Portrait: Joyce Lovelace /
Revision
photo: Mark Davidson /
Shop
photo: Ray Carofano
zoom
Jim Kassler with some
works made by his
students over the years.
org/edu
Object Lessons
FEW H AVE L IV E D LIF E AS
happily steeped in materials
and handwork as James Bassler,
textile artist and professor.
Bassler is a maker to his
core, as evidenced by his extra-
ordinary art tapestries, prized
by collectors, and his eloquence
on the subject of craft - down
to the charming, unconscious
way he peppers conversation
with phrases like “weave that
in” and “grasping at straws.”
“I had them in the palm of
my hand,” he says, describing
the time he gave craft materials
to a class of indifferent seventh-
graders and watched them grow
excited about learning. It was
1963, and he was in graduate
school at the University of Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles, an art educa-
tion major with a minor in social
studies. For his student-teaching
requirement, he had been as-
signed to a junior high to cover
world history and geography
from the beginning of time to the
Renaissance - all in 20 weeks.
“I realized the first day that
the students could barely read,
barely write. They had no con-
cept of the world or what had
come before them,” recalls
Bassler, today a youthful 77. “I
had to somehow get their atten-
tion. And I felt the best way to
do that was to engage their hand-
eye-mind relationship, get their
hands actively working with
materials that represented what
early peoples were faced with.”
So he had the kids make nets
out of sisal, baskets out of news-
paper, pinch pots from clay. To
his delight, the book learning
easily followed. “They were
so [eager] to find out what the
Egyptians had done, and if they
were the same things we had
done. How did they catch fish?
Did they make fishnets like we
did? How did they irrigate?
They asked intelligent questions
because they had information
based on their own experience.”
The story of civilization, they
discovered, was about resource-
fulness, ingenuity, and creativity
- in other words, about the
things people made.
For Bassler, it was a powerful
affirmation. For as long as he
could remember, he’d had an
affinity for making. His father,
major league baseball catcher
Johnny Bassler, learned to hook
rugs growing up in a Mennonite
community, and continued to do
it as a hobby in the off-season. As
a young man in the 1950s, follow-
ing military sendee in Europe,
James succumbed to wanderlust
and traveled through the Middle
East and Asia, dazzled by the
traditional crafts he saw. After
he earned his teaching degree, he
and his wife, Veralee, a ceramist,
took their young family to live in
Oaxaca, Mexico, where they ran
a craft school for several years.
In 1975 he joined the art faculty
at UCLA and taught textile art
there until his retirement in 2000.
He was named to the American
Craft Council College of Fellows
in 1998.
The Basslers now live in
Palm Springs, where he spends
much of his time at his loom.
(His latest project is a re-imag-
ined American flag that asks a
question: What if the Incas had
landed on Plymouth Rock?)
His encounter with those
seventh-graders has stayed with
him as a kind of touchstone.
Last fall it was the basis for a
well-received talk he gave at the
“Crafting a Nation” conference,
part of the first-ever American
Craft Week in Washington,
D.C.; he had kept some of the
simple artifacts made by the
kids and used them as props.
His message: Making is a gate-
way to learning in all subjects
- history, language, even math
and science - so let’s get arts
and crafts back in our schools.
Given today’s digital-orient-
ed, Facebook-obsessed youth
culture, Bassler may be on to
something. Parents and teachers,
are you listening?
-J O Y C E L O V E L A C E
Top:
Shop
, 2008
spun and woven
Trader Joe’s bags
17 x 12 x 8 in.
Revision
(detail), 2010
linen, silk, alpaca, hand-
spun natural brown cotton
36 x 24 in.
OH/Toledo
Toledo Museum of Art
Aminah Robinson: Voices That
Taught Me How to Sing
to Feb. 27
toledomuseum.org
On display is Robinson’s Rag-
mud Collection, a io-volume
set of books (newly acquired
by TM A) incorporating sculp-
tural pieces, drawings, writ-
ings, and books-within-books.
OR / Portland
Bullseye Gallery
Mark Zirpel: Queries in Glass
to Mar. 26
bullseyegallery.com
Work from Zirpel, the Dale
Chihuly Endowed Chair in
Glass at the University of
Washington.
PA / Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Glass Center
TENacity
Feb. 4 - Apr. 17
pittsburghglasscenter.org
In honor of the PGC’s 10-year
anniversary, “TENacity”
includes work from regional
glass artists responding to
events from the past 10 years
including 9/11, the 2008 elec-
tion, and more.
TN / Memphis
National Ornamental
Metal Museum
Tributaries:
Miel- Margarita Paredes
to Feb.27
metalmuseum.org
The Tributaries series honors
emerging and mid-career art-
ists working in metals. Paredes
presents sculptures from her
Gnaw and Standards series.
VT/Randolph
Chandler Gallery
Bhakti Ziek: Continuum
Holly Walker: Haptikos
to Feb. 20
chandler-arts.org/gallery.php
Weaver Ziek teams up with
ceramist and friend Walker
for this paired exhibition.
fcb/m arn american craft 021
