Product Description
Emma Luna “Stack of terry wash cloths” sculpture

EMMA LUNA California
Stack of terry wash cloths
Emma Luna has become increasingly known for her work in ceramic sculpture and mixed media on paper. A native of the Dominican Republic, she has lived from age 14 in the United States. She has a B.S. degree in Art Education from the University of Minnesota. Before moving to California, she lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where, while working as an art teacher, she obtained a B.F.A. in painting at Massachusetts College of Art and was associated with the Radcliffe College Ceramics Studio at Harvard University. There she learned the technique of raku ceramic firing. Her ceramic sculptures have been shown at SOFA New York, SOFA Chicago, and in Los Angeles.
EMMA LUNA Statement
My sculpture reproduces everyday fabric objects such as washcloths, socks, and just about anything I can get my hands on to reproduce, utilizing the illusionist possibilities inherent in clay as a medium. However, I render this illusion so that the ordinary object simultaneously produces an impression on the extraordinary. Rows of rolled hands towels, piles of terry cloths whose positions defy gravity, a chaotic pile of laundry frozen in shapes that the fabric itself could never hold, and so forth.
Mine is a voyage of intimate exploration into a subliminal form shared by both clay and fabric: the fold. At the same time, my work de-familiarizes an anonymous and routine form of ‘women’s work’ whose aesthetic possibilities no one but a woman would be likely to apprehend.
EMMA LUNA Resumé
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2006 Mixed-media on paper, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2006 “Art Journey’s Back to the Long, Long Ago and Far Away,” Mixed-media on paper, The International House, Davis, CA
2004 “Corazones,” Gallery Casa de Chavón, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2003 Sam Houston State University Art Gallery
2003 John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2003 UC Davis Alumni Center Gallery, Davis, CA
1999 “Impressions,” Memorial Union Art Gallery, University of California, Davis, CA
1986 “Latin American Images,” Austin Arts Center, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
1985 Gallery 57, Cambridge Art Council, Cambridge, MA
Selected Group Exhibitions and Galleries
2013 “Black, White, Red – A Sculpture Show,” A New Leaf Gallery | Sculpturesite, Sonoma, CA
2013 “Clay & Glass National Juried Exhibition,” Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California (ACGA), City of Brea Art Gallery, Brea, CA
2013 National Art Competition, Pence Gallery, Davis, CA
2012 Christopher Hill Gallery, St. Helena, CA
2011-2012 Crocker Museum Shop, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
2010-2012 Erin Martin Design, St. Helena, CA
2009-2012 Davis Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, Davis, CA
2007-2012 A New Leaf Gallery | Sculpturesite, Sonoma, CA
2009-2011 F Dorian, San Francisco, CA
2010 “Sculptural Objects & Functional Art (SOFA),” Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
2010 “3rd Annual Trompe L’oeil,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2009 “Small Works,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2009 Amoca, Pomona, CA
2009 “The Uncommon Object,” Pence Gallery, Davis, CA
2008 “Women Painting Women,” Pence Gallery, Davis, CA
2007 “Biannual Juried Art Show,” Sonoma Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA
2003-2007 Annual Auction Art Show, special invitation, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
2000-2007 Mostly Glass, Englewood, NJ
2004-2006 “Sculptural Objects & Functional Art (SOFA),” New York City, NY
2001-2006 “Sculptural Objects & Functional Art (SOFA),” special invitation, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
2005 “One Hundred Socks,” Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA
2006 “The Flatlanders,” special invitation regional show, University of California, Davis, CA
2006 Ceramics, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2006 Art Foundry Gallery Group Show, Sacramento, CA
2005 “Realism in Art Juried Art Show,” Mostly Glass, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
2005 “Sonoma County Juried Group Show,”The DiRosa Preserve, Napa, CA
