Somerson photos Dean Powell.
Top Left
Carol Shaw-Sutton
Sea o f Dreams
and
Sea
o f Despair, 200
6, knitted
linen, pigments, stones,
10x9 x11ft.
Middle:
Rosanne Somerson
Father/Child Cabinet
,
1995, detail.
Bottom:
Rosanne Somerson
Father/Child Cabinet
,
1995, chestnut, oak,
ivory lacewood,
72V2
x 24 x 15 Vi in.
Fellow
Rosanne
Somerson
The distinguished furniture
maker/designer Rosanne Som-
erson (b. 1954) has long been
associated with the Rhode Is-
land School of Design (BFA
1976), where she found a men-
tor in the master woodworker
Tage Frid. She began teaching
there in 1985 and is currently
head and professor of furniture
design, the department she
helped to establish. One of the
early women in the field, Som-
erson also maintains her own
studio, creating, for exhibition
and by commission, furniture
notable for its graceful, often
witty forms and impeccable
craftsmanship. She designs for
production as well. She has en-
gaged feminine references and
asserted furniture’s emotional
resonance. “Drawers and com-
partments can store memories
as well as things, seating pro-
vides not just pause but site.
...
And mirrors—well, we all know
that they just lie.” Thus, she
says, her vanities and mirrors
have distracting frames.
Honorary Fello w
Robert
Pfannebedker
In 1964 Robert Pfannebecker
drove from his home in Lan-
caster,
PA,
to the graduate de-
gree exhibition at the Cran-
brook Academy of Art, where
he purchased several works.
Thus began a more-than-40-
year acquisitions odyssey that
has resulted in an exceptional
collection of early pieces by
some o f the major figures in
American studio craft. Pfan-
nebecker, a lawyer first known
for his civil rights cases and sub-
sequently several times city
solicitor for Lancaster, had, by
1979, when he was profiled in
American Craft, amassed more
than 1,000 works in all craft me-
dia and added two freestanding
gallery buildings to his rural
home. He is noted for collecting
directly from artists (often from
degree shows) and staying in
touch with them via correspon-
dence or a monthly payment
schedule. His still-growing col-
lection now numbers around
3,000 works (and fills a third
gallery building). +
dec/jan 10 american craft 057
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