Creatured Creativity Comes to Solvang

Ceramic artists have long suffered and survived a certain stubborn reluctance of the fine art world to accept them as members, to transcend the implied barrier between dimensions of craft and “capital-A” Art. Progress has been made, and many impressive ceramicists have clearly made the leap into fine art quarters, combining qualities of refined craft and underlying seriousness of content and intent.

Consider, for instance, the delightful, quirky, and evocative work of Danish ceramic artist Marianne Steenholdt Bork, whose current show at Solvang’s Elverhøj Museum manages to appeal to aesthetic measures and a vibrant imagination. The vessel-like and imagery-packed work in her exhibition, The Lion Has to Be Happy, makes for a viewing experience satisfying on multiple levels and to multiple viewers.

It’s a family-friendly show, also inviting deeper art appreciation for those so inclined to pay attention. Her skilled and impressively detailed pieces are blessed with a sense of playfulness and myth-infused narratives, tucked into vessels with 360-degree visual fields. As the title suggests, lions — and other creatures — lurk here, celebrated for mythical and animal charm factors, along with clever insertions of self-portraiture and other gently bustling, all-over ornamentation. Perspective can turn upside-down at times, to better enliven the art and disorient the viewer, in a kindly way.

And did we mention that the show’s run, through October 14, landed neatly in the time of Solvang’s Danish Days, which livened up the Danish-born town last weekend?

A very good place to start in viewing the exhibition is just down the entrance ramp to the gallery space, where a set of six fantastically decorated lions go by the moniker “Filihankat” — also the name of her gallery and workshop near Aarhus, Denmark, and her admitted “artistic icon.” We get a quick instructive sense of her artistic MO here, which taps into a childlike sense of color and wonder, through a malleable filter of mature artistic sophistication.

Bork’s animal lore and obvious love may be embodied in the piece “Artemis,” named after the Greek god governing the protection of animals. In one tucked-away corner of the gallery, the artist pays affectionate tribute to canines, with the telling titles “Fides,” “My Dog — The Bird — and Me,” and “Life Is Better with a Dog.”

Although Bork projects a palpable empathy and fascination with the real-world animal domain, mythology and animalia also often meet in her work. “The Wolverine” celebrates the subject as a Native American symbol of the trickster, and “The Crows Take Off” cross-references the avian subjects, lion, and a lunar/solar sighting. More than once, she equates animal protagonists with “Rosie the Riveter,” the famed feminist icon linked to the WWII workforce.  

In the dense, delicious piece “Dubo-Man,” the mood at hand is at once meditative and dreamlike, with a contemplative cat-lion-man, a nude study, and other decorative filigree in the mix. As the artist writes of the piece, “Perhaps the Dubonnet Man (Dubo) is thinking about the Little Mermaid in the distance as he pours his cocktail.”

[Click to enlarge] Left: “Dubo-Man” Right: “The Air — Almond Tree — and Me.” by Marianne Steenholdt Bork | Photo: Josef Woodard

One of the more attention-seizing pieces in the room sports another of her list-based titles, “The Air — Almond Tree — and Me.” Yes, those elements are included in the iconography, in fragmented and sometimes gravity-defying ways in the compositional order of things, but the plot thickens further as we peer around the back to find a man basking in sunset luster on the flipside. Multiple angles conspire toward an intuitively expressive center.

Suffice to say, Bork has presented a small but nourishing feast of pleasures with her Elverhøj selection. The Lion Has to Be Happy is a happy occasion, with some surprising layers and levels attached.

The Lion Has to Be Happy; Contemporary Danish Ceramics by Marianne Steenholdt Bork is on view at the Elverhøj Museum of History and Art (1624 Elverhoy Wy., Solvang) through October 14. Museum hours are Thursday through Monday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. See elverhoj.org.

In addition, Bork will give an artist talk on Thursday, October 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the museum. Admission is free.