I have never thought of myself as a collector. A lover of beautiful things, yes. A buyer of similar pieces, indeed. Attracted by specific media and object types, absolutely. But a collector? Not really. I just like to buy beautiful pieces and live with them.

Recently, a friend had occasion to go into my clothing closet and came out laughing. When I asked why, she said it was because she had never before seen a “collection” of black dresses before. She wondered how I could tell the difference and decide what to wear. I was shocked, as it is all about the assymetrical cut of one dress, the kimono shape of another, the architectural piecing on a third. Each had been designed by an individual intent on making their mark on the Little Black Dress. And as a believer in the go-to solution of the LBD, I guess I had become over time a “collector.”

So it goes as well with teapots. I don’t know when I first fell in love with the form, but I do know the crush turned into a full-blown affair when I was forced to stop drinking coffee and had to learn to love tea. As long as that was the case, why not make it a beautiful thing, I thought. I find myself looking for teapots now, and enjoying the creative license that artists take with the form. As I began purchasing them, I found that teapots often desire “friends”, having the ability to form their own tea party, even in the absence of humans. And so, my collection began. A few in my office, more in my dining room, a few tucked away together in the guest room. Is one enough for my morning tea? I’m afraid not!

Birch Bark Bluff: Mirror
by Mike Dillon

In the tale of Snow White, the wicked witch asks her magic mirror for confirmation of her own beauty. I suspect that artists often remember this line when designing mirrors, and are tempted to add their own modern twist. Mike Dillon goes a step further. As a former imagineer at the Walt Disney Company, Mike enjoys playing with real and faux, asking the viewer of his mirrors to look a little closer while looking at themselves. What might look like a wood branch is a cast resin element, or metal might be painted to look like wood, allowing Mike to design beyond the limits of traditional fabrication methods.

The Birch Bark Bluff: Mirror (don’t you love the play on Billy Goats Gruff?) begs you to ask, “Is it really wood?” And of course the answer is, “Maybe”, as some is fabricated resin, some is wood, some of it is faux-painted.

Mirror, Mirror… (Patina Finish) by Mike Dillon

Mirror Mirror is another amusing form with a built in question. Can this piece really be metal, as it appears? And if not, what is forming these most sensuous of shapes?

The beauty of magic is that it makes you believe in that which your rational mind knows cannot really be. Mike Dillon’s work brings that magic to the functional, in works that only an artist can render.

Milagro Heart by Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann is a visual magician and a poet. His jewelry and sculptural objects convey a delightful voyage through an intriguing world of possibilities. Entering a display of his works is equal to turning backflips into the playground of one’s youth.

Perpetually challenging our habitual modes of perception, Mann is fascinated with the flotsam and jetsam of our lives. Entirely or in part, the constituent elements of his art are either manufactured parts or natural objects and fragments not intended as art materials. Intrinsic to “assemblage” (an art form originating in the twentieth century and integral to Surrealism, Dadaism, Constructivism, and American Abstract Expressionism) is the evocative, witty, and baffling inclusion of objects – simple, real, and honest – into compositions. Mann extends this rich tradition into the twenty-first century. His goal is to strike sparks from unrelated, incongruous, contradictory materials and ideas, and thereby lift us out of our humdrum lives; in doing so, he transmutes physical materials and their auras into new amalgams. He poses significant and sophisticated contrasts between folk and fine art, and between pictorial and genuine reality. Mann sees the use of real objects as vehicles for the free exercise of his poetic imagination, and what at first appear to be unexpected and incongruous juxtapositions are, in fact, based upon thematic and formal considerations. He incorporates “reality” into his jewelry without imitating reality. He prefers to work with the raw materials of life, rather than art.

Thomas Mann’s quick and direct methods of creating mesh perfectly with our quickened sense of time. He metamorphoses cast-off fragments of daily life into spiritual entities that, because of their associations, reach to the origins of human consciousness and the depth of human possibility.

Major Techno Token Bracelet by Thomas Mann

Fortune Cookie by Nancy Nagel

Back in July we asked you to submit your favorite fortune for a chance to be featured in one of this year’s artist-made ornaments. We are happy to announce that Sandi B., who submitted her fortune via posting it as a comment on this blog, had the winning fortune.

Sandi submitted the fortune “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious“. Artist Nancy Nagel then incorporated it into the Fortune Cookie ornament (it’s the ornament with the pink fortune inside).

I like to take moments and reflect on Sandi’s fortune. The mystery of life, of friends and loves. The mystery of what inspired an artists to create a celebrated work of art. The mystery of a beautiful day and of what tomorrow will bring.

What a fantastic and unique gift this fortune cookie makes for any time of the year.

Congratulations, Sandi. I hope your fortune brings fortune and inspiration to all who receive it this year.