Have ‘Tea for Two’ at Craft in America

Original post in Beverly Press Park La Brea News

May 15, 2025

Sharing a cup of tea with someone can be an intimate, resonant experience, and through the eyes of Los Angeles art collectors Gloria and Sonny Kamm, the dutiful, historically laden teapot can be a site of great visual and tactile expression, where the focus becomes evocative abstraction of its most standard features. Through Aug. 30, Craft in America welcomes the exhibition “Tea for Two: The Teapots of Gloria and Sonny Kamm.”

The Kamms are known and respected for collecting and commissioning studio craft teapots by a wide range of artists. Envision a teapot made of perforated clay or another made of heavily embroidered fabric or even one made of metal mesh and pistachio shells.

Gloria Kamm has called these concept teapots “delightfully useless” in terms of practical function. And yet in partnership with her husband Sonny, the Kamms see the function of a teapot less as a device for serving the beverage, but rather as a celebrated vehicle for expression. The hospitable and iconic teapot has a 500-year history and has been widely and wildly interpreted by artists and production houses alike. “Tea for Two” will feature a curated selection giving insight into the inclinations and motivations of the renown Los Angeles art collectors, whose collection also ranges beyond that of their teapots. The couple is also featured in one of the newest Craft in America episodes, “Collectors. “

Gloria Kamm regards contemporary, one-of-a-kind teapots as “containers full of ideas” where the artist has transmuted, by their hands, their worries, celebrations or ponderings into the object. The wide scope of styles and materials in the curated selection will not only cause visitors to marvel, but to also give greater consideration to the structure of a teapot: pot, handle and spout. The irreverent and whimsical interpretations of these integral parts will provide entertaining musing for viewers of all ages.