2004 Amdur Gallery, Glenview, IL
2004 “Primavera ’04,” Artists-in-Residence show, Fundación Centro Cultural Altos de Chavón, La Romana, Dominican Republic
2004 “Corazones Perros,” Museo de la Cerámica Contemporánea, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2003 Gallery Arte Tamburini, La Romana, Dominican Republic
2003 “Otoño 2003,” Artists-in-Residence show, Fundación Centro Cultural Altos de Chavón, La Romana, Dominican Republic
2002 “Crocker-Kingsley 73rd Invitational Group Exhibition,” Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
2001 “Reality Check,” juried art show, Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH
2001 Craft Museum, City of Davis First Juried Exhibition, Davis, CA
2001 “Small Ceramics Art Show,” Academy of Design, New York City, NY
2001 “Palm Springs International,” Palms Springs, CA
2001 “Ceramics 30,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2001 “Sculptural Objects & Functional Art (SOFA),” The Armory, New York City, NY
2001 “All Creatures Great and Small,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2001 “Los Angeles Art Show,” UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
2001 “Two Decades,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2001 California Conference on Clay Arts, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2001 Invitational show, Sutter Club, Sacramento, CA
1999 “Celebrate Ceramics,” Handworks Gallery, Acton, MA
1999 Blooming Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA
1999 California Association of Ceramic Artists show, Jeff’s Objets d’Art, Davis, CA
1998 Artists-in-residence show, Altos de Chavón Gallery, La Romana, Dominican Republic
1998 Oannes Gallery, Tiverton, RI
1996 Craigin-Fife Gallery, Brookline, MA
1995 Invitational show, Concord Art Association, Concord, MA
1995 “Within Gender,” invitational show at A Conference on Latin American Literature, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ
1991 “Voces Prevalecientes,” group show of Hispanic Artists, Firehouse Multicultural Arts Center, Jamaica Plain, MA
1990 “The Space,” organized by the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation (HOPE) as a benefit for AIDS education, Boston, MA
1986 “Taming the Beast,” three-person show, Cambridge Multi-Cultural Arts Center, Cambridge, MA
1986 Dominican artist’s exhibit, Essex County College, Newark, NJ
1985 Group show of women’s paintings, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
Selected Collections
Museo de la Cerámica Contemporánea, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH
Hawaii State Art Museum, Honolulu, HI
Arizona State University Ceramic Museum, Tempe, AZ
The White House Christmas Tree Ornament Collection, Washington, DC
Sandy Bessen, Sante Fe, NM
Edinhurt Gallery, Don Merrill, Beverly Hills, CA
Barbara Fromm, Palm Desert, CA
Bea Larsen, Cincinnati, OH
Selected Honors & Awards
2013 Third Place Winner, ACGA’s “Clay & Glass National Juried Exhibition,” La Brea, CA
2009 Honorable Mention, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art Biennial, Sonoma, CA
2007 Second Place Winner, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art Biennial, Sonoma, CA
2003-2004 Fulbright Fellowship, Parsons School of Design, Los Altos de Chavón, La Romana, Dominican Republic
2002 Invited to create an ornament for the White House Christmas tree, now part of the White House collection
2002 Woodland Art Council Teaching Award
1999 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist’s Grant ($10,000)
1999 Three mixed media on paper works acquired by Canadian artistic design firm D-Zign I.P.P., Inc.
1997-1998 “Two Collection,” juried selection of arts and crafts selected for WGBH/Channel 2 Auction
1994 Three monotype prints acquired by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, as part of the museum’s print lending-library
Selected Publications and Media
2013 “Clay, glass elevated in Brea,” review of ACGA show by Richard Chang, photo of sculpture “Las Toallitas de mi Abuela,” The Orange County Register, February 2. 2006 “Emerging,” book cover and article by Rita de Maeseneer, Encuentro con la Narrativa Dominicana Contemporanea, p. 230-233, Iberoamericana, Vervuert, Belgium.
2006 “Memory’s Allure,” review by Suzanne Munich, Davis Enterprise Newspaper.
