japonisme

15 June 2007

saturday evening girls

as a response to unem- ployment, lack of education, and dismal living conditions amongst north boston immigrants, a local library organized a group for jewish and italian teenaged girls. for at least one night a week it got them off the street, and it got them reading.

as the women running the program began to recognize the girls' real needs, a program was begun wherein the girls were taught a trade: pottery making. and thus paul revere pottery was born.

today at auction a lovely SEG bowl might fetch $21,000.

[In the above example, the artist] interpreted Queen Anne's lace in a stylized manner with a heavy black outline [as in japanese prints] from several points of view and at varying stages of bloom. Broad bands shift from white through three shades of blue to a grayish yellow-green, which merges with the plants' foliage. This effect reveals the influence of color theories espoused by tonalist artist Arthur Wesley Dow. [and as seen in the japanese prints] 1

and, wonderfully, somehow, i think, this was not an anomaly. newcomb pottery, marblehead pottery, arquipa pottery, and others as has very similar circumstances as their beginnings.


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