Sarah Hart, participant in Portland Selects, is all about the craft of chocolatey confections. Read about her business, Alma Chocolate, and visit MoCC to visit her bowl, on view in Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage + Use.
The video documentation of Craft Mystery Cult’s performance on the roof of Museum of Contemporary Craft arrives at the museum, freshly burned onto a disc by MoCC videographer, Peter Faasse, PNCA ‘15. To give you a hint: the performance involved ritualistically imbibing a mysterious herbal liquor inspired by the constellation Leo, concocted by Portland Apothecary.
I have to admit that I had a nip of the CMC koolaid, and it spectacular. Visitors will have to be satisfied by viewing and smelling the residuum, and using their imaginations.
Nicole Nathan, Curator of Collections, queues up Transference, a collaboration of glass artist Andy Paiko and sound artist Ethan Rose, that explores the potential of the bowl as an object that projects rather than contains. Visit MoCC to see this installation of five singing glass bowls, on view in Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage + Use.
Artist and activist Michael J. Strand, (Fargo, ND), meets the urban farmers and artists of Project Grow, an organization that participated in Bowls Around Town, a community-driven project launched in conjunction with Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage + Use. See the photos and ephemera generated by Project Grow, on view through September 21.
Participate in Bowls Around Town by visiting the Multnomah County Library to request and check out one of Michael J. Strand’s kits of your own!
Ayumi Horie tweaks the arrangement of Circulate, an installation of bowls on loan from 18 artists that Museum visitors are welcome to touch, hold, consider, and even take home and use. Experience it for yourself beginning tomorrow at MoCC!
We begin our press preview of Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage and Use, and Soundforge.
Don’t be too jealous— the exhibitions open to the public tomorrow morning at 11am, and don’t forget about the curatorial walkthrough, Friday May 17, 11am.
A preview of what’s to come…
Artist Kris Paul’s unfired ceramic bowls on their way to the kiln. Once finished, these bowls will be delivered to Park Kitchen, where chef and owner Scott Dolich will be using them to serve a seasonal menu item beginning June 1st.
Portland Selects at Museum of Contemporary Craft brings together ceramic and culinary artists in unique collaborative projects. Learn more in Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage + Use, on view starting May 16.
Image courtesy of Kris Paul, http://krispaulceramics.com/.
Written by Gloria Gerace
My love affair with bowls began many, many years ago on my first trip to Europe. Breakfast in a cheap pensione included coffee and milk, served in bowls, not cups. Raising the simple ceramic filled with strong coffee and foamy milk to my lips, I marveled at the mundane act transformed into a blessing. That bowl warmed my hands, captured my heart, and prompted a life’s passion.
The bowl evokes in us the most profound of human gestures: a bowl cradled in two hands; both arms extending out to offer or to receive; a head bowed to drink. A bowl summons one of most intimate relationships with the human body.
I now collect bowls of all kinds and materials—hand made and mass produced; glass, wood and ceramic; small and large—and use them in ways both intended and unexpected. I visit exhibitions of ancient Greek drinking vessels and imagine the fun when the wine was finished and the drawing at the bottom of the bowl was spied. At contemporary ceramic studios, I thrill at the feel of bowls with inventive shapes. At Japanese tea parlors, I lose myself in the complexities of the colors and finishes. And, each time I hold a bowl in my hands, I am aware of a blessing given and received.
Gloria Gerace is based in Los Angeles, CA. This submission came to us via: curatorial@museumofcontemporarycraft.org
Michael J. Strand (michaeljstrand.com) working with the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, OR launches “The Bowls Around Town Project” as part of the …
