Reading Craft: “Pitchers of American Life,” an online discussion with author Ezra Shales
The Craft in America Center is pleased to present an interactive online discussion with distinguished Professor Ezra Shales on his new book Pitchers of American Life: Art Within Reach (2026). The book is available for purchase directly from Bloomsbury or your preferred bookseller.
Shales’ vision of design/craft/art intersecting provides a deliberately provocative strategy to move beyond inherited limitations and prejudices by exploring tactile pleasures and tacit knowledge, as well as the agency of artifacts. This presentation asks if a history of art extracted from our common cupboards might be liberating as it departs from the usual hierarchies of civilization, and digitized images of artifacts far away. How can we make the experience of art/craft/design more accessible and relevant?
About the author
Professor in the History of Art department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Ezra Shales, Ph.D., is the author of The Shape of Craft (Reaktion, 2017) and Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era (Rutgers University Press, 2010), his dissertation revised for publication. He has written numerous articles and contributed to exhibition catalogs for artists Polly Apfelbaum, Neil Brownsword, Kim Dickey, Shari Mendelson, and Dan Walsh and published in the Journal of Modern Craft and Journal of Design History. He learned more about art while working in New York City’s flea markets, as a museum preparator/art handler, and as a gallery docent for elementary school students at The Brooklyn Museum, than in classrooms.
About the book
Pitchers of American Life: Art Within Reach (Bloomsbury 2026) discusses vessels preserved from ancient indigenous American cultures, those caught in the spiderwebs of antique shops, and common tools used for drinks lurking in modern kitchens. Each chapter interprets a single object as a revealing time capsule, a collective relic that, if regarded closely and with compassion, still resonates with our yearnings for sociability and communion.
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Online Artist Talk by Conceptual Skateboarder Abe Dubin (Orange Man) and Friends
Abraham Dubin, better known to the international skateboarding community as Orange Man, is a professional skateboarder for the Boston-based experimental skateboard troupe Fancy Lad. Dubin, who is the exhibition advisor to Vehicles of Expression, will speak about skateboarding as a world of pure imagination. Dubin will be joined by fellow artists, performers, and skaters Alice Hixon Kirk and Joe LeDoux who will also discuss their own work.
About Abe Dubin:
As a youth Dubin studied theatre, drawing and painting, and begrudgingly participated in team sports. Upon receiving a fluorescent green skateboard from the used sports store, a shift occurred in which suddenly self expression seemed to harmoniously infuse with rigorous physical exertion. Parking lots became stages for balletic performance, transforming the mundane modernity of suburban life into a playground of limitless potential.
Dubin has exhibited his skateboard artwork and made live demonstrations across the US from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston to galleries and skateshops in Pittsburgh, PA, Iowa, Las Vegas and Seattle. Abraham has collaborated on video projects for Adult Swim, Vice, Thrasher Magazine and Red Bull and premiered short films at the Vladimir Film Festival in Croatia.
As a husband and father, Dubin’s home studio serves as a woodshop and laboratory for abstract kinetic sculptures the he and his contemporaries refer to as “board manipluations.” Deeply influenced by the Duchampian ethos of the ready-made and Jim Henson’s warm rich world of play and imagination, Abraham’s practice is one of reinterpreting everyday objects and architecture and allowing his skateboard puppetry to organically flourish.
Alice Hixon Kirk is a musician and fabricator based in Western Massachusetts. She creates experimental skateboards to encourage speculation, improvisation, and play. She is passionate about using design to facilitate new strategies for exploring the world. Kirk has engaged with her local skate community through teaching skateboard design and fabrication workshops and fabricating custom park features for Skate Haven at MASS MoCA.
Joe Ledoux grew up in Hubbardston, MA and received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Ledoux is a visual and performance artist who blends his three favorite artforms: sleight of hand, skateboarding, and painting. He is a member of the McBride Magic and Mystery School in Las Vegas and performed with Le Grand David, which held the Guinness world record for the longest running magic show. Ledoux has exhibited at The West End Museum and GBH’s Digital Mural. He performed at The Institute of Contemporary Art and was featured as a Polly Thayer Starr Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
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In Conversation: Build it and Ride it—How Skateboards Began
Todd Huber, skateboard historian and founder of the International Skateboarding Hall of Fame, will present a brief look into the handspun origins of one of the world’s most popular sports. From metal wheels and 2 by 4’s, stolen roller skates, and a plethora of makeshift materials and construction approaches, skateboards are rooted in the DIY, from how they are made and built, to a total outlook, philosophy, and culture. This talk will explore how sidewalk surfing and American ingenuity went from garages to the Olympics.
