he says, "was instrumental in getting me to think about furniture in a new way, as a form of self-expression, with emotional content. At that time, there weren't other schools that bridged the art/craft thing the way the PIA did."
In Ryerson's time, the furniture department was headed by Alphonse Mattia and Jere Osgood. Work by Mattia is in both the Fuller and UMass shows; Osgood's is in the Fuller. The difference between them could hardly be greater: Mattia's work is colorful, even jokey; each piece has a distinct personality. Osgood's is severe and restrained, in the tradition of Scandinavian design.
This diversity helped make Boston the epicenter of the studio furniture movement in America. The man who put the term "studio furniture" into common usage is even local: Edward S. Cooke Jr., former Museum of Fine Arts curator and now a professor at Yale, organized the groundbreaking "New American Furniture" exhibition at the MFA in 1989. That show was heavy with PIA-affiliated artists.
Now, Cooke and MFA curator Gerald W. R. Ward have come up with a new exhibition that traces the groundswell that resulted in the 1989 MFA show.
"The Maker's Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990," which opens at the museum in November, "will be an introduction to the whole field," says Cooke. "It's the first time a museum has moved beyond individual monographic and thematic shows to present a 50-year survey." Organizing it was a challenge. "People are so emotionally attached to their furniture that some were reluctant to lend," he notes. On the other hand, an exhibition centerpiece turned up in a basement.
The MFA has told pieces of the studio furniture story right along, through the much-emulated "Please Be Seated!" program introduced in 1975 by Jonathan Fairbanks, now a curator emeritus. "Please Be Seated!" is a collection of chairs and benches by prominent designers, scattered throughout the MFA. Chairs in museums routinely are roped-off, don't-touch affairs. By contrast, these contemporary classics by renowned makers including Sam Maloof and Tage Frid are available for the weary to rest.
Cooke's exhibition will start with senior figures, including Maloof, then move on to a generation including Wendell Castle, who took a more sculptural approach, followed by makers such as Osgood, who elevated technique to near-obsession, and end with idiosyncratic statements-in-furniture by the likes of Judy McKie, who uses animal imagery in bronze and wood: You sit on the lion or open the door with the lizard.
While these museum exhibitions pay tribute to the past, albeit a recent one, there is most definitely a future for innovative furniture design in and around Boston. Drew Katz, 24-year-old owner of Gallery Katz in the South End, had a furniture show this year that was such a success he's decided to show some pieces in every exhibition.
It's not an easy goal. The movement is still in its adolescence, and there's hardly an over-supply of makers. "I wish," he says, "that furniture designers were as easy to find as painters." "Craft Transformed: Program in Artistry" is at the University Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, through Dec. 11, and the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton through Jan. 4. The University Art Gallery is free and open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily; call 508-999-8555. The Fuller Museum of Art, 455 Oak St., Brockton, is open Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Admission is $5 and $3 for seniors and students; under age 18 are free. Call 508-588-6000. "The Maker's Hand" is at the Museum of Fine Arts, Nov. 12-Feb. 8. The MFA, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston, is open 10 a.m.-4:45 p.m. every day, and until 9:45 p.m. Wednesday. Admission is $15; $13 for seniors and college students; and $6.50 for those 7-17. Call 617-267- 9300.
