SCC Fine Craft Boutique - Oval Shaker Boxes

Submitted by: Sydney Luther, Gallery Assistant

Our brand new SCC Fine Craft Boutique is filled with beautiful pieces of many different mediums, a few of which our readers may not know much about. We hope to educate these readers through a new collection of blog posts highlighting the different mediums and styles of work we feature in our boutique.

The History and Creation of the Oval Shaker Box

 

Wayne Dueck is a woodworker from Saskatoon who is a juried member of the Saskatchewan Craft Council. He specializes in the oval Shaker box, which is a sturdy wood box with a tight fitting lid, the style of which was invented by an American religious group known as the Shakers. 

Wayne Dueck's oval Shaker boxes come in many different sizes.

The Shakers, more formally known as The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, is a group which began in the 17^th century in France, but soon after immigrated to the United States. The group focused on creating a utopian society based on the virtues of purity, pacifism, tolerance, and equality of the sexes. In the early 19^th century, the Shakers reached their peak membership, with more than 6000 Shakers living in 19 different communities in the eastern United States. Today, the last remaining Shaker community is located in Maine, after their numbers dwindled throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries. 

Dueck's boxes are created without any glue, only copper tacks.

The Shakers strived for perfection in everything they did, and this can be seen in their fine but simple woodworking. Dueck agrees with the society’s focus on the utility of handmade objects, and not only beauty. This worldview is engrained in Wayne’s creation of the simple Shaker boxes, which are fashioned using no glue, but only small copper tacks. His design is taken directly from the original Shaker tradition, which dates back to the 1790s. Dueck uses quartersawn cherry and birdseye maple wood in his Shaker boxes, which feature uniform, slender sides, symmetrical joints, and tight fitting lids. Coated with a combination of beeswax and linseed oil, the boxes come in a variety of sizes and can be used to store an assortment of household items and personal treasures. The boxes range in price from $40-$80, depending on their size.

Dueck's Shaker boxes are featured in the SCC Fine Craft Boutique.

If you are interested in purchasing one of Wayne's traditional oval Shaker boxes, please visit the SCC Fine Craft Boutique, located in the Saskatchewan Craft Council’s Affinity Gallery at 813 Broadway Avenue, Saskatoon, SK.

The Craft Factor - Marketing in Cyberspace

Vol 20, No 2 Summer/Fall 1995

In the mid 90s, Karen Schoonover addressed issues around artists using the Internet - still a very new thing in most households, workplaces and schools at the time - to market them self. The internet was - and still is - a low-cost option for artists to use for self promotion, and as an inherently visual medium, offered much potential to boost awareness about an artist and their work.

Excerpt from "Marketing in Cyberspace"

If you need to be reminded: What radio did was bring music into people's homes for free, giving them a sample of what the musician had to offer, and encouraging album sales. The hope was that artists could offer sample images of their work online, and this exposure would lead to sales.

Unlike the music industry however, sales in art and craft aren't charted via tools like Billboards Top 20 (which is based on hard figures from album sales). So the direct connection between online exposure and eventual sales can't be measured.

But if you consider how often a potential customer or gallery owner asks you if they can view images of your work online, then you can begin to understand just how close to the mark Karen was almost 20 years ago.

Read the complete article ...

Artist Profile: Kate MacDowell, United States

 Submitted by: Maia Stark, Gallery Assistant

Kate MacDowell did not initially plan her life around being a craftsperson and artist. MacDowell began a career teaching in urban high schools, then created websites in a high tech corporate environment, and then, somewhat contrarily, went to India and volunteered at a rural meditation retreat— it was only when she returned to the United States in 2004 that she began to study ceramics, and only then as something to occupy herself until her “next step.” However, MacDowell quickly became engaged with the medium of clay (Wolfe, Interview with Kate MacDowell) and is now a recognized and established ceramicist and artist.

 

Canary, hand built porcelain, compact fluorescent lights, wiring, 2008

katemacdowell.com

MacDowell has always had a fascination with nature and the human relationship to the natural world. She often draws and sculpts from scientific illustrations and photographs, always hand-sculpting her porcelain sculptures and only recently using molds to make a collection of similar works meant to be shown together. Her process is labor intensive: she often strays from her original design, changing the sculpture half way through and pushing her technique further with more detail and increasingly delicate parts (Wolfe, Interview with Kate MacDowell). 

The Craft Factor - Mel Bolen

Vol 26 No 2 Winter 2002

Currently at Affinity Gallery is Two Perspectives, an exhibition of work by ceramic artist Mel Bolen and painter Karen Holden. The exhibition is unique juxtaposition of sculpture and painting and an exploration of surface and texture in nature.

These are concepts Mel Bolen has been exploring for most of his craft career, which spans over 40 years. In 2002, artist Grant McConnell reviewed an exhibition by Bolen, "Salt of the Earth" at Darrell Bell Gallery. The review was accompanied by a first hand account of Bolen's process in creating his sculptural masterpieces.

Read the complete articles ...

Artist Profile - Laura Steadman

Submitted by: Sydney Luther, Gallery Assistant

Laura Steadman has been creating art for as long as she can remember. She says when she was young, she used to design and sew teddy bears. For now, she has decided to focus on jewellery making as her main artistic outlet. Laura’s jewellery company is called EllJay Design, and she designs and creates all of her jewellery pieces by hand.
  

Works in progress in Laura's studio

Laura, who was born and raised in Regina, works out of her home studio. She hand creates metal earrings, rings, and pendants, with which she often incorporates her handmade lampwork glass beads. She calls silver her first love, but also works with copper and titanium and hopes to move onto using gold in her jewelery soon. Although she focuses on jewellery, Laura also does crochet, Hardanger embroidery, cross stitch, petit point, and origami, to name a few. 

Getting Things Done

Submitted by: Amanda Bosiak, Member Services

I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan: he's the creative genius behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog and more recently, The Avengers movie. He also works on comic books, writes musicals and oh yeah, he scripted the first Toy Story movie. Joss Whedon is one busy guy and has been for a very long time. One of the reasons I admire him is because he seems to get so much high quality stuff done! I am always in awe of that type of person; How? How do they do it?

Recently, Whedon was asked that very question in an article for Co.Create and he admitted that it isn't easy (and that he's burnt himself out a time or two). One of the things he found useful, both for time management and remaining relatively stress-free, was a book by David Allen called "Getting Things Done". Well, if it was good enough for Joss Whedon, I figured it was worth the read.

Confession: It took me over a month to get the book done. This isn't because it's a difficult read, nor is it particularly long. I just happen to have an incredible aptitude for procrastination. I definitely needed this book.

The Craft Factor - Winning and Losing

Vol 20, No 2 Summer/Fall 1995

Paula Gustafson tackled an issue artists of many mediums (not just craft) face over the course of their career: Am I an artist, or a producer? Does it have to be one or the other? Can I be both? Gustafson explores this issue with thoughtfulness and some very good examples of life on both sides of the craft (and art) career spectrum. Much of the article takes direction from the experiences of potter Robin Hopper, and glass artist Robert Held. Both agreed that to some extent, their experiences with production work led to a better understanding of their craft, and contributed to their skill building process.

So maybe it doesn't have to be one or the other, if the artist allows each aspect of their practice to enhance the other.

Read the full article