2006 Wheel-throwing demonstrations for KCRA TV news, April and June.
2005 “Working Gender,” Cultural Representation of Women and Labor, Brujula University of California, Davis, Volume 4 Number 1, December.
2004 “Emma Luna’s Hearts,” article by Stephen Kaplan, Ceramics Monthly Upfront, December.
2004 “‘Corazones’ de Emma Luna,” El Caribe, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
2004 “Dominican Sojourn,” article and interview by Aldrich Tan, The Davis Enterprise.
2003 “Taking Artistic Wing,” article by Marilyn Moyle, The Davis Enterprise January 30.
2002 “Illusionism without Illusions,” article by Neil Larsen and Susan Kaiser, Ceramics Art and Perception, Issue 50.
2002 Article and interview by Janine Tully, guest lecture and presentation to the Hawaii Craftsman Raku Ho’laule’a conference , Honolulu Star Bulletin, May 26.
2001 Featured on “Modern Masters” television show, Home and Garden Cable Network, May 20
2001 “Celebrating Clay,” front page photo and article by Paul Dorn, The Davis Enterprise Weekend, May 3.
1999 “‘Celebrate Ceramics’ Draws a Crowd,” photo and article by Libbie Payne, The Boston Globe, October 10.
1999 Preview of “Impressions,” Memorial Union Art Gallery, article by Steven Jenkins, Artweek, Issue 7/8.
1999 “Multi-talented Artist Displays Work at MU,” feature article by Beth Rose Middleton, The California Aggie, UC Davis, August 2.
1999 Faculty Show, Davis Art Center, reviewed by Kimi Julian, Sacramento News and Review, January 14; By Melissa Leavitt, The California Aggie, January 14; By Marilyn Moyle, The Davis Enterprise, January 28.
1998 Group Sculpture show, Oannes Gallery, Tiverton, RI, reviewed in Art New England Magazine.
1998 “Notas Culturales,” taped interview with Luz Vicioso, Channel 19, La Romana, Dominican Republic, August 24.
1998 “Caña TV,” live interview for the Luisa María Ortiz Show, La Romana, Dominican Republic, Aug. 15.
1998 “Las Huellas del Caribe en Altos de Chavón,” article by José Bautista, El Siglo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, July 23.
1996 Artist’s Profile in Ceramics Monthly Magazine, June-August.
1995 “The Arts and Craft of Emma Luna,” feature article by art critic Christine Temin, The Boston Globe, March 1.
1990 “Centro,” interview by the Boston NBC affiliate’s Spanish language public affairs program.
Academic History and Professional Experience
Private Art Instruction, home studio (present)
1998-2013 Research Specialist, Printmaking Lab, University of California, Davis, CA
2009 Guest speaker and presenter at ceramics workshop at the Crocker Museum of Fine Art
2005-2006 Freelance Art Teacher, Merryhill School, Davis, CA
2006 Guest speaker and presenter on KVIE Television Guest Artist Series, Sacramento< CA
2006 Guest speaker and presenter at the California Association of Ceramic Art Conference, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
1999-2003 Freelance Art Teacher, Davis Art Center, Davis< CA
2003 Invited to lecture and conduct a three-day ceramic sculpture workshop at Sam Houston State University Art Gallery, Houston, TX
2002 Presentation and lecture at the Honolulu Academy of Art
2002 Clay demonstration at the University of Hawaii Windward
2001 Guest speaker and presenter at the California Association of Ceramic Art Conference, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
1985-1998 Art Teacher (Full-time), Boston Unified School Department, Boston, MA
1998 Visiting Artist, University of California Davis Craft Center, Davis, CA
1998 Artist-in-Residence (ceramics and sculpture), Parson’s School of Design, Los Altos de Chavón, La Romana, Dominican Republic, June-August
1997 Workshop on saggar-firing and terra sigillata techniques, Radcliffe College ceramics studio
Education
1986 Massachusetts College of Art, BFA, Painting
1983 University of Minnesota, BS, Art Education
Emma Luna “Stack of terry wash cloths” sculpture
NILE BEHNCKE (1894-1954) USA
Oshkosh, Wisconsin c. 1935
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Painting: H: 20 ¼” x W: 24 ¾”
Framed: H: 33” x W: 37 1/2”
Nile Juergen Behncke was a well-known Wisconsin watercolorist and the first director of the Oshkosh Public Museum, from 1924-1954.
