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| Passion Investments: Collectibles |
Bowling for Dollars
Marisa Bartolucci
09/01/2005
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In
turned
wood’s evolution from craft to sculpture, there may be
no more
significant
figure than Lindquist’s son, Mark. When he
was just 29, the
Metropolitan Museum
of Art acquired one of
his works. At the time, the
museum had only one other
example
of turned wood: a piece by Prestini.
Mark had grown up turning wood
with
his father. Yet after studying
sculpture in college, he
decided to throw
pots.
When Mark
returned to the
lathe in the late 1970s, it was with
fresh vision and
skills.
Instead of crafting polished forms, he gouged and
roughened
their surfaces. By the late 1980s, he was assembling wood totems, some
more than 6 feet tall. Mark sells his and his late father’s
work
directly to
collectors through his studio. While a few
small pieces by
Mel may still be had
for under $10,000, most
of his works, like his
son’s, now range in price from
$10,000
to $50,000.
Timber Futures
David Ellsworth, another giant among the
second-generation
turners, also has a background in sculpture
and
ceramics. His knowledge of fine
art and skill as a potter
are manifest
in how he conceives and creates his
vessels,
which are renown for their
tiny openings and paper-thin walls. He often
scorches and paints his
wood. Del Mano Gallery is selling a
16-by-16-inch
scorched sphere from
his Solstice series, for
$25,000. Ellsworth is also known
for his
miniature Spirit
Vessels, a few inches tall. They are priced from
$2,000.
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TODD HOYER'S Peeling Orb, 1987 is made of burned,
lathe-turned mesquite. | Today myriad stylistic
currents
run through the field. David
McFadden, the chief
curator of New York’s
Museum of Arts and Design, counsels
aspiring collectors to do a lot of
looking, before beginning
to buy. “It’s easy
to be swayed by a single
piece,” he
explains, “but [in this field] that’s just
the tip of the
iceberg.” Within the realm of the decorative, works range from
the
exquisitely patterned, segmented bowls of Mike Shuler to
the stately,
ornately carved vessels of Michelle Holzapfel,
one of the field’s few
female
artists. Shuler’s bowls can
fetch up to $8,000. Holzapfel’s
pieces can range
from $8,000
to $16,000. A testament to just how far
turned wood has traveled
since its craft fair days, the work of both
these artists is
represented by
Barry Friedman, a tony decorative arts
gallery
on Manhattan’s Upper East
Side.
Then there are the
sculptural works of artists like Todd Hoyer. Charred
and
weathered,
sometimes bound with rusty wire, his deeply personal pieces
defy
all
expectations of polished beauty, radiating instead a
raw emotional power.
This is especially extraordinary when you consider
that they are rarely
more
than 2 feet high. Works by Hoyer at
the Cervini-Haas
Gallery/Gallery Materia, in
Scottsdale,
Ariz., another leading venue
for turned wood, run from $2,500 to
$6,000. Other turned wood artists
and their works are more
formalist in their
concerns. Stoney Lamar, a
former assistant
to Mark Lindquist, employs a
multi-axis lathe
technique to
carve asymmetric sculptures with layered planes.
While
abstract, their forms suggest canyon landscapes shaped by the rush of
wind
and water. Lamar’s works, seldom more than 3 feet high, are priced
up
to $8,000
at the Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, N.C.
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