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| Passion Investments: Collectibles |
Bowling for Dollars
Marisa Bartolucci
09/01/2005
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Say “turned wood” and many people think of clunky teak salad bowls carved by
hobbyists on their basement lathes. But for cognoscenti the term
conjures images
of wooden vessels of breathtaking beauty,
technical
invention—and very
interesting investment potential.
Such is the
paradox of turned wood. Out of a
humble pastime
has emerged an art
form, astonishing in its variety and, lately,
the values of the most
superlative pieces. And all of this has
happened in the
past 40
years.
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| MELVIN
LINDQUIST'S Hopi Bowl (Natural Top), 1999.
| “It’s an exciting time to collect. The field
is still
young,
yet it has enough history for us to know who
the early masters
are,” explains
Kevin Wallace, an independent
studio craft critic and
curator. Wallace has
helped shepherd
this American-born movement since
its dramatic flowering in the
1990s, when he served as creative
director of Del Mano, the
Los Angeles crafts
gallery that is arguably
the leading venue
for the field. During the 1990s, a
host of monographs
on
significant collections were published, and museums across
the
country began acquiring works in earnest. Today, the Renwick Gallery in
Washington, D.C., the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, N.C.,
the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art and the Arizona State
University
Museum in Tempe
all have large
collections.
“We’ve loved being
part of the development, this
sudden renaissance of wood turning as an
art,” says Jane
Mason, who along with
her husband, Arthur, a retired
lawyer,
has donated their influential collection
to the Mint. Within a
year of happening upon the seminal traveling exhibition
The
Art of
Turned Wood Bowls at the Renwick in 1986, the couple quickly
amassed
more than 100 pieces. (Their collection has now passed
the 600 mark.)
As Arthur
jokingly puts it, “I never met a
wooden bowl I didn’t like.”
He quickly adds,
“Fortunately my
wife has.” Indeed, thanks to Jane, the
couple have been
disciplined in their choices, having decided from the
start
only to purchase
works that would someday be
museum-worthy.
VALUE JUDGMENT
The past four decades have seen
a slow but steady rise in the field of turned
wood. Ranging
from tiny
macadamia bowls to vessels large enough to hide a small
child, these
diverse pieces attract a small but fervent group
of aficionados.
New
collectors can enter the field for as
little as several hundred dollars,
while the most prized pieces fetch
upward of $50,000 on the rare
occasions they
are for
sale. | You would expect
such a couple,
already seasoned collectors with a home adorned with
works by
important modern
artists such as George Grosz, Käthe Kollwitz,
Joan Miró and George Segal, to be
more tempered in their
enthusiasm for
an art form that in the late 1980s was
more
frequently found in
makeshift studios and craft shows than posh
galleries.
But for them
that was part of the excitement. This
was a new aesthetic frontier.
There was, too, the allure of
wood itself, its tactile materiality, its
still
vibrant
connection to nature. And finally, there was the pleasure
of forging
friendships with an unsung band of marvelously talented
artists.
All these
elements continue to draw collectors
to a
field that is growing at a phenomenal
rate, not just in
this country,
but now in Europe and Australia. While prices
for the most prized
pieces have risen substantially over the
years, turned wood
continues
to be attractively priced.
Important works by acknowledged masters
peak
at about $50,000,
while fine pieces by emerging and even mature talents may
be had for
several hundred dollars upward into the $20,000 range.
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