AMERICAN NEON DESIGN
OK Chevrolet Used Truck Sign c.1940’s
Blue, yellow and red baked enamel on metal with an orange neon tube spelling out “OK” encircled with a round blue neon border, original paper tag.
Marks: Registration Mark (in the enamel) Original paper tag, This is an OK Used Truck, Authorized Chevrolet Dealer, Chevrolet Motor Division, General Motors Corporation
Diameter: 31” x Depth: 6”
Price: $10,500
JACK RICHARD SMITH (1950-) Taos, NM
“Spiros Antonopoulos” 2004
Blackoil, wax, lead salts on copper, burl wood and ebonized wood Dutch old master style frame
Exhibited: “Taos Portraits” by Jack Smith, Harwood Museum of Art, University of New Mexico, Taos, New Mexico, May 14th – August 15th, 2004
Illustrated: “Taos Portraits” by Jack Smith, May 14th – August 15th, 2004, exhibition catalogue (Taos, NM: Harwood Museum of Art, University of New Mexico) illustr. 16
Painting: 6” x 6”
Framed: 13 3/4” x 13 11/16”
Price: $14,500
Incorporating blackoil, wax, lead salts, and copper Smith’s small format portraits and paintings are detailed and intimate depictions of creative individuals and charged tableaux. Smith’s singular style of portraits glow with a warm inner light and present honest, straightforward images that speak of personal narratives. Smith’s interest in miniatures developed first as a matter of convenience. In 1982, while preparing for a winter of travel in Mexico, he experienced logistical problems traveling with the larger size painting materials he was using at the time. The solution seemed to be a block of watercolor paper and casein, a milk base paint of versatile possibilities and vehement drying power. Suddenly, his paintings went from three by five feet to three by five inches. The history of oil painting, principally centered around the Dutch schools and their development of a method called black oil painting, often executed in miniature, also captured his interest. Black oil, an oleoresin comprised of white beeswax, raw linseed oil and litharge of lead, suspends the pigment above the painting ground, which was traditionally wood panel, linen or copper plate. This medium seems to suspend the pigment, allowing light to penetrate and reflect from the surface and illuminate the imaged from behind, a sort of light from within. The small format is an act of compression that requires the viewer to draw in close to a more intimate proximity and will, if the painting works, hopefully approach Joseph Campbell’s description of art as an “object of fascination” to engage the viewer and stop for a moment one’s busy mind. Jack Smith was born in 1950. At age 16, he began his training at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan before moving to Ohio to attend Columbus College of Art and Design. He also studied for a brief time at the Instituto de Allende, at San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico. He now resides in New Mexico. Reflecting a profound knowledge of art history and and an alchemist’s sense of the painting craft, contemporary painter Jack Smith has forged his own place amongst the most powerful of contemporary portraitists working in America. Jack Smith recently received a prestigious Past Achievement Award from the Peter and Madeleine Martin Foundation for the Creative Arts, following an important solo exhibition titled, Jack Smith: The Taos Portraits at the Harwood Museum of Art at the University of New Mexico in 2004. The exhibition featured fifty portraits of Taos, New Mexico residents, executed between 2000 and 2003. The series was intended as a visual biography of this unique artistic community at the turn of the century. Smith’s subjects range from the famous to the infamous — including artists, writers, art patrons, Native peoples, and street peoples. Spiros Antonopoulos’s (he always dropped the s in Spiros when saying his name) past is a little sketchy. I understand that he was trained as a musician and through that came to the world of computers, which he mastered immediately given his hot tub size brain pan. He also told me once that he had “done lots of drugs and some porn movies” while in college. Before we met he used to drive by my house in Arroyo Hondo, NM when he lived above us on the ridge road called Atalaya, about