Thursday, April 06, 2000
For ceramic painter, it's guns 'n' skateboards
BY OWEN FINDSEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tea time is best enjoyed with fine china; a teapot, cups, saucers, grenades, handguns, stilettos, tea biscuits . . .
Delicately decorated weapons in blue and white Delft, exotic Ming and colorful Meisen, that's the fine china made by Seattle artist Charles Krafft. His Villa Delirium Delft Works opens Saturday at the Contemporary Arts Center.
“I've been decorating ceramic surfaces since '92,” the 52-year-old artist says. He started by taking china painting classes with the local china painters guild. “It's all done in this woman's kitchen here in the Wedgewood neighborhood, which is appropriate.”
Mr. Krafft was the first male ever to take the classes. “They were very nice to me, but I didn't let them know what I was really up to. I didn't want to upset them, so I would go through these standard china painting exercises, and then I would come home and create my Disasterware.”
To refine his techniques and to absorb the real techniques of Dutch Delft ware, he went to Holland.
“I studied with a Hell's Angel in Holland. I saw his work in a Dutch tattoo parlor and asked how I could meet him. He taught me the proper old world way of painting tulips on teacups.
“Once I got those chops down, man, I was on my way. I stopped painting on canvas and began concentrating on ceramic surfaces.”
Inspired at concert
There's no place for conventional china painting in contemporary art, so Mr. Krafft searched for a suitable subject. He found it at a rock concert in Bosnia.
“I was invited to be part of an artist exchange program with Slovenia, and I was going to do a set of ceremonial dinnerware for a Slovenian collective. They invited me to go with them to a rock concert on Sarajevo, and we were there the night that peace was declared (in the Bosnian conflict.)
At the concert, he saw a lot of weapons on the backs of Bosnian militiamen who were guarding the theater where the rock concert was taking place.
“That's where I was inspired to make weapons out of ceramics,” Mr. Krafft says. “My aim is to produce a delicate arsenal of life-sized ceramic weaponry so gorgeous and patently functionless that they will bedazzle and confound everybody who sees them.”
A year later he got a second grant to work in Slovenia, making his ceramic weapons. The work was exhibited as The Porcelain War Museum at the defense ministry in Slovenia until January of this year.
“They are very sophisticated culturally. They understood the irony of the installation. They extended the exhibition for an extra month because of public interest,” he says.
Away from weaponry
Working as artist in residence at the Kohler Co. in Wisconsin, Mr. Krafft learned that the company was not eager to have weaponry made from their enamels.
“So I made skateboards. I didn't know what else to do.” He painted images of Alcatraz Island, portraits of Martha Stewart. “I actually painted pictures of guns on skateboards.”
The skateboards will be shown at the CAC, too.
• What: Charles Krafft's Villa Delirium.
• When: Saturday-June 11. Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday.
• Where: Contemporary Arts Center, 115 E. Fifth St., downtown.
• Admission: $3.50, $2 seniors and students. Free to all on Mondays.
• Information: 721-0390.
• Also showing: Tony Tasset: As It Is; Continuous Replay: The Photographs of Arnie Zane.
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