Farewells

The obituary section of today's Los Angeles Times mentioned the passings of two noteworthy Claremonters.

The first was former Pomona College president David Alexander, who died on Sunday. Alexander ran the college from 1969 to 1991 and is generally credited with taking Pomona to the top ranks of the nations liberal arts colleges. Pomona College's website has a news release on Alexander's death. It quotes current Pomona president David Oxtoby:

According to David Oxtoby, current president of Pomona College, “David Alexander was a passionate supporter of the liberal arts college in America and served Pomona College with distinction, creativity and compassion. During his tenure as president, Pomona solidified its reputation as one of the nation’s premier liberal arts colleges. In finance, admissions, and national rankings, Pomona grew in excellence during David Alexander’s 22 years of leadership. His dedication, his high aspirations, and his moral integrity were at the core of his extraordinary contribution to making Pomona College what it is today.

“It’s hard to think of David without acknowledging his wife Catharine’s contributions to Pomona,” added Oxtoby. “Theirs was a true partnership, and the College has benefited enormously from her warm, wise and ever-gracious presence.”

During Alexander’s tenure, Pomona’s endowment increased from $24 million to $296 million; faculty grew from 130 to 156; and new construction added 15 major buildings to campus. The geographic and ethnic diversity of the student body increased dramatically as the college made the transition from a primarily regional institution to a national liberal arts college with the majority of its students from outside California. The year after his retirement and in recognition of his leadership and commitment to the campus community, Pomona College named its new administration building the David Alexander Hall of Administration in 1992.

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The LA Times also reported that Claremont ceramicist Rupert Deese died July 12. Deese was a graduate of Pomona College and later received an MFA from Claremont Graduate School. The Times noted that Deese at one time shared a studio in Padua Hills with fellow Claremont ceramicist Harrison Macintosh and was part of a circle of local artists that included the late woodworker Sam Maloof, and painters James Hueter and Karl Benjamin:

Deese created such functional yet decorative pieces as ashtrays and martini pitchers as well as bowls, vases and other stoneware for the home. The fired clay forms were usually finished with a soft matte glaze in natural colors. One of his cocktail pitchers with a deep blue sheen is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

"He made elegant vessel ceramics in functional forms that were very well suited to the modern California home," Bobbye Tigerman, assistant curator of decorative arts and design at the museum, said. "They fulfilled contemporary needs.... He was very much in touch with how Californians lived."

Deese's pieces also are in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Mingei International Folk Art Museum in San Diego and many other museums, and have been exhibited at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

Sam Maloof: Woodworker, 1916-2009

UC Riverside Image

Woodworker Sam Maloof has died. Maloof passed away Thursday at his Alta Loma home, the LA Times reports. Maloof was 93.

Maloof was raised in Chino and graduated from Chino High. The Daily Bulletin's obituary notes that while in high school, Maloof won a poster contest and that led to a job with Herman Garner, who owned a good portion of what is now Padua Hills and who built the Padua Theatre. Following World War II, Maloof worked for several years with the artist Millard Sheets, who was teaching at Scripps College.

The Times piece described Maloof's work:

The seventh of nine children born to Lebanese immigrants, Maloof in 1985 became the first craftsman to receive a MacArthur Foundation grant. His designs could not be categorized as Arts and Crafts, modern, Scandinavian or Italian. The self-taught designer would select a piece of wood -- walnut was his favorite because of its texture and durability -- and cut out parts freehand on a band saw.

Instead of following plans, he matched an image in his head. He refined the shape with hand tools to make the finished piece of furniture comfortable, functional and beautiful. He carefully considered the appearance of every angle of the piece, even chair backs and cabinet interiors, as well as grain pattern and his innovative joinery.

Pieces were assembled without nails or metal hardware. Even hinges and underbracing were wood. Once, to test the strength of the joints for a set of chairs, he made a prototype and dropped it from the roof of his garage onto his driveway. The joints survived.

