Berkshire Basket Maker Brian Jewett
That's the Ticket
By: Charles Giuliano - Dec 01, 2006
Recently we chatted with the basket maker/ artist, Brian Jewett, who was taking a turn sitting in the gallery of the Eclipse Mill in North Adams, Mass. It was a group show of residents of the loft/ studio building. He was represented by a freestanding "Cactus" sculpture crafted from green garden hose, spiky "needles" and floral red, outdoor faucet handles. On a stand where a couple of his "Ticket Bowls" so named because they are created by carefully surrounding a form with rolls of tickets; the generic kind that are used to purchase drinks at a benefit or raffle items.
We learned that the Ticket Bowls come in three sizes- small, medium and large- and are priced at $60, $80 and $100. One of the challenges of being a couple for more than a dozen years is running out of ideas for Christmas gifts. So it was a no brainer to buy a "medium" as a present for Astrid. Brian informed us that he had a number of them in the studio to choose from but that he would soon be sending them off to several galleries.
Arriving at the studio a couple of weeks later it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up with the couple who moved from LA to the Berkshires last summer. Leanne writes fiction and she recently contributed a book review to Berkshire Fine Arts. She is in the midst of writing an historical novel set in California during the Gold Rush. Since settling in North Adams she has been active in the writer's group Inkberry. We discussed the possibilities of contributing to the Word section of BFA.
Next to the door of the loft/ studio are metal shelves on which were stacked a stash of bowls. Now that we are in the holiday season Brian is in high production to fill demand for the popular Ticket Bowls. While he expects to sell about a hundred of the pieces during this busy time of year he expresses mixed feelings about doing production that takes away time from more unique pieces and experimentation; to work on shows and exhibitions rather than produce product. Also with the move from California the studio was shut down for some time and he is only now getting back into it.
For 17 years they ran a mailbox store and also had an apartment building in LA which greatly increased in equity before they recently sold it. Before getting into that Brian had been a mechanical designer and was always intrigued with other possibilities for the materials he worked with. Particularly the ties that are used for wiring harnesses. He showed me a handful of these generic, white, plastic ties which are actually the "needles" that prickle the outer surfaces of the Cactus sculptures. Running the mailbox business wasn't particularly engaging after some time and he longed to be involved in something more creative.
"I was drawn to basketry," he said. But initially he was somewhat ambivalent about art and the art world. There had been three semesters of photography in high school. "I had a grandfather who was a photographer," he explained. "He worked in the lab for Kodak and spent a lot of time on the phone with this guy, Ansel Adams, who was always asking him questions about the darkroom chemicals. To my granddad he was a pain in the ass but to me he was a hero."
As a kid the family lived in Germany where his father worked. Part of that experience was being dragged around to museums and galleries which he recalls "gave me the willies and I stayed away from all that." There was also a "brush with a girl friend who was an art major" and that further pushed him away from art.
Of course that all changed, six or seven years ago, when he started to make baskets. One of the first attempts involved weaving grocery bags. "It broadened my world view and I'm ready for the art world but I'm not sure the art world is ready for me…Creativity comes to me in the shower which is a kind of isolation tank where you are surrounded by white walls and the mind is free to wander."
From this free thinking emerged the idea for the "Ticket Bowls." It represented his "First foray into selling work. I was making more and more of them. Giving them away. Then it occurred that I should document them and I bought a digital camera. While in the process of learning to use the camera I searched the internet and stumbled onto my favorite gallery, The Gallery of Functional Art, in Santa Monica http://galleryoffunctionalart.com/jewett.shtml . By then I had a number of images saved on the computer and before I could chicken out I sent some pictures to the gallery. Within five minutes there was a reply that they wanted me to bring in some work to show them. They just happened to be checking their e mail. I was excited and frightened. Lois Lambert owns the gallery and I started showing with her."
Although there was almost immediate success "It took several years to be able to form the sentence 'I'm an artist.' I have had a hard time understanding the art world and where I fit in." Actually quite well it seems as today he is represented by several galleries and on line outlets. Whether he sells out of the studio or through a gallery he maintains the same prices. You can contact him directly by e mail info@brianjewett.com . He is also represented at http://www.ecoartware.com and http://www.elsewares.com . In Brooklyn he is represented by Future Perfect and Sweet Mabel in Philadelphia. In the Berkshires the work is available at Fiber Arts Center in Amherst.
Despite the obvious popularity and demand "I am reluctant to go into high production." He could hire someone to work for him but that would entail running a business and he would rather keep it simple. "I am experimenting with new shapes" he said. "The baskets are one of a kind." We were looking at an elaborate piece on the table where tea was served. It was filled with some fall leaves gathered during nature walks. "I created bowls out of movie film and they sold for $300 each. I made them from Hollywood trailers using 35 MM film and I also bought 16 MM film from schools and libraries that were getting rid of film and switching to DVD. But I stopped doing the Movie Bowls because I kept getting calls from people inquiring what film their bowl was made out of."
You get the sense that Brian likes to Zig where others might Zag. "What drives me is that I never like doing what I am supposed to. I always like to find new uses for common materials. There has been some media attention but I don't really pursue it. From time to time the media finds me and that's ok."
Given that Brian is of "retirement" age and only admitted to an artist's identity relatively recently I wondered how he and Leanne feel about being a part of the Eclipse Mill and an active arts community? "I get along better here in the Mill," he said, "Than I did with artists in LA. The artists in the Eclipse Mill see themselves as a part of the human race. The younger artists we met in LA haven't necessarily discovered that yet. They are still caught up in their Andy Warhol fantasies. Here, overall, people are much more interested in what other people are doing."
We asked what is the difference between making "functional art," such as the bowls, and pure sculptures like "Cactus?" He has made several in various scales and they started in California where the value of water is precious and scarce. So there is a social and political edge that drives the object. "Water is a huge issue in the West," he said. So the cactus is a ready symbol. "People get a kick out of them. There is a sense of surprise." And they sell. If the Cactus represents the West it will be interesting to see what he comes up with as a paradigm for the Berkshires. Guess he will just have to scrub up in the Isolation Tank. Good ideas take time to come clean.
