STYLE : DESIGN ON THE PACIFIC RIM : West Meets East

Style on the Pacific Rim. Like business and politics, all areas of design are feeling the growing dynamism of the Pacific Era. Western artists--some hail from the other 49 Pacific Rim countries, others have never traveled to Asian shores--arereinterpreting traditional Oriental art forms and techniques with an eye toward Western tastes. Wherever this new influence shows up--in furniture, fashion, interiors, gardens--the result is simple, functional and minimalist. And more likely than not, it’s imbued with a hands-on crafts sensibility. A chair-maker concentrates on joinery, not flashy fabric. A garden design is dictated by thousand-year-old tradition. It’s an Eastern aesthetic sparked with Western panache--call it Pacific Rim style.

While some Pacific Rim artists recognize the Asian connection in their work, others are surprised by it. An exhibit of the late Japanese designer Isamu Noguchi’s rice-paper lanterns led San Francisco glass-and-metal artist Peter Mangan to make his asymmetrial lamp. But when architecture student Eric Butler and artist Michelle Smit of San Luis Obispo designed a screen and chair that emphasize the elegant lines of Japanese crafts, they didn’t intend to copy Asian originals. “The chair started with the wood itself and a fascination with wood joinery,” Butler says. In Glendale, ceramist Kathy Grabenstatter works in raku (an ancient Japanese low-fired process) but is inspired by the totems of Pacific Northwest Indians. And though Oregon artist Keith Lebenzon’s carved calligraphy brushes look like those from Japan, he says, they have myriad Western uses, “from turkey basters to tomato pollinators. One man uses them to clean his Mercedes-Benz dashboard.”