103 Hearty Objects Celebrating 103 Years of Beatrice Wood

Beatrice Wood’s ceramic work is comfort food for the soul. There is nothing of the fragile or overrefined about her bowls, bottles and vases. They seem to have as hearty a constitution as Wood herself, who is now 103, and their presence is equally life-affirming. While the luminous luster work and crater-pocked lava glazes venture out into exploratory formal terrain, Wood’s work, whatever the texture or surface, always harks back to the fundamental humanism of hand caressing earth.

“Beatrice Wood Ceramics: Reasonable and Unreasonable” at the Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art, celebrates Wood’s recent birthday with 103 objects, most from her own collection. The earliest work, a small blue bottle with a floral design, dates from 1934, and every decade since then is represented, with the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s most heavily featured. Though not a fully rounded retrospective, the Mingei show thoughtfully surveys Wood’s range, from lighthearted but heavy-handed figurative sculptures to vessels with an archaic feel and great spiritual integrity.

Wood, who has lived in the Ojai area since 1948, has become a living legend for her persistently rebellious spirit. She broke ranks with social and familial expectations early, opting for a career in the theater, then as a visual artist. An intimate of Marcel Duchamp, she traveled in the heady circle of the New York Dadaists before moving to California in 1928 and stumbling into the world of ceramics a few years later.

For all the flamboyance of her personality, Wood’s work is profoundly humble. It assumes conventional shapes most of the time--footed vessels, long-necked bottles, shallow bowls--and when decorated, uses archetypal symbols, such as the spiral, strings of bead-like dots and simplified human figures. The figures, which she calls “sophisticated primitives,” often wrap around a vessel, facing outward. In one case, they dance along the lip of a bowl. Wherever they appear, they suggest a state of harmony and unity in keeping with Wood’s express passion for humanity.

Much about her work evokes an earthy philosophy centered on love, beauty and the sacredness of life. In a work like the 1984 “Ritual Vessel,” a shallow bowl supported by four luminous caryatid-like figures, such notions become overt, and the act of its creation feels akin to ongoing prayer. In other works, the surface itself is a celebration of organic power and beauty. Wood’s luster-glazed vessels, with their iridescent apricot, fuchsia and emerald gleam, have been compared to the extraordinary surfaces of ancient Egyptian glass.

Work that stems from such primal impulses does not always deliver on the same level. Wood’s art, and the life continually birthing it, are truly inspiring.

* “Beatrice Wood Ceramics: Reasonable and Unreasonable” continues at the Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art through June 23. The museum is located in University Towne Centre, 4405 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla. (619) 453-5300.