Huber is the Founder and CEO of the International Skateboarding Hall of Fame and a lifelong advocate for skateboarding culture. In 1997, he opened the world’s first Skateboarding Museum in Simi Valley, California, preserving the sport’s history and honoring its pioneers. Through the creation of the annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Huber has built one of skateboarding’s most respected institutions, attracting thousands of fans and industry legends from around the world. His leadership continues to elevate and celebrate the legacy of skateboarding globally.
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Online Tool Talk #2
Tools of the Trades artists James Austin, Seth Gould, and Thomas Latané present on their practices as blacksmiths, sharing about how their toolmaking dovetails with their studio practice and how they continue and build upon historical traditions. Followed by a panel discussion with Craft in America Curator and Director Emily Zaiden.
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Online Tool Talk #1
Tools of the Trades artists Brien Beidler, Spencer Hamann, and William Robertson will present on their individual practices of book binder, luthier and tool historian/miniaturist respectively, sharing about how their toolmaking dovetails with their current studio practice and how they continue and build upon historical traditions. Craft in America Curator and Director Emily Zaiden will then lead a panel discussion on contemporary practice of toolmaking in this age of increasing digital technology.
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Artist Talk: Boris Huang
Boris Huang shares about his initiation with the ancient craft of featherwork and his contemporary interpretations. Huang moved to Hawaii from his native Taiwan and came to fall in love with the tradition of Hawaiian featherwork: so much so he apprenticed with one of its contemporary masters, Mary Louise Kaleonahenahe Kekuewa.
This talk is presented in conjunction with the Craft in America Center exhibition, Feather Adornments: Boris Huang, on view January 18 through April 26, 2025.
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Artist Talk: Chris Maynard
Birds were always a part of Maynard’s childhood and he began working with feathers at age 12. Learn about the process Maynard has developed where he intricately carves feathers and arranges them into delicate compositions. His work highlights the patterns and colors of the feathers themselves.
Maynard is featured in the SCIENCE episode of Craft in America’s PBS documentary series.
This talk was presented in conjunction with the Craft in America Center exhibition, Chris Maynard: Soar, on view January 18 through April 26, 2025.
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Artist Talk: Erik and Martin Demaine
MIT artist-in-residence Martin Demaine and MIT computer science professor Erik Demaine present on their collaborative research and artwork based on folding. The father and son duo explore the principles and possibilities of folded paper for mathematical, scientific, and artistic applications. The Demaines are also featured in the upcoming Craft in America episode, SCIENCE.
This talk is presented in conjunction with the Craft in America Center exhibition, Erik and Martin Demaine: Puzzling with Paper, on view September 14, 2024 to January 4, 2025.
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Reading Craft: Architectural Pottery
Authors Daniel Chavkin, Jeffrey Head, and Jo Lauria discuss their contributions to their exhibition catalog, Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape, the first book to document the history of the groundbreaking company Architectural Pottery, tracing its critical influence on midcentury design and its enduring appeal today.
In 1950, pioneering entrepreneur Rita Lawrence and her husband, Max, founded Architectural Pottery with design partners John Follis and Rex Goode. The cutting-edge ceramic manufacturer received an immediate and enthusiastic reception. Their strikingly minimal ceramics embodied a shift from the ornamental to the essential; the planters became highly coveted in design circles, and appeared in houses by Richard Neutra, John Lautner, and the historic Case Study Houses. Featured in the first of MoMA’s Good Design exhibitions alongside now-iconic designs by Ray and Charles Eames, Alexander Girard, and George Nelson, Architectural Pottery’s refreshingly clean, exceedingly elegant pots and planters were soon ubiquitous in spaces that epitomized modern living.
This talk is presented in conjunction with the American Museum of Ceramic Art exhibition, Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape, on view August 17, 2024–March 2, 2025.
Buy the exhibition catalog
Take advantage of 20% off when using the discount code PHAIDON20
About the Authors
Daniel Chavkin is a photographer, collector, and researcher of all things modernist, and the author of Unseen Midcentury
Desert Modern.
Jeffrey Head is a writer specializing in architecture and design, and is author of several books.
Jo Lauria is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and educator, as well as coauthor of Master of the Midcentury: The
Architecture of William F. Cody, also published by Monacelli.
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Artist Talk: Lorraine Bubar
Papercut artist Lorraine Bubar talks about how she was inspired to transition from painting and animation to the long-standing tradition of papercut. As an avid world traveler, Bubar noticed that paper cutting was a global and timeless practice. She felt that it was the perfect outlet to convey the intricate and ordered natural beauty she observed on her travels.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Lorraine Bubar: Papercut Perspectives on view September 14, 2024–January 4, 2025.
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