This special exhibition is at the Ladies' Literary Club
218 N Washington St
Ypsilanti, Michigan
Invited artists Juried Exhibition Artists Vintage/historic baby ware manufacturers and designers
Lenders to the Exhibit |
The special exhibition The Art of High Chair Fine Dining offers three perspectives on how babies and small children dined in the past and how they could dine in the future. Although there has been dinnerware for thousands of years, and babies and museums for a long time, this is possibly the first exhibition of its type featuring dinnerware created specifically for the high chair or booster chair diner.
The exhibition is both historic and contemporary in character. Historical and vintage baby food warmers, dish sets, cups, and implements are displayed. Materials represented in the exhibition include work created from ceramic, metal, plastic, paper, vinyl, and glass. Some of the leading designers of the 20th century are represented as well as some items that can best be described as "fun" or "kitsch." Creations by noted designer Eva Zeisel are featured including a child’s plate from her Wee Modern set produced in 1953, but originally designed for her own children in the late 1940s. Another design created by Eva in the 1940s, a baby feeder, reissued in 2008 along with a spoon by Neue Galerie in NYC, is also included in the exhibition. Work by Viktor Schreckengost, one of the leading designers of the 20th century, is also featured. Some of the work is beautiful, some of it involves great design and some vintage dish decorative motifs might be considered “politically incorrect” by 2014 stan
There is baby dinnerware that is sure to evoke some memories -- a chrome cereal bowl issued by Quaker Oats in celebration of the birth in 1934 of the first ever surviving set of quintuplets – the Dionne babies born in Ontario, Canada. A complete set of five silver plate commemorative spoons is also included with the names of the Dionne quintuplets – Yvonne, Marie, Cecile, Annette, and Emilie. Two of the quintuplets survive today.
The contemporary portion of the exhibition includes work by leading contemporary artists in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, who were invited to exhibit their own baby ware creations for this special exhibition. Artists include Léopold Foulem, Val Cushing, Linn Phelan, Rebecca Harvey, Mark Burns, Frank Martin, John Neely, Josh DeWeese, Janet DeBoos, Linda Sikora, Ayumi Horie, John Glick, and Julia Galloway. These notable artists have created baby place settings, tea sets, cups and bowls, as well as thought-provoking sculpture relating to babies and their dining implements.
The third portion of the exhibition is an open juried section, where artist Marie Woo selected work in clay, paper, and fiber created by artists who applied to participate. Juried participants sent work from Michigan, Massachusetts, California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Some of the work is exhibited on vintage high chairs. Award winners selected by the juror are Andrée Valley (first prize), Stephanie Osser (second prize), and Susan O’Connor (honorable mention). “Jiffy” mixes of Chelsea Milling Company provided a cash award and Zingerman’s Community of Businesses generously donated a Zingerman’s Mail Order Gift Card.
Refreshments for the reception were funded in part by Plum Market and Trader Joe’s of Ann Arbor. Raffle prizes were furnished by Elephant Ears in Ann Arbor. The Dinnerware Museum, founded in 2012 in Ann Arbor, remains a pop-up phenomena in the region while it searches for permanent exhibition space.