Turned for Use (1997)

Juror's statements from the AAW's first juried show

Steve Loar, having proposed the idea for this show in his essay, We're Not in Kansas Anymore in the December 1995 issue of the American Woodturner, was an obvious first choice. As an educator (he is Director of the School of Art & Design and the School of American Crafts at RIT), and as a regular commentator on design and cultural issues within the turning community, his role in this exhibition has been central.

Turnings have been useful for a long time, and Charles Hummel was invited to bring an essential historical perspective of this craft to the jury. He is former Deputy Director of the Winterthur Museum and Library, author of the book, With Hammer in Hand, on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Dominy woodworking shop, and a trustee of the Wood Turning Center.

No one has established a stronger association with high-quality utilitarian turning than Richard Raffan. Through his books, videos, demonstrations, and woodturnings, he has set a standard internationally, not only for turned objects that are enriching to live with but for conveying the ideas and techniques that lead to such work. It's hard to imagine a show entitled Turned for Use without Richard Raffan.

Following are these juror's statements. They reflect the good spirit that characterized their much appreciated efforts in helping to shape this show. Besides the thirty-one juried pieces, the show includes representative work from Loar and Raffan and eight groups of pieces from the Old Sturbridge Village Collection. - Rick Mastelli, Montpelier, Vermont.

"Turned for Use" could be important. It could be a water-shed moment not unlike the first major exhibition of contemporary woodturning: the pivotal first "Turned Object Show," back in 1981. That exhibition, like this one, may not have shown all that there was to see in the field; some individuals did not know of the event, while others consciously chose not to be involved. It did, however, do a fine job of showcasing some of the best and the most innovative work of the moment.

"TfU '97" deserves to be the first of many exhibitions of beautiful inventive useful wares, where utility has not been compromised by decorative, sculptural, or "useless" work, and the satisfaction of the user has actually been enhanced. While the number of works submitted to this competition was modest and the number of categories represented was astonishingly few, the accepted works owe apologies to no one. They fulfill my original precepts for such an event: to give some sense of the level to which beauty, invention, and utility are being explored in the field of contemporary turning. It was exasperating to know that more good work is out there but was not submitted. One can only conjecture as to the myriad reasons.

Jurying an exhibition is much like grading a project assigned in school. This show is made up of "A" work; "C" work, "B" work, and in the final cut even "B+" work was not acceptable. As jurors, we drew from and thoroughly enjoyed each other's particular knowledge as well as our largely overlapping sensibilities of beauty, correctness, appropriateness, and execution. Rick Mastelli is to be thanked for taking a concept and nurturing it to fruition. The catalog (and this article excerpt) will mark a moment's passing acknowledgment of utility in the field of turning. Or, more hopefully, it will mark the beginning of a genuine and visible search for the fusion of utility with decoration, the pragmatic with the fanciful, and the expansion of our sense of "function", within the field of turning.

Much of our culture defines art as useless, and by definition, function as artless; seemingly our contemporary senses cannot be satisfied via utility. The works in this exhibition beg to differ.

Between May 1831 and February 1832 an astute Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, traveled in the United States of America to observe the impact of democracy on its institutions and daily life. In Chapter XI of his book, Democracy in America, entitled "In What Spirit the Americans Cultivate the Arts," he commented:

"Democratic nations, among whom all these things exist, will therefore cultivate the arts that serve to render life easy in preference to those whose object is to adorn it. They will habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful and they will require that the beautiful should be useful."

After viewing the works submitted to the jurors for this exhibition, it is gratifying to note that production turning by AAW members still exemplifies the useful being beautiful and the beautiful being useful.

From the eighty-eight entrants we selected work by twenty-four turners, or just under one in every three entrants. My criteria for selection required that five aspects of an object under consideration be met. They were idea, choice of materials, technique selected, execution, and finished form (i.e., aesthetics, proportion, and finish). There were many objects, for example, that represented good ideas, but hose ideas were not well executed. Some works, while well executed, had surface decoration that did not enhance the finished form. And so it went.

To my knowledge, none of the jurors considered categories or types of objects that had to be represented in the exhibition. Nor did we consider the names of applicants in making our selections.

I have to express my disappointment, however, that some categories of objects were missing from the entries or were present in small numbers. There was very little work of large scale submitted. There were only two tools, a few lamps, and a few chairs. Production turning in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries included stair balusters and newel posts, pulleys, tackle blocks, a wide range of domestic objects, furniture, and architectural elements for houses and public buildings. The John Grass Company in Philadelphia, in business longer than any other turning company in America, still exists on commission work for turned balusters and staircase elements, for example.

Equally disappointing was the fact that only about one and one half percent of the total membership of the AAW decided to submit entries for "Turned for Use".

The objects selected for this exhibition, however, are of excellent quality and should serve as a source of pride to all AAW members. They will also please anyone who has an interest in woodturning. Hopefully, they will also serve to spur woodturners everywhere to make equally imaginative, well-executed objects that are in the spirit of de Tocqueville's observation: beautiful and useful; useful and beautiful.

"Turned for Use" is a welcome intrusion into the round of woodturning exhibition where aggressively non-functional forms reign supreme and where practicality is often seen to devalue an object and demean the maker. One should feel ashamed of turning functional objects only if they are ill conceived (don't work), poorly made, or pretentious.

Few activities can be more fulfilling or challenging than the creation of a serviceable object that can be used and enjoyed for decades, or even generations. It is as easy to create an object that functions well, that does the job, as it is difficult to make one that will also grace the eye when not in use, and feel good in the hand.

By handling an object in which form, function, and tactile elements combine successfully, we extend our perception and enjoyment of that object and enrich our daily lives. And whilst non-functional or sculptural turnings sit aloof to be viewed, utilitarian objects become more interesting with age as the inevitable scuffs and scratches of daily life combine with constant handling to create those wonderful patinas associated with a well-used tool handle or stair rail polished by a thousand sweaty palms.

The useful can be beautiful, especially when used.