Remembering Ray Grimm

Museum of Contemporary Craft will greatly miss artist Ray Grimm who passed away on Sunday at age 87.

Grimm founded the ceramics program at Portland State University and taught pottery, jewelry-making, and art education until he retired in 1988. Grimm and his wife Jere played an important role at Museum of Contemporary Craft when it was still known as the Contemporary Crafts Gallery and Museum.

“Ray and Jere are two of the most delightful people I’ve had the opportunity to work with at the Museum,” says curator Namita Gupta Wiggers. “The two of them have always been dynamic supporters of this institution and the broader modern craft community in Portland.”

Ray and Jere met while studying art at Washington University in St. Louis. They participated in a workshop with ceramic artist F.Carlton Ball in Carbondale, Illinois which stoked the young married couple’s interest in what was to be their medium of choice for decades. Grimm also studied glass-blowing at the Toledo Art Museum with Harvey Littleton, the father of the modern glass art movement. And in 1968 he founded the Glass Shack workshop in Portland.

Grimm’s work is in the permanent collection of Museum of Contemporary Craft and many other collections.

— Posted on 01/26 at 03:31 PM

The Brain Food Lab

You’’ve seen in the exhibition Studio H: Design. Build. Transform. how the creative process can transform learning, develop critical thinking skills, and connect students to their environment in exciting and bold ways. The Brain Food Lab is a real-life, hands-on demonstration of these concepts. Please help us by experimenting in our working laboratory.

This project is inspired by Brain Food, a set of DIY activities conceived by the local arts education partnership The Right Brain Initiative to engage children and adults in imaginative, exploratory learning experiences. Brain Food activities integrate an artistic approach with other school subject areas, modeling the kind of learning that Right Brain brings to over 11,000 students and nearly 600 teachers in the Portland metropolitan region.

AIGA Portland, the local professional association for design, and The Right Brain Initiative are now joined in a unique partnership to expand the Brain Food activities into a physical card deck that will be available in 2012 to Right Brain teachers and on sale to the public.

The Brain Food Lab happens on the following dates:
January 7, 2-4 pm
January 21, 2-4 pm
February 4, 2-4 pm
February 18, 2-4pm

— Posted on 01/04 at 12:45 PM

Phloem Studio

FIRST WEDNESDAY RECEPTION January 4, 6-8 pm

Phloem Studio, a design studio that builds custom furniture and cabinets for residential and commercial spaces, is a Gallery feature this month.

Phloem Studio, located in Portland, Oregon, designs and builds custom furniture and cabinets for residential and commercial spaces. The studio believes good design should be elegant and timeless and loves to work with people who value quality craftsmanship that will last far into the future.

In 2009, Designer/craftsman Ben Klebba formed Phloem Studio, located at 2710 N Interstate Ave in Portland, Oregon. Requiring too much coffee, large tools, and an acute attention to detail, Phloem Studio can build a simple refined chair for a desk or an entire kitchen that will undoubtedly reflect Ben’s admiration of clean, simple lines.

“Lately I’ve been exploring straight tapering angles and parallel sides. I’m just as influenced by Hans Wegner as much as by Aphex Twin or John Coltrane. Function and beauty are both equal and inseparable in design. A chair should support the back, sit well, and please the eye. I believe that the most gorgeous things in life are also simple and unique. I strive to achieve that balance.” says Klebba.

— Posted on 01/02 at 04:26 PM