Carol Sauvion

Last updated

Carol Sauvion
Born (1947-07-29) July 29, 1947 (age 76)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Manhattanville College
Notable work Craft in America , PBS Documentary

Carol Sauvion (born July 29, 1947) is an American crafts scholar and patron, and the executive Producer and director of the PBS documentary series Craft in America . [1]

Sauvion received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art History and American Art in 1969 from Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. [2] Living in New York's Hudson Valley, and married to singer-songwriter Don McLean (1969–1976). [3] [4] [5] she was also in the world of music. Toshi Seeger, wife of folk singer Pete Seeger introduced her to ceramics. Sauvion recalls one 10-day interval when their husbands were away on concert tours. Toshi offered to teach her to use a potter's wheel. The two women "let go of time, and did nothing but make pots, eat baked potatoes and rest when they had to, leaving a trail of clay from pot shop to beds." [5]

Soon Sauvion, was producing functional porcelain and selling it at craft galleries and museum shops across the United States from 1969 to 1980. After Sauvion divorced and moved to New York City she continued as a studio potter, selling her Japanese-influenced work at craft fairs. In 1977 she and her second husband, Avram Reitman, moved to California. In 1980 she opened Freehand Gallery in West Hollywood, California specializing in handmade American crafts featuring artists from across the United States. [6] [7]

Carol Sauvion and the crew of Craft in America at the 67th Annual Peabody Awards Carol Sauvion and the crew of Craft in America at the 67th Annual Peabody Awards.jpg
Carol Sauvion and the crew of Craft in America at the 67th Annual Peabody Awards

Sauvion founded Craft in America, Inc., a Los Angeles–based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, in 2003 to promote and advance original handcrafted work through educational programs in all media. "Our mission is to document and advance original handcrafted work through programs in all media, accessible to all. We are dedicated to the exploration, preservation and celebration of craft, the work of the hand, and their impact on our nation’s cultural heritage. [