LANDSCAPE looks at the sublime and complex relationship between craft artists and their environment. The work these artists create often embodies the power, beauty and fragility of the natural world. LANDSCAPE highlights artists Jan Yager, Kit Carson, David Gurney, Richard Notkin, George Nakashima, and Mira Nakashima. Their art is both a reflection of and commentary on the environment in which they live. Also featuring the Timberline Lodge, this exhibition and episode discover the handmade in landscapes where it is often hiding in plain sight.
DAVID GURNEY
David Gurney (b. 1958 in Garden Grove, CA) is a potter and painter. He received his MA in Ceramics from California State University, Fullerton. He now lives on California’s Central Coast.
His work is influenced by nature, food, Mexican folk art, and his childhood, growing up in a time of abundant orange groves and strawberry fields. His functional pottery is painted and decorated with mythical landscapes that reflect his time, place, and sensibility.
David Gurney, Tree of Life, Bluebird
GEORGE NAKASHIMA
George Nakashima (1905-1990) was a woodworker, born in Spokane, WA. He attended the University of Washington and received his Masters in Architecture from MIT. During WWII, he was placed in an internment camp where he learned woodworking from a Japanese carpenter. In 1945, he opened up a woodworking shop and studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania and employed some of the world’s finest craftsmen. Today the Nakashima studio is operated by his daughter, Mira Nakashima. His work can be found in the late Nelson Rockefeller’s home, the interior of Columbia University, and the International Paper Corporation.
MIRA NAKASHIMA
Mira Nakashima (b. 1942 in Seattle, WA) has followed her father’s (George Nakashima) path by becoming a woodworker. She attended Harvard University and received a Masters degree in Architecture from Waseda University in Tokyo. She worked with her father for many years as a colleague and designer in his workshop. Since her father’s death in 1990, she has been the creative director of the Nakashima studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where she continues to produce her father’s classic furniture designs and to design and produce her own work as well. She lives with her family across the road from the studio.
KIT CARSON
Kit Carson (b. 1950, AZ) is an artist and jeweler, who lives and works at Cactus Camp in New River, AZ with his wife, artist Aryana B. Londir. Carson grew up on a dude ranch with supportive and energetic parents. He later attended the University of Oregon where he studied engraving, drawing, and sculpture. Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, his work pays homage to the romanticism of the 1950s American West. Themes in his work include the southwest, cowboys, Art Nouveau, desert animals, dragonflies, and the Day of the Dead.
View the full episode of LANDSCAPE above.
For more information, check out craftinamerica.org
Craft in America
