NewsFile | Maison & Objet Paris’ Designer of the Year, Anderson Ranch Turnover + more

Welcome to Spotted, our weekly round-up of news and other happenings in the world of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art. This week, we begin with Maison & Objet Paris’ 2018 Designer of the Year.

Maison & Objet Paris’ 2018 Designer of the Year

Maison & Objet Paris named Danish designer Cecilie Manz its 2018 Designer of the Year this month ahead of the the design object fair in Paris beginning January 19th through the 23rd.

Cecilie Manz designs furniture, glass, lamps and related products, mainly for the home. In addition to her work with industrial products, her experimental prototypes and more sculptural one-offs make up an important part of her work and approach:

“I view all my works as fragments of one big, ongoing story where the projects are often linked or related in terms of their idea, materials and aesthetics, across time and function.Some objects remain experiments or sculpted ideas, others are made more concrete and turn into functional tools.

The task or project itself often holds the key to inspiration; ideas don’t come from waiting but from leg-work, drafting and trials. My work goes from the inside out, and a project has to possess a sound, strong and relevant idea or functional justification before I address the actual physical design. My work has always revolved around simplicity, the process of working toward a pure, aesthetic and narrative object.”

Read more about about Manz and the award.

Long Buried Colonial Pottery Unearthed

The New York Times reports the artifacts of America’s artisanal history made their contemporary debut January 18 at the New York Ceramics and Glass Fair. Initially found buried in a privy shift in the Old City district of Philadelphia, over 10 pieces of slipware pottery from the 18th century are on display in a show called “Buried Treasure: New Discovers in Philadelphia Slipware from the Collection of the Museum of the American Revolution.”

The ceramics were uncovered during an excavation of the grounds of the new Museum of the of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. Archaeologists from the Commonwealth Heritage Group recovered almost 85,000 artifacts from the site between 2014 and 2016.

Read more here.

Nancy Wilhelms Steps Down as ED of Anderson Ranch Arts Center

Colorado’s Anderson Ranch Arts Center Executive Director Nancy Wilhelms, who successfully led the organization for five years, will step down as executive director at the end of the year, ArtForum reports.

While Wilhelms was at the helm of the organization, the Ranch increased its operating budget by 34 percent and its endowment by 27 percent. She also helped enhance programs such as the “Featured Artists Series,” which invited Frank Stella, Christo, Marina Abramović, Theaster Gates, Steve McQueen, Carrie Mae Weems, and Catherine Opie, among other artists, to the arts space, and she spearheaded the development of the new “Critical Dialogue Program,” the “Advanced Mentored Studies Program,” and other initiatives.

Read more here.

Frank Lloyd Wright Building Demolished

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Lockridge Medical Clinic Building in Whitefish, Montana is the architect’s first complete, intact building to be demolished in 40 years. The owner of the historic building razed the structure under the cloak of nightfall January 10, after last-minute negotiations with preservationists attempting to buy it fell through, Hyperallergic writes.

Which came as a shock to members of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy (FLWBC), a Chicago-based nonprofit, and the Montana Preservation Society, who have been working together for over a year to save the building.

Although unintended for private residence, the building is quintessentially Usonian, with a flat roof complete with overhang, clerestory windows, and a central hearth — a pretty uncommon feature for a clinic.

Read more at Hyperallergic and Architectural Digest.

Earth Minerals in Jeopardy

Eight earth minerals related to the ceramic and glass industries are on the U.S. Geological Surveys list of minerals that are essential to the U.S. economy and national security, most of which are imported from other countries, China specifically.

After the USGS’s announcement, The Washington Post reports President Trump signed an executive order to “reduce the nation’s vulnerability to disruptions in the supply of critical minerals, which constitutes a strategic vulnerability for the security and prosperity of the United States,” thus directing the U.S. to expand its domestic mineral production.

The executive order says that the federal government will be “identifying new sources of critical minerals” and “increasing activity at all levels of the supply chain, including exploration, mining, concentration, separation, alloying, recycling and reprocessing critical minerals.”

In a nutshell, the U.S. should expect to see more mineral mining and production. Read more at The American Ceramic Society here.

Learn more about alternative frameworks for creative production.

We also have a neat link for you to the Chemistry of Ceramics by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Stay tuned throughout the week as we’ll continue to update our NewsFile with the latest from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics. We want to hear from you! Let us know what you think in the comments section below.