Ted Muehling
Though most observers would hesitate to describe Ted Muehling as a folk artist, he says he is always "fiddling with materials" and thinks that in some ways that is what folk artists did. "For the most part, they were looking to solve a problem, and so am I," he remarks. A visit to Muehling's shop on Howard Street in Manhattan, with its vitrines filled with jewelry and decorative objects gives some idea of the materials he has "fiddled with" —silver, gold, porcelain, glass, bronze, ivory, precious and semiprecious stones. But it is in his atelier behind the shop and in the half-basement below where one really sees what problem solving means to him. Besides that, the space makes one realize that as far as collecting goes, Muehling would probably give Electra Webb a run for her money.
Dangling from the rafters are bird's nests and driftwood. Piled on tables are shells, seaweed, and bits of coral; feathers; dried flowers, leaves, and seedpods; stuffed birds (a goose, wild turkeys, a crow, a hummingbird; there is a live canary in a cage as well); bird and reptile eggs; animal pelts, and snakeskins; and those are just some of the natural things: there are also neolithic tools, flint and stone arrowheads, scrapers, ax-heads, nineteenth-century Japanese bronze and lacquer pieces, Chinese ivory carvings, mythological figures and body parts cast in porcelain by the Nymphenburg porcelain manufactory in Germany, and Secession glass from the J. and L. Lobmeyr glass company in Vienna. The compartmentalized drawers of twelve nineteenth-century specimen and printer's cabinets are stuffed with more eggs and feathers; stones and minerals; skeletons; dragonfly, butterfly, and moth specimens (thousands of them), insects (and Venetian glass replicas of insects); not to mention moonstones, opals, labradorite, aquamarine, quartz crystal, diamonds, and pearls—from seed size up.
Muehling has been accumulating things from the natural world since childhood and the "other stuff" for a long time. And he has figured out innumerable ways of translating them into beautiful, functional, objects, such as the silver spoons shown here; the handle of one is among many he has cast from bayberry twigs brought back from visiting his family on Nantucket. He designs glass for Lobmeyr and porcelain for Nymphenburg; for the latter, which has collaborated with important artists since its beginnings in the eighteenth century, he has created shell-shaped bowls, coral-textured plates, and a variety of lighting devices, including egg-shaped lanterns and driftwood candlesticks.
Muehling is entranced by candlelight. "I think the element of chance—unexpected movement and life—is what makes candlelight subliminally pleasing," he says. Over the years he has designed simple silver candleholders, chandeliers in many mediums, candlesticks in porcelain, glass, and bronze, and lanterns in porcelain. It is not too surprising, then, that at the Shelburne Museum he was interested in the many types of early lighting devices he saw in the historic houses, including the unusual pewter whale-oil lamp illustrated here, which is distinguished by the two magnifying lenses that flank the wicks. Muehling has experimented with different ways of increasing the power of candlelight, including hand-hammered silver disks to reflect it; but he had never considered using glass to magnify it. Fortunately, there are myriad lenses accumulated over the years in those cabinet drawers. He is thinking about them. But then, he cannot get the museum's renowned collection of decoys out of his mind. "I might carve a bird," he says. "I do love birds."
Next: Richard Saja
Gemellion, Artist unknown, Limoges, France, 13th century Champlevé Enamel on Copper, 8 7/8” diameter Collection of The Walters’ Art
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