Rustic perfection! “J.B. Blunk: Nature, Art and Everyday Life” at Oakland Museum through September 9, 2018
The Oakland Museum’s summer exhibit J.B. Blunk: Nature, Art and Everyday Life, celebrates a creative life many of us fantasize about—small secluded cabin, surrounded by nature, living authentically off the land, all time is dedicated to creative pursuits. If ever there were a model for this, it is artist James Blain Blunk (1926-2002) who lived and created in Inverness from the late 1950’s until his death in 2002.
Blunk’s work, his home and the poetic appeal of his extraordinary counterculture life are all explored in this survey show curated by OMCA Curator of Art, Carin Adams. Well worth the trip to Oakland, the exhibit includes 80 of Blunk’s important artworks—large wood and stone works, bronze sculptures, ceramics, works on panel and board, and handmade buttons, belts and jewelry—as well as personal photos from his life in Japan and Marin. A special video, too, was commissioned that includes intimate interviews with Blunk’s family, friends and colleagues who speak to the seamless integration of his life and creative process.
“This idea of an artist who is completely intertwining art and nature and his life is a very California concept, especially the integration of art and landscape” said OMCA director Lori Fogarty. “He created the most iconic, memorable and beloved element in our building, “The Planet,” which is really the center of our museum. Right now, we are so pleased to have Blunk on three levels of the museum: “The Planet” is on first level; another piece is in a natural setting in the alcove outside the History Gallery, and the exhibit on the second floor galleries.”
Blunk’s Life = Art
Bunk’s artistic career began in Japan. Right after finishing college at UCLA in 1949, where he studied ceramics under Laura Andreson, he was drafted into the Korean war and served in the army. In 1951, he was able to finagle a discharge to Japan where, fortuitously, he met Isamu Noguchi who was instrumental in steeping him in Japan’s rich ceramic tradition and guiding him to apprenticeships with legendary potters Kitaoji Rosanjin (1883–1959) and Bizen style master Toyo Keneshige (1896–1967).
When Blunk returned to CA in 1954, he worked as potter creating stoneware with a strong Japanese influence. The show includes a few of these ceramics as well as his later paintings, often done on wood that he went over with a chainsaw and then painted in neutral shades, accentuating the wood’s grain and creating a textured surface that referred back to his beginnings as a ceramicist.
After a few years in CA, Blunk took on work as a carpenter to support himself. Noguchi arranged another fortuitous introduction, to the British surrealist painter Gordon Onslow Ford, then living in Inverness on 250+ forested acres overlooking Tomales Bay. After Blunk built a complex roof for Onslow Ford’s new home (designed by Warren Callister), Onslow Ford asked him to stay on in Inverness and offered him an acre of his land. Reportedly, Blunk climbed trees on the idyllic property searching for the perfect place to situate his home. This was at the beginning of the West Marin’s handmade house era that flourished in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Blunk chose a forested ridge facing the gorgeous Tomales Bay and, from 1958 to 1962, he and his first wife Nancy Waite (daughter of Howard Waite), designed and hand-built their home and studio from lumber and logs foraged near the beach at Inverness. The Blunk House, considered Blunk’s seminal artwork, has evolved over years from its original 600 square feet to about double that. Simple, it suits the land perfectly and the land suits it. It includes a ceramic and woodcutting studio and has become iconic in design circles, touted by the NYT Style Magazine in 2016 as “the perfect meeting of California Craft and Japanese Minimalism”.
Detail, interior of J.B. Blunk’s home. Everything in the house—the sculptures, furniture, floors, wall panels, plates, bowls, even the bathroom sink were made by the artist. Photo: OMCA
It was not only the home, but the way Blunk lived in it with his family that mattered. He fired cups, plates and bowls he fashioned from clay he dug on his land. He built his own brick and clay kiln. He hunted or grew most of his food. He made his furniture—a combo of sturdy but elegant stools, chairs, and functional slabs such as his famous bathroom sink of hand hewn cypress with its chiseled bowl— and put his artwork everywhere. All of this was illuminated by sunlight streaming in from windows overlooking a view of paradise.
A redwood stool, circa 1965, has a distinct Asian flair. Its curved chisel-carved seat communicated with art hanging on the walls and the walls themselves. J.B. Blunk, Stool #1, 28x21x12 inches. Photo: Geneva Anderson
During his early days in Inverness, Blunk hunted deer to feed himself and his family. His deerskin shirt in the background (circa 1955), that he wore often, was most likely made by his first wife, Nancy. He made and wore the belt and buckle (circa 1960’s), in the foreground. Courtesy Rufus Blunk. Photo: Geneva Anderson
During this period, Blunk developed a deep love of wood. He was attuned to the trees surrounding him and collected the burls that washed up on the beach. He began creating wood furniture from redwood and cypress which he carved out with a chain saw and finished with an angular grinder and chisel. His first major wood commission was in 1965 for landscape architect Lawrence Halprin who requested an entire room of furniture. Blunk responded with benches, chairs and a low table that seem to grow organically out of the walls and floor.
