Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
Deadline: October 1, 2009
An exhibition of historic and contemporary tea infusers and strainers, curated by Tom Muir. The exhibit will be shown from January 16 – March 21, 2010 at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
eXtreme Tea will be on display during the 2010 SNAG Conference, “Going to Extremes,” Houston, TX, March 10-13, 2010
Introduction:
If you’ve used a teabag, you’ve used the least attractive, and most common, form of contemporary tea infuser. A tea infuser is simply a device that holds loose tea leaves for brewing in a pot or cup. But this simple, useful object has a history of extraordinary artistic elaboration, in common with all tea implements. Today, as tea is a popular beverage around the globe, the tea infuser presents an exciting challenge for contemporary artists in many media.
The contrasts between tradition and contemporary possibilities for the tea infuser are extreme indeed – even more so is the inventiveness that takes this simple function to imaginative extremes!
High craft and low craft are contrastingly represented in tea infusers, which can be made of metal, glass, ceramic, fiber and plastic – and combinations of mixed media. The functional solution that artists have found to the problem of steeping tea have varied widely and wildly – from figural, thematic depictions and literary references to visual and functional puns and engineering tours de forces.
With possibilities for multiple use in the contemporary context, tea infusers provide unlimited possibilities for artists! Besides the popularity of tea itself, new forms of contemporary tea infusers will also share in the world-wide status of teapots as culturally significant artforms.
To have work considered for the exhibition, please send high-quality digital images and information to:
Tom Muir
Fine Arts Center
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43402
or [email protected]
