Generations: Betty Feves, New Book on Pioneering Oregon Ceramic Artist
Release date: 04/19/12
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2012
Contact:
Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
Pacific Northwest College of Art
lradon@pnca.edu, 971 255 5528
Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
Pacific Northwest College of Art
bbiggs@pnca.edu, 971 255 5511
Generations: Betty Feves, New Book on Pioneering Oregon Ceramic Artist
Portland, OR – April 19, 2012 – The Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is pleased to announce the publication of the new book, Generations: Betty Feves, edited by Namita Gupta Wiggers. The book was produced to coincide with the Museum’s current exhibition of the same name, curated by Wiggers.
Betty Whiteman Feves (1918-1985) belongs to a generation of mid-century vanguard artists who set the stage for dynamic shifts in the use of clay in art. Feves’ work and life subvert the popular, male-dominated narrative of post-World War II ceramics. Academically trained, Feves studied with Clyfford Still and Alexander Archipenko in the late 1930s, worked in a design studio in New York during World War II, then chose to live, work, and raise her four children in Pendleton, Oregon where she continued to live for the next 40 years.
Generations: Betty Feves covers Feves’ development as an artist, her place in the history of the American Craft movement, and her relentless experimentation and innovation in the use of locally sourced materials and primitive techniques. And it tells the story of Feves’ life in art, community, and music through her own words (a transcript of a lecture she gave in 1980 at Oregon State University) and the memories of her fellow artists, apprentices, and mentees including Hal Reigger, Bob Lanman, and James Lavador. Historian Jenny Sorkin, award-winning artist Daniel Duford, writer Linda Sussman, and curatorial assistant Damara Bartlett, in addition to Wiggers, contributed essays. The publication is illustrated with hundreds of lush photos of Feves’ works, portraits of the working artist, ephemera including notebooks, sketches, and correspondence, plus extraordinary photos by Jackson Patterson of the Eastern Oregon landscape that so inspired Feves. Dan Kvitka contributed the bulk of the photography, while Patterson, a relative of Feves, contributed the landscape photos. Many of the works shown in the book are currently on display, some for the first time, at Museum of Contemporary Craft. The book includes an extensive curriculum vitae for the artist and a selected bibliography. The book was produced with support from the Whiteman Foundation.
Generations: Betty Feves is available at The Gallery at Museum of Contemporary Craft for $40, and can be ordered by phone at (503) 546-2654 or online at The Gallery website at http://gallery.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/publications/feves.html.
Generations: Betty Feves
Softcover; 192 pages; full color; 9.5 × 7.5 inches
ISBN: 978-0-9728981-7-1
Published by Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon
Release date: April 11, 2012
$40 + Shipping and Handling
Domestic and international shipping is available. Please allow 2 weeks for domestic orders and 3–4 weeks for international orders. Domestic shipping and handling: $4.95. International shipping & handling: $14.90 ($10.90 for Canada). Please contact The Gallery to receive discounted shipping rates for orders of more than one book. For questions or to purchase the book by phone, contact The Gallery, 503.546.2654, gallery@MuseumofContemporaryCraft.org.
ABOUT MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT
Committed to the advancement of craft since 1937, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art is one of Oregon’s oldest cultural institutions. Centrally located in Portland’s Pearl District, the Museum is nationally acclaimed for its curatorial program and is a vibrant center for investigation and dialogue, expanding the definition of craft and the way audiences experience it.
ABOUT PACIFIC NORTHWEST COLLEGE OF ART
Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) has been an influential force in art and design education in the Pacific Northwest since its founding in 1909. Today PNCA continues to prepare students for a life of creative practice with nearly 600 students in 15 undergraduate and graduate programs, and another 1,500 students in its continuing education programs. PNCA has become a leader in innovative educational programs that connect students to a global perspective in the visual arts and design. In addition to its 10 Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, PNCA offers five graduate degrees under the auspices of its Ford Institute for Visual Education (FIVE): an MFA in Visual Studies, a Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies, an MA in Critical Theory and Creative Research, an MFA in Collaborative Design, and an MFA in Applied Craft and Design developed with the Oregon College of Art and Craft, the first inter-institutional degree of its kind in the US.
PNCA is actively involved in Portland’s cultural life through exhibitions and a vibrant public program of lectures and internationally recognized visiting artists, designers and creative thinkers. Portland Monthly, in its January 2012 issue, called PNCA the “crown jewel of Portland’s creative class.” With the support of FIVE, the College has an operating partnership with the nationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Craft. For more information, visit pnca.edu.