FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 3, 2013

Contact:
Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
Pacific Northwest College of Art
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 971 255 5528

Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
Pacific Northwest College of Art
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 971 255 5511

Museum of Contemporary Craft Collaborates with Portland Chefs
Part Two of Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage + Use

Portland, OR – April 3, 2013 – The second part of the exhibition Object Focus: The Bowl entitled Engage + Use opens May 16 and runs through September 21, 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). This part of the exhibition explores the social role of the bowl and features special collaborations with Portland restaurants, chefs, and culinary professionals, and artist projects reaching out into the community and bringing the community into the museum.

When the first part of the exhibition, Object Focus: The Bowl, Reflect + Respond, opened this spring, nearly 200 handcrafted bowls went on display, and The New York Times wrote extensively about curator Namita Gupta Wiggers’ efforts to refocus attention on an object so commonplace it’s often completely overlooked. The piece was headlined, “Finally the bowl gets its due.” A special focus of Reflect + Respond was on developing discourse around the bowl. Already dozens of short writings have been both commissioned for and submitted to the Museum’s Tumblr (objectfocusbowl.tumblr.com). That project is just beginning and will continue through August 3.

This second half of the exhibition, Object Focus: The Bowl, Engage + Use, expands the Museum’s consideration of this archetypal object by inviting the participation of Portland restaurants, chefs, and other culinary professionals; by creating a bowl lending library; and by putting handcrafted serving bowls in the communal kitchens of professional firefighters. The premier project is Portland Selects which invites chefs and culinary professionals to select a bowl from their own private collections to go on display in the Museum. Each will share a story about their bowl, and some will even provide special recipes. Among those participating are:

Grant Butler, Oregonian
Kurt Beadell, Vibrant Table Catering
Ken Forkish, Kens Artesian Bakery and Pizza
Sarah Hart, Alma Chocolate
Janie Hibler, cookbook author, The Berry Bible, Wild About Game
Christoper Israel, Gruner
Dolan Lane, ClarkLewis
Dayna McErlean, Yakuza and DOC
Kristen D. Murray, Paley’s Place
Nong Poonsukwattana, Nong’s Khao Man Gai
Andy Ricker, Pok Pok
Gabe Rosen, BIWA
Cathy Whims, Nostrana and Oven & Shaker

At the same time we are bringing Portland’s food community into the Museum, we are also extending the Museum’s dedication to craft out into a handful of Portland’s restaurants. The Museum has arranged for Georgies Ceramic and Clay Co. to donate a ton of clay so that a select group of restaurants can offer special seasonal dishes in handmade bowls made especially for them. Park Kitchen’s Scott Dolich is working with Portland-based potter and Oregon Potters Association member Kris Paul. Irving St. Kitchen’s Sarah Schafer is working with Shelley Martin of Portland’s Vitrified Studio. And Hot Lips Pizza will serve salad in handmade bowls made by a juried selection of five potters. Look for these bowls in restaurants at in early June.

Acclaimed ceramic artist, Ayumi Horie is building a bowl lending library to allow visitors to handle handcrafted bowls in the museum and even borrow a bowl to use at home. For his project, Bowls Around Town, social practice craft artist Michael Strand has created traveling trunks that contain a ceramic bowl, digital camera, and recipe book to circulate among some of Portland’s communities that come together around mealtimes. Strand’s project is in collaboration with Portland Fire and Rescue, Kitchen Commons, and Project Grow. Area chefs, cookbook authors, bakers, and candymakers will make bowl selections for Portland Selects. In addition, there will be a reprisal of the glass bowl sound sculpture, Transference, by Andy Paiko and Ethan Rose, as well as an installation and performance by The Craft Mystery Cult. Finally, there will be a symposium on Craft and Social Practice featuring some of the artists featured in Object Focus: The Bowl, planned in conjunction with Portland State University’s Open Engagement Conference.

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
As Oregon’s flagship college of art and design since 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art has helped shape Oregon’s visual arts landscape for more than a century. PNCA students study with award-winning faculty in small classes. In the last seven years, PNCA has doubled both the student body and full-time faculty, quadrupled its endowment, and added innovative undergraduate and graduate programs. PNCA is now embarking on its boldest venture yet by establishing the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design as an anchor for the College’s vision of a new campus home on Portland’s North Park Blocks. Focusing on the transformative power of creativity, the capital campaign, Creativity Works Here, was launched in June 2012 with a lead gift from The Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation of $5 million. PNCA’s new home will be a bustling hub for creativity and entrepreneurship, reflecting the influential role of art and design in our 21st century economy – both in Portland and beyond. For more information, visit pnca.edu.