Maloof's modern furniture fit handsomely in the post-and-beam dwellings blanketing new suburbs after World War II. In the postwar housing boom, the wood, leather, cork and other natural materials he used softened the hard edges of emerging minimalist architecture.

After construction on the 210 Freeway began, Caltrans moved Maloof's home and studio, which were in the freeway right-of-way, to its present location. Maloof's original house is now a museum and home to the Sam Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts.

A 1994 LA Times article described the house:

University of La Verne Image

Like Simon Rodia's towers in Watts, Maloof's home is a monument to the creative impulse. Unlike those towers, which seem to reflect a reckless scramble for the sky, Maloof's home clings respectfully to the earth.

From the outside, its totality is impossible to grasp. What's clear is that the conglomeration of living space, workshops and studios have spread through the grove with the slow, organic aesthetics of a tree. A growing limb took an odd twist. Maloof sculpted an exterior post to mimic it. Where roots surface, walks rise in response.

Inside, big windows draw in the surrounding jungle and douse the warm redwood walls with cool light filtered through leaves.

"This was going to be a studio, then I decided to make a house of it," Maloof says, gesturing to a kitchen with cabinets and counters of mahogany, maple, walnut and a rock-hard wood called apitone, which a friend salvaged from packing crates and Maloof couldn't bring himself to burn.

When the freeway went through, the state proposed a number of options, including going over or around the house and studio, and Caltrans had to negotiate with Maloof before settling on moving the home to its present location, which was supposed to recreate, as much as possible, the quiet, secluded, rural feel of the original site.

The confrontation with Caltrans in a way epitomizes the artist's life. He didn't make concessions to many of the changes that modern life thrusts upon us. Maybe Flannery O'Connor's Haze Motes had it right: "They ain't quit doing it as long as I'm doing it."

Even in death, Maloof spirit remains in his work and in the work of all the people he mentored and taught in his workshops. The Times obituary quotes Maloof remembering an encounter with Ray Charles:

"Ray Charles couldn't see my furniture," Maloof told a reporter. "But he said he could feel that it had soul. When he asked about my rocker [at a friend's house], his host told him, 'That's a chair made by Sam Maloof.' Ray ran his hands over the wood shouting, 'I know this man! I know this man!' On his next visit, the first thing Ray Charles said was, 'I'd like to touch that furniture again that Sam Maloof made.' "

Maloof was a magnificent anachronism: a craftsman dedicated to unique handmade furniture in an age of dull, mass-produced sameness. Say this about the human spirit, it will endure.

Maloof Foundation Hosts Exhibit

The Claremont Courier tells us that that the Maloof Foundation in Alta Loma has an exhibit in the foundation's Jacob's Gallery:

The current display features “the most prominent wood turner in the country,” Mr. Maloof said.

Entitled Loom and Lathe, the exhibition features artist Bob Stocksdale and his wife Kay Sekimachi.

Mr. Stocksdale is known for shaping wooden bowls out of rare and exotic woods. His pioneering efforts in the field revolutionized how wood turning was viewed, transforming it into a unique form of art.

Now in her 80s, Ms. Sekimachi is a distinguished fiber artist and weaver, using loom to construct 3-dimensional sculptures.

The 2 artists were married for 33 years before Mr. Stocksdale passed away in 2003 at the age of 89. Both Mr. Stocksdale and Ms. Sekimachi have won the Gold Medal from the American Craft Council, the highest honor the organization hands out.

The Maloof Foundation is located on the 7-acre estate of artist Sam Maloof, whose sculpted wood furniture is sought by collectors the world over. You can read more about the exhibit on the Maloof Foundation's website.

Loom & Lathe - June 4 to August 24
The Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for the Arts and Crafts
5131 Carnelian Street
Alta Loma, CA 91701
Hours: Wednesdays through Sundays, 1:00-4:00pm
(909) 980-0412