fifteen miles north of Taos and would make funny faces at me through the smudged window of his ghostly, lowrider station wagon. He was wildly eccentric dresser and had a selection of sunglasses that Elton would envy, mostly a thrift store wardrobe kind of guy. As I mentioned before, he tended to remind me of a mad computer geek samurai, which I tried to capture in this portrait. I’ve heard he now lives in the East Village and has forsaken his aforementioned life for obsessive Bikram yoga…… and that’s where the trail gets cold. The Taos portrait series was executed from 1999 to 2003 and was intended as a visual biography of this peculiar valley and town of Taos, NM. The subjects range from famous artists, writers and political activists to street people and what we affectionately call “sage bunnies”, or, folks that live out in the hinterlands in a grow hole with a goat or two and come to town once a month for provisions and bathe in patchuli oil, I presume, to save water. I would have liked to have had more of these folks but lining them up proved problematic as they tend to live in a parallel universe called locally, “the land of poco tiempo”, or “little time” , a condition caused, in their case, by smoking too much cheeba. This same time thing is true of my attempts at several more Native American friends from the pueblo…… it is something I greatly admire about them, unless of course you are scheduling a portrait sitting for the fourth time and they just had to go to Walmart without warning. But then “this is Taos” as John Nichols mentions in the forward to theexhibition catalogue and it is often referred to as an “open air asylum” for a myriad of good reasons. I thought it would be interesting to look back at some future time and see the weft and warp of the tapestry of Taos at the turn of themillennium. I could easily have done three hundred, but one must stop somewhere. The show was hanging in conjunction with Wayne Theibauld’s “City/ Country” exhibition at the Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico, June to September, 2004. – as told by Jack Smith, May 2006
GALERIE CARREFOUR 141Boulevard Raspail, Paris
Vérité Collection Wood block print poster “ARTS PRIMITIFS, CARREFOUR, 141 BD RASPAIL, DAN 5803″ c. 1948
Float mounted in a finely contoured oak frame.
Inscribed to: A Monsieur E Mme Breton, Vérité Image dimension:
H: 19 1/2″ x W: 12 3/4″
Framed dimension: H: 26 3/4″ x W: 19 3/4”
Price: $9,000
The Vérité Collection of primitive arts started after World War 1 in 1920. Pierre Vérité, a young artist started buying primitive art before anyone else. Vérité opened a small store selling exclusively tribal art in 1931 in conjunction with the Paris Colonial Exposition. Pierre Vérité regarded “primitive arts” as art, and it is the raw power of these primitive pieces that changed the history of 20th-century European culture. In 1936, he opened the Galerie Carrefour on the Boulevard Raspail, which was a hangout for artists and collectors such as Pablo Picasso, Helena Rubenstein, Nancy Cunard and Andre Breton. Tribal art was one of the key influences on Pablo Picasso and he often dropped into Pierre Vérité’s Galerie Carrefour in Paris to buy masks and carvings from Africa and Oceania. Henri Matisse was also a regular visitor, as were other artists such as Fernand Léger and Maurice de Vlaminck, while Vérité used to browse Parisian flea markets with André Breton, Surrealism’s chief theorist. In the decades that followed the opening of the gallery, the Vérité family’s client list grew to include Hollywood stars and leading museum curators, as well as some of the greatest names in 20th-century art. Vérité very quickly became the most important art dealer for primitive arts. In the 1948, Pierre’s son Claude became increasingly involved in the gallery. He went on African expeditions, collecting objects and information, and took photographs to document his travels, while his wife Jeannine was running the gallery operations. With Claude and Jeannine joining the gallery, Galerie Carrefour showed at all “Art Primitifs” exhibitions in Europe and the United States. The gallery established itself as the most important player in tribal arts in the world and exhibited until the 1990’s.