Lifestyle

Craft expo attracts country's top artisans

Posted August 14, 2009 11:00 pm

By Deborah Donovan

Anne Gary prefers working with porcelain.

Now that Anne Gary has mastered porcelain, she's taking on crystalline glazes.

Part chemistry, part art, part magic, these glazes require firing at a high temperature such as 2,230 degrees, then delicate, controlled cooling. The artist compares the serendipity of the resulting designs to the frost on your window - another form of crystal.

The Naperville resident, along with others from the Chicago area considered "emerging artists" or those relatively new at their crafts, will display and sell creations at the American Craft Exposition Aug. 28 to 30 in Evanston.

All Gary's works - such as her striking ginkgo flower vases - take inspiration from nature.

"I call it a ginkgo flower even though there's no such thing," said Gary. "My favorite leaf is a ginkgo leaf, and that's what the top of the vases look like."

Gary's professional background is electrical engineering, but she began taking pottery classes at College of DuPage and attending workshops in different areas after starting a family almost two decades ago. With other students from the community college, she founded Clay Space in Warrenville, where she fires her glazes.

"I was drawn to porcelain," said the artist. "It's very white and translucent, a great background to put bright colors on. In the early days I liked bright colors of glazes. That evolved into the crystalline glaze."

A grandmother's love of Asian art impressed Gary as a child, and she was dramatically introduced to the zinc and silica crystalline glazes when she saw a piece 5 feet tall in Taiwan.

The whole process she has concentrated on for three years is very challenging, and different colors of crystals grow at different temperatures.

"The glazes complement the forms, and I like the uniqueness," she said. "You don't see it very often. It's that engineering thing. I love the testing."

Gary charges $30 to $200 for her artwork.

Karen Gubitz is a sculptor, but she uses basket-weaving techniques to form works from natural materials - prairie grasses, willow beads, copper wire, dogwood twigs and sea grass she gathers herself.

The Oak Park resident started making baskets about 20 years ago, then evolved into a sculptor.

Gubitz does not like to repeat works and is always seeking new techniques. Now she is learning looping or knotless netting, a method that dates from the Stone Age.

Pieces 3-feet square to 9 feet long take at least two months to finish and are priced at $1,500 to $5,000.

"I feel a connection with the world around me," she said. "I take long walks and find things. I am amazed at the beauty and want it to be a part of my life."

You say you want your artwork to be something usable, not just beauty for your wall or table.

How about furniture by 24-year-old Jordan Goodman of Chicago?

He started making wood furniture while studying architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and works with ash, cherry walnut, oak and exotic woods like wenge and zebra.

Goodman also is perfecting his welding techniques so he can create more with metal.

Goodman sells small items for under $100 and 9-foot dining room tables for $16,000. And he has designed a winding cube for collectors of self-winding watches. This gorgeous contraption of Honduras mahogany, tiger maple, black leather, aluminum and glass includes 16 motors and carries a price tag of $20,000.

Goodman doesn't even complain when his buddies put their feet on a coffee table he made.

In fact, when he fashioned a dining room table he and three of his friends walked across it to be sure it was solid.

"It's very much supposed to be functional and used, and that's what happens," he said.

Darlys Ewoldt, Chicago's representative in the ranks of more established artists featured at the expo, cuts and hammers metal sheets into pieces so smooth they appear to be made of wood or ceramic.

"I used to be a jeweler, but my pieces got bigger," she said.

The Chicago resident who teaches art at Columbia College, works primarily in copper because it's malleable and she likes the patina it takes.

"A lot of the works are hammered over metal forms, smoothed with different hammers, ground and filed," said Ewoldt. "It's a very labor-intensive process."

The color or patina is added at the end with chemicals and heat.

Her pieces - which are decorative, not functional even though some resemble teapots - range from 3-inches to 24-inches square. Her prices are $400 to $7,000.

"Sometimes structurally a piece might not work or I just don't like what happened to it. I try and cut parts of it and rethink it so I'm not scrapping whole pieces," said Ewoldt. "I learn from my mistakes."

•Find out more about the artists at their Web sites: Anne Gary, annegary.com; Karen Gubitz, wovenearth.com; Jordan Goodman, jgcustom.com.

Darlys Ewoldt works on the inside and outside of her creations.

Anne Gary does some hand work on each piece.

A wheel is one method Anne Gary uses to make pieces of porcelain.

An engineer-turned-artist, Anne Gary of Naperville experiments with crystalline glaze, in which different colors of crystal grow at different temperatures.

Anne Gary of Naperville calls these vases ginkgo flowers. Sculptor Karen Gubitz uses natural materials, like the branches in the piece at right.

These pieces by Jordan Goodman can be used together or separately such as for bedside cabinets.

Darlys Ewoldt makes decorative teapots from metal.

Jordan Goodman makes furniture of wood and other materials.

Karen Gubitz made this wall sculpture.

Right: Karen Gubitz used a small tree in this sculpture.

25th American Craft Exposition What: 25th American Craft Exposition with 150 craftspeople showing baskets, ceramics, fiber arts, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, paper and wood. When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30. Where: Henry Crown Sports Pavilion, Northwestern University, 2311 Campus Drive, Evanston. Tickets: $12 pre-sale, good for all days; $15 after Aug. 24; $5 for age 10 and younger. Preview party: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27; $100 includes tickets to all three days. Information: (847) 570-5096 or <a href="http://americancraftexpo.org" target="new">americancraftexpo.org</a>.

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