Champagne Reception and Silent Auction
Thursday, April 8th, 6:30pm – 8:30pm

Organized with a sharp eye on the future, The Crucible Collection presented 10 contemporary artworks by some of the most renowned visual artists working today.

This outstanding auction offering included sculptures in bronze and steel by internationally renowned artists Beverly Pepper and Albert Paley, as well as works by nationally acclaimed artists Bruce Beasley, Bella Feldman, Michael Hayden, Preston Jackson, Susan Kingsley, John Lewis, Randy Strong, and William Wareham.

 
 

“This important fundraiser will help to continue our programs like the Legends of Sculpture series that introduced many of the collection’s artists to our educational facility and its unique commitment to sculpture and the industrial arts. We are deeply thankful for the artists’ contributions and their belief in our mission.”

Michael Sturtz, Founder and Executive Director of The Crucible

 
The public was invited to preview The Crucible Collection in person at A New Leaf Gallery / Sculpturesite in Berkeley through April 2, 2004 (scuplturesite.com). Silent Auction bids were accepted during previews, although bidders were encouraged to attend the reception to ensure success.

The Crucible Collection Silent Auction and Champagne Reception is made possible by the
generous support of the following co-sponsors:
A New Leaf Gallery/Sculpturesite
The International Sculpture Center
The Oakland Museum of California

 

The Crucible Collection Art

 
Bruce Beasley’s interests in natural science and technology inspire him to construct dynamic sculptures that simultaneously expand into and envelop space. He achieves this through the repetitive use of planar crystalline forms acting as building blocks for the complex structures. His conceptions and designs are aided by a sophisticated, three-dimensional computer program that enables him to experiment with variations of an idea before actually building the components.

 
Bella Feldman’s deeply philosophical work challenges the viewer to shift their affiliations with familiar objects and icons. In her biological and mechanical works there is a persistent message of interconnectedness and a fierce yet formal beauty that is testament to the artist’s passion and skill. Feldman has participated in over fifty solo exhibitions including showings at The Oakland Museum of California, San Jose Museum of Art, the Fresno Art Museum and the Downey Museum and group shows in all parts of the US and in Switzerland.

 
For more than 30 years, Michael Hayden, has explored light as a medium, and it remains the most important and unifying component in his “Lumetric” sculptures. His work includes architectonic sculptures for public spaces, including “The Sky’s the Limit”, a monumental illuminated neon installation in the United Airlines Terminal at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, IL. Hayden collaborates with architects, designers, engineers, landscape architects, technicians, composers, poets, and other artists to create works that are large in scale and massive in scope, often measuring hundreds of feet and weighing multiple tons.

 
Distinguished artist and educator, Preston Jackson, uses representational imagery to symbolize and reflect current social and political policies. His sculptures often incorporate as themes issues concerning war, racism and our culture’s forgotten histories. Images on the surface of Jackson’s works often appear and disappear in a maze of textures and submerged objects that blend or contrast with the surrounding emotionally charged background. His commissioned works are represented in numerous public and private collections, including Purdue University, Illinois State Museum, Champaign Public Library, Champaign, IL, the Cahokia Mounds Museum, Cahokia Mounds, IL and the University of Illinois.

 
John Lewis founded his studio in 1969. He was one of the first artists to open a hot glass studio in the Bay Area where, for 10 years, his focus was blowing glass. After receiving an NEA grant in 1980, he started experimenting with the possibilities of cast glass as a sculptural medium. He built a furnace specifically for casting, which melted and poured glass, and began exploring the various forms possible with different types of molds. The studio has completed a number of commissions for private and corporate clients.

 
The objects of Susan Kingsley beautifully mock our accepted conventions. Her work speaks to our individual and cultural selves, and play on our societies associations with the body, gender, and social relationships. Of her materials Kingsley states: “Metal is a fluid material. It is of the earth and in our bodies. It remains a substance of great beauty, mystery, and knowledge, offering endless possibilities for the postmodern alchemist.”

 
Albert Paley first came to prominence as one of the leading craft jewelers in the United States, but it was his twin foundation of jewelry and metalwork that has forged his legendary career as a metalworker, blacksmith and monumental sculptor. During his thirty-year career, he has moved from jewelry to decorative arts to architectural adornment to sculpture, and is often identified as one of the artists responsible for breaking the boundaries between sculpture, design, and the crafts. Paley’s work can be found in museums around the world including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the White House.

 
Beverly Pepper is an internationally renowned artist whose work is informed by the shapes and forces of the natural world. She has created sculptures in cast iron, bronze, steel, stainless steel, and stone ranging from small-scale intimate works to monumental installations. Pepper’s brilliant and prolific career has spanned almost forty years and figured centrally in such watershed modern movements as Constructivism, Assemblage, and Minimalism. Her huge incisive sculptures in heavy materials like rusty iron or flashing steel and large environmental installations have made her one of the most prominent contemporary artists. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions across this country and Europe, including one-person shows at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ohio’s Columbus Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and the San Francisco Museum of Art, and in museums, galleries, and public sites throughout Europe.

 
Randy Strong has created elegant and highly sought after works for over 25 years. Combining his eye for contemporary design with ancient techniques, Strong creates truly unique works of art. His work has been collected and displayed throughout the world in such places as The Louvre, The Osaka Museum of Art, The SFMOMA, The John D. Rockefeller Collection and the IBM Collection.