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William and Marianne Hunter |
Within a current exhibition celebrating thirty-five years of William Hunter’s
art, Transforming Vision, The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970-2005,
there are examples from a decade beginning in the 1980s when Hunter collaborated
with fellow artist and wife Marianne Hunter. Marianne is a well-known
jeweler and a specialist in enameling who was the subject of a cover feature
of Ornament in Winter 2002/03.
Collaborative work is not unknown in craft, but usually it is distinguished
by two artists working in the same medium, such as Steven Ford and David
Forlano who focus on polymer jewelry, not by two artists working in different
media, like wood and jewelry as practiced by the Hunters.The period in which they worked together was perhaps the most opportune time for their collaboration: the couple had been together long enough to understand and respect the integrity of the other’s artistic sensibility, and the scale and presence of each artist’s mode for expression were proportionally best-suited for enhancing their individual visual statements. 
The zen-like presence of Wisteria Kimono nicely illustrates how the simplicity
of William’s exquisitely-shaped pink ivory wood provides an elegant
counterpart to Marianne’s portrayal of delicate but fecund wisteria
blooming from its rugged, sinewy branches, night and day equally beautiful
to its worldview. Within this harmonious framework are the Hunters’
loving embrace of the rich sensuality of life and, certainly, their honoring
of what  we
all partake, from emotional tonalities of light to dark, birth to death,
as we travel life’s continuum.In my interview with Marianne Hunter, in preparation for the article I wrote on her for Ornament, Marianne described her husband as an artist of “great integrity and soul, committed to what he is doing, and inventive in what he is doing.” This is as true for Marianne as it is for William, and I sure he would completely agree. Curated by Kevin Wallace for the Long Beach Museum of Art, the two-year touring exhibition shows at the Museum through December 10, 2006, before moving to the Oakland Museum of California, the start of its national tour. Accompanying the exhibition, the well-produced catalog illustrates the beauty of William Hunter’s art, and contains an introduction by Long Beach Museum Director Harold Nelson and a major essay by Kevin Wallace. The Museum is located at 2300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, California 90803; telephone 562.439.2119; www.lbma.org. |
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Published
in Ornament Magazine, Volume 30, No. 1, 2007.
— Author Carolyn L. E. Benesh is Coeditor of Ornament. View This Issue Order This Issue |
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Art & Craft of Personal Adornment © 1974-2010
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