Hands of Stone in Laguna

In a curious way, the ceramic pieces Igal and Diane Silber have collected for the past two decades--on view now at the couple’s hometown Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach--turn the standard model of collecting upside-down.

Many art collectors start with posters and graduate to increasingly significant original works. The Silbers (who initially collected Southern California painting of the ‘60s and ‘70s) began their ceramic phase with exquisite small vessels by pioneering American artisans.

The collection branched out from there with the addition of hackneyed figurative sculpture and clunky, oversized vessels made by artists here and abroad who seem to have misunderstood the Asian-influenced modern aesthetic pioneered in the U.S. by Peter Voulkos.

The problem with the collection isn’t so much the absence of critically esteemed names in contemporary ceramics but rather the presence of work that--for all its fine art pretensions--doesn’t cut it alongside important work in other media. The better pieces in this show make their case in a purely formal way unrelated to emotional expression.

A green, porous glaze gives a bowl (untitled, as are most of the pieces) by pioneering American studio potters Otto and Gertrude Natzler the look of a sunken treasure.

Laura Andreson was in her 80s in 1984 when she made a trio of little jars in striking hues of mottled green and burnt sienna, with elegant, self-contained shapes that recall one of Giorgio Morandi’s still-life paintings.

The irregularities of hand application add buoyancy to a footed white bowl with skinny brown stripes, one of a group of pieces by another old-time potter, Dame Lucie Rie.

The generation born in the ‘40s and ‘50s added subtle forms of texture. “Red,” Peter Hayes’ expansive, high-shouldered, blood-red vessel, bears faint markings that coalesce into the features of a wondrously detailed pastoral landscape.

A lightly pockmarked glaze gives David Crane’s willowy abstracted figure--on which an almost imperceptible bulge suggests the outline of a leg stepping forward--a slight astringency, balancing its sinuous allure.

Sara Radstone’s craggy-textured, asymmetrical sculpture resembles a miniaturized Neolithic outcropping with a crater-like top.

Other pieces also catch the eye by virtue of their delicate walls, elegant shapes, inventive patterning and luscious or severely simple glazes.

The large figurative works, mostly made by during the past 15 years or so by young or youngish artists, are another matter entirely.

Some labor to achieve flat-footed whimsy (Patrick Crabb’s little fellow digging a hole in a piece of turf on top of a hulking decorative vessel).

Others, such as Jean-Pierre Larocque (“Birdman”) ignore trends to brave the heavy weather of ‘50s-style angst in its most overworked forms. Other spinoffs, such as Beverly Mayeri’s “Crowded Face” (a head covered with images of troubled faces) may replace the dark, clotted forms of decades past with easy-to-read pastel imagery, but the effect is saccharine and simplistic.

“We’re all in the asylum together,” these works so solemnly proclaim. But the message has become threadbare. The skinny, lacerated figures, fetal postures and wrapped heads have become cliches.

Such tired approaches are not limited to the middle-aged. Kristen Morgin was 28 when she made “Puppet,” a crazy-faced figure whose attenuated limbs and missing foot are too-obvious borrowings from Bay Area ceramic sculptor Stephen deStaebler.

The big abstract pieces in the collection are disappointing in other ways. Scale is a key factor in both craft and fine art. “Because I have the technical resources to do it” is not sufficient reason for making large work. Voulkos’ early oversized, blasted vessels convey a feeling of raw energy, whereas these clumsy pieces don’t make up in power what they lack in refinement.

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The best thing about the exhibition is its marvelous installation. Independent exhibition designer Dextra Frankel, who formerly directed the gallery at Cal State Fullerton, devised a gracefully self-effacing system of unvarnished wooden shelves, constructed either as slender individual ledges or triple tiers.

There’s not a single plexiglass case to obscure the view, though smaller objects on the top tiers are hard to see clearly. Larger ceramic pieces sit on raked areas of sand imitating Japanese gardens--a meditative treatment that, if anything, is too exalted for these banal objects.

A discreet labeling system is part of the design. Unfortunately, the museum’s minimalist approach extends to the omission of information about the specific ceramic or glazing process used in each piece.

Similarly, information about the ceramists represented in this show and the movements in which they participated is lacking in the catalog, which is more of a vanity production for the collectors than a useful tool for viewers.

Though it makes economic and good-neighbor sense to show the holdings of local collectors, it’s also a good policy to bolster these shows with an educational component--for collectors-to-be as well as anyone curious about what they’re looking at.

* “International Contemporary Ceramics From the Igal and Diane Silber Collection,” Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday-Sunday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday. Admission: $5 general, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 12 and for everyone Thursdays 5-9 p.m. Extended through Sept. 20. (949) 494-6531.