About the Living Treasures Project
Detail from a piece by Ruth Penington
As the pioneers of the contemporary craft movement reach an advanced age, it has become an urgent task to make a record of their lives, their work and their achievements. The Living Treasures Project is an ongoing series of video profiles documenting the Northwest's most important and influential elder craft professionals. Ten videos have been produced to date featuring Robert Sperry, Ramona Solberg, Russell Day, Harold Balazs, Evert Sodergren, Virgina Harvey, Anne Gould Hauberg, Ron Ho, Tip Toland and Lloyd Herman. These are individuals with lifelong involvement in the arts and a history of personal generosity and outstanding leadership. They built institutions, taught fellow artists, and created important works that affected the direction of their fields. They are an inspiration to us all.
The Living Treasures Project Committee
Activities related to each Living Treasures Project are developed and managed by a committee. It is chaired by Lynn Di Nino, and includes Gretchen Echols, Liza and Larry Halvorsen, Lynne Hull, Julia Lowther, Larry Metcalf, Ron Pascho, and Virginia Wyman.
The Producers
Fidget Films, a Seattle-based film production company, has partnered with NWDC for the Ron Ho and Tip Toland projects. For the past 30 years, they have produced a variety of media content, including award-winning documentaries, feature films, and television shows.
Living Treasures Project #10, Lloyd Herman
The 10th video in the Living Treasures Project series presented the life and accomplishments of Lloyd Herman, an extraordinary visionary in the world of craft.
The Living Treasures Project Committee keeps a vetted list of candidate artists and art advocates, each of which has met the selection standards it set down at the start of the project. In short, anyone selected for a project must be a leader, mentor of other artists, motivator, and innovator. It should be no surprise that Lloyd Herman has always been near the top of that list. As founding director of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in 1972, Lloyd’s dream was to have craft, art and design join its rightful place among the Smithsonian’s family of museums in the heart of the nation’s capitol for all to learn and enjoy the world over. He’s done that, and much more.
In the thirty-one years since retiring from the Smithsonian Institution, he has continued to curate exhibitions on craft and design topics for such clients as the United States Information Agency, the Smithsonian Institution and various museums and traveling exhibition services. He has lectured on American crafts throughout the United States, and in Australia, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Japan, and has juried numerous art competitions in the United States and abroad.
He is an Honorary Lifetime Member of Northwest Designer Craftartists, a member of the American Alliance of Museums, an honorary member of the American Society of Interior Designers, an honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council, trustee/secretary of the Highline Historical Society, and has been decorated by the monarchs of Denmark and Belgium for exhibitions that he organized on the crafts of their countries.
Surprisingly, while Lloyd’s exceptional knowledge of craft has led to many cameos in craft-related videos, no one has produced a documentary that focuses solely on his role in bringing craft to an equal with other art forms. So there is much more to say about the accomplishments of Lloyd Herman, but you will have to wait for the 10th Living Treasures documentary.
Please consider joining our effort continue the Living Treasures Project with what will be the tenth in a video series that began during the 1990s to document the Northwest's most important and influential elder craft professionals.
Lloyd Herman.
Lloyd Herman.
Living Treasures Project #9, Tip Toland
The life and art of ceramic artist and figurative sculptor Tip Toland is featured in this Living Treasures Project.
Tip Toland is a dynamic and courageous sculptor, both in the scale of her work and her choice of subjects. Her hyper-realistic ceramic sculptures are emotionally charged works which depict beauty, humanity, and vulnerability through an intentionally diverse collection of non-conventionally ‘beautiful’ characters.
As a teacher, she has inspired and mentored many figurative sculptors across the country. She is humble, selfless, and generous of spirit. Through the science of observation, and knowledge of anatomy, she trains students to hone their observational skills. And by sharing her experience in building large-scale work, she has moved the ceramic field forward.
As a ceramic artist, she is recognized for her mastery of the medium. She has attained international renown and received numerous awards. Her work is in many major collections across the country, including the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian. A personal milestone was attained this year when her work was included in, “Like Life: Sculpture, Color and the Body (1300-Now),” an exhibition at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met Breuer) presenting about 120 mostly realistic figurative sculptures by artists who “sought to replicate the literal, living presence of the human body.”
If you would like to find out more about Tip, please visit www.tiptoland.com.
Tip Toland and three of her works in progress.
“Tantrum” by Tip Toland.
Tip and “Beauty Parlor.”
Living Treasures Project #8, Ron Ho
This half-hour professionally-made video documentary provides the viewer with a look into the life and art of Seattle artist, teacher, and world traveler Ron Ho.
Ron Ho enjoyed a local and national prominence as a contemporary jewelry artist and teacher. His work is in the permanent collections of several museums, including the prestigious Houston Museum of Fine Arts Helen Williams Drutt Jewelry Collection and the Tacoma Art Museum Studio Art Jewelry Collection. An oral history of his life is also held at the Smithsonian Institution.
In 2006, the Bellevue Arts Museum honored his importance to the contemporary craft movement by presenting 51 of his pieces in an exhibition and catalog titled Dim Sum at the On- On Tea Room – The Jewelry of Ron Ho. The Bellevue Arts Museum produced a catalog and exhibition of his jewelry.
A revised version Ron Ho video, Ron Ho: Becoming Chinese, A Jeweler’s Tale, is available for purchase at the NWDC website. It includes video not seen in the documentary. Owning this video will also give you the opportunity to enjoy a slide show of his jewelry that begins in 1969 with All Fall Down, and ends with Orchid Dragon Galaxy, a neckpiece started by Ron, and at his request, completed by Nadine Kariya in 2018.
Ron Ho.
“Lepidoptera,” by Ron Ho.