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Wild at Heart

The Crafty Librarian dives into the nearly 4,000 artist files in the ACC Library & Archives and discovered that these two artists in particular spent their careers developing and showing their wild sides.

By Beth Goodrich
August 3, 2023

Summer 2023

#From the Archives

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Image courtesy of the American Craft Council Library & Archives

Marjorie Schick's Necklace, 1993, painted papier-mâché, 18.75 x 20.25 x 4.5 in.

Clayton Bailey (1939–2020)

As a leader in the ceramics arm of the funk art movement, Clayton Bailey created sculptures primarily of ceramic, latex, and metal and infused them with humor and a bit of the grotesque. His work was an amalgam of art, science, entertainment, and invention. As an instructor at what was then known as Whitewater University in Wisconsin, Bailey noted that beauty “is an attribute of the familiar and the comfortable. The artist . . . should seek to discover the new and unusual, and should not strive for beauty,” according to the artist’s website.

Image courtesy of the American Craft Council Library & Archives

In a photo for the 1969 Objects: USA exhibition, Clayton Bailey (center) holds a polyurethane grub while his family Robin (left), Kurt (right), and Betty (bottom) wear Chicken Mutant and Evil Eye monster masks near their home in Crockett, California.

“The artist . . . should seek to discover the new and unusual, and should not strive for beauty. ”

— Clayton Bailey

Bailey was continually innovating new techniques for working with material and ways to incorporate elements such as electricity and kinetic movement into his sculptures. He even created an alter ego in the guise of Dr. George Gladstone, an artist/scientist who lectured on discoveries of fossilized remains (usually ceramic) of creatures from the “Pre-Credulous Era.” Gladstone’s collection of artifacts led to the creation of the Wonders of the World Museum, initially located in Bailey’s backyard and later in a storefront space in Port Costa, California.
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Image courtesy of the American Craft Council Library & Archives

Poster for a 1986 exhibition of Bailey’s robot sculptures at the University of the Pacific Gallery in Stockton, California.

Marjorie Schick (1941–2017)

Marjorie Schick was a pioneering force in avant-garde jewelry making, pushing body adornment into the realm of sculpture. She emerged as a jewelry artist in the 1960s when her contemporaries in the community of “new jewelers” were rejecting traditional materials and techniques. Although trained in the craft of metalsmithing, Schick was drawn to nontraditional media, from fiber and papier-mâché to the wooden dowels of her iconic dowel stick series.

Throughout her body of work, Schick explored the relationship between sculptural form and the human body. While her jewelry work broke free of the constraints of the body into surrounding space, her sculptures were grounded in the human form. Schick used scale, bold color, and unconventional forms to provoke. Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, she took delight in referring to herself as “quietly rebellious.”

Image courtesy of the American Craft Council Library & Archives

Portrait of Marjorie Schick, an avant-garde jewelry maker who rejected traditional materials and techniques.

Image courtesy of the American Craft Council Library & Archives

Marjorie Schick’s Back Sculpture with Reeds, 1988, painted wood and reed, 48 x 26 x 8 in
Image courtesy of the American Craft Council Library & Archives

Marjorie Schick's Necklace, 1993, painted papier-mâché, 18.75 x 20.25 x 4.5 in.

Beth Goodrich, aka The Crafty Librarian, has been the American Craft Council’s librarian and archivist since 2017.

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