Photos/Tim Thayer.
Opposite left:
Adela Akers
Broken Circle,
2008,
linen, horsehair, paint
(h. 63 in,w. 42 in}.
Opposite right:
Glenda Arentzen
Necklace,
2008,
sterling silver, I4ky
and 24k gold.
Fellow
Tony
Hepburn
A w a rd o f Distinction
fo r Contributions
to the Field o f C raft
H elen IV .
D ru tt E n g lish
A passionate advocate of the
studio craft movement since the
1960s, Helen W . Drutt English
has advanced craft through her
many roles. These have includ-
ed founding member/executive
director of the Philadelphia
Council of Professional Crafts-
men; founder/director of the
Helen Drutt Gallery (among the
first in the nation devoted to
craft); and developer of a course
in the history of modern craft
for the Philadelphia College of
Art, which awarded her an hon-
orary doctorate in 2001. Espe-
cially drawn to avant-garde jew-
elry, she amassed a collection
of some 800 works, acquired in
2002 by the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, and the subject
of a touring exhibition and com-
panion book. Acknowledging
the Award of Distinction, Drutt
says, “I was part of an amazing
team not just in the United
States but also abroad, united
in our conviction that craft
could not be denied its fitting
place in the history of modern
and contemporary art.”
English-born Tony Hepburn,
now based in Chicago, recently
retired as head of ceramics at
Cranbrook Academy of Art in
Michigan and formerly headed
the department of art and design
at the New York State College
of Ceramics at Alfred Univer-
sity. Hepburn (b. 1942) studied
art at Camberwell and London
University and first became
known in the U .S. by waiting for
Craft Horizons,
the predecessor
o f American Craft. Hepburn’s
work, often regarded as concep-
tual, responded to pottery and
rural America during his time
at Alfred and to technology and
measurement in Michigan. He
says, “I have never w'anted my
work to be visually coherent
or stylistically linear; the world
changes, so too does my work.
...
The mediating condition that
resists confusion is the choice
of clay as my.
.. filter through
w'hich things pass.”
Top:
Tony Hepburn
PPPlant,
2002, stone-
ware and earthenware,
slip-cast, handbuilt,
thrown {h. 36 in, w. 20
in, d. 20 in}.
Bottom:
Tony Hepburn
A fter Bosch,
2000,
stoneware, thrown,
handbuilt {h. 24 in,
wr. 24 in, d. 14 in}.
oct/novo9 american craft 061
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