Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts | Artists

Artists

John Jordan
(United States, born 1950)

"The pieces I make are simple but finely detailed vessels. Manipulating the color and patterns in the wood to complement the form, and the texturing and carving to create visual and tactile contrasts are important parts of the process and the result. What I feel is most important is the intangible quality that the piece is "right" that comes with putting emotion and feeling into the work. A simple object can be very powerful and emotional just for what it is. These pieces are simply decorative vessels that reflect my interest in surface textures/contrasts and form, and the personal responses that I have to them, which I suspect are similar to the feelings that makers of objects have felt for thousands of years."

Lidded Vessel
Box elder | 9.5" h x 6.5" dia | 1991
4000.
Provenance: The Lipton Collection

Featured in "The Cutting Edge: Contemporary Wood Art and The Lipton Collection" exhibition, August 13 - September 18, 2011.

John Jordan is a woodturner known primarily for his textured and carved hollow vessels. His work has received numerous awards, and is in the permanent collections of many museums and corporations, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the American Craft Museum in New York City, the White House in Washington, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, the Fine Arts Museum in Boston, and the Detroit Institute of the Arts and the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. He is in great demand as a demonstrator/teacher, traveling extensively teaching at universities, craft schools, turning groups and trade shows throughout the US, Canada, the UK, France, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

This artist is featured in the book, The Cutting Edge:
Contemporary Wood Art and The Lipton Collection

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