With Halprin’s initial help, Blunk went on to obtain several commissions for large-scale sculptural seating projects: (1968 UC Santa Cruz plaza seating, 1969 OMCA “The Planet,” 1969 “The Ark”). These massive sculptures were unique in that they were made to be touched and sat on. He was included in many craft exhibitions. His beloved “Greens” installation from 1979—a three ton redwood monolith and a group of chairs and tables cut from a single 22-foot diameter redwood stump of redwood—still serves as the sculptural centerpiece and spiritual anchor for Greens restaurant at Fort Mason Center.
Around the time of the Greens project, Blunk became less interested in furniture and more interested in pure sculpture. He realized that the huge blocks of wood he had standing around his yard waiting to be cut up into firewood were so beautiful that he couldn’t just cut them up and he was inspired to create monumental forms.
J.B. Blunk, “Mage,” 1983, carved redwood. Photo: Geneva Anderson
In the 1980’s, Blunk moved on to tall twisting wood sculptures created with a chainsaw and to stone carvings. His majestic two-legged redwood “Mage” from 1983 is one the show’s highlights. With its poetic natural gnarls and ripples left intact, Blunk’s transformation of the material is minimal, just enough release the inherent beauty in the material he worked with. “I am in awe of his wisdom about what to highlight in its natural state and what to dig into and transform,” said curator Carin Adams. “That’s his genius. It wasn’t always what he decided to do with things but what he decided to let stand on its own.”
Blunk’s friendship with Noguchi deepened over the years. “I’ve heard stories from his family members and from his long-time assistants about Noguchi’s regular visits and how they would walk through the fields adjacent to J.B.’s studio and home and just look at assembled materials, not really talking, just nodding occasionally and looking,” said Adams. “I think they had a long-term, active, vital exchange that was important for each of them.”
Don’t miss Blunk’s “The Planet” in OMCA’s lobby
In 2019, OMCA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the opening of its historic landmarked building. Designed by Pritzker prize-winning architect Kevin Roche, this jewel is one of California’s most stunning examples of examples of mid-century modernism. The building actually had to be constructed around Blunk’s majestic two-ton, 13-feet-diameter work “The Planet,” carved from the base of a single redwood tree. The magnificent sprawling piece was commissioned in 1969 and is situated at the heart of the museum on the first level at the entrance to the Gallery of California Natural Sciences. Sadly, the piece’s installation precedes all of the museum’s current employees so no one was able to relate in person the story of this piece’s installation but the exhibit does include several photos.
Free informative Exhibition Tours | J.B. Blunk: Nature, Art & Everyday Life:
Saturday, August 18, 2018, 12–12:45 p.m., inquire at entrance where to meet
Saturday, September, 1, 2018, 12-12:45 p.m., inquire at entrance where to meet
More resources J.B. Blunk:
The wall texts are informative but Blunk is an artist who cries out for a book that can be poured over and treasured. His daughter, Mariah Nielson, who works with the Blunk estate and founded the company Permanent Collection (it sells re-casted originals of her dad’s works, such as Blunk Cups) has just finished digitizing his entire archive and is collaborating on a forthcoming book.
For now, the most complete information on Blunk comes straight from the horse’s mouth—a wonderful 3 hour and 34 minute oral interview Blunk did in 2002 in Inverness with Glenn Adamson for the Archives of American Art’s Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Click here to be directed to the interview.
To read more about how J.B. Blunk influenced CA’s fine wood tradition, read ARThound’s “Family Tree” Petaluma Art Center’s Exceptional Fine Woodworking Show through March 13, 2011
Details: “J.B. Blunk: Nature, Art & Everyday Life” is on display at OMCA through September 9, 2018. General Admission tickets include this exhibit: $15.95, $10.95 seniors, $6.95 Youth 9-17 and free for children 8 and under and OMCA members. As part of Friday Nights at OMCA, on Fridays 5 to 10 p.m., enjoy half price admission for adults and free admission for 18 and under. Get your groove on with wine, beer, music, featured artists, Off the Grid food trucks and more.
Coming this fall to OMCA “The World of Ray and Charles Eames” October 13, 2018- February 17, 2019. (This exhibit originated at the Barbican London, 21 October 2015 – 14 February, 2016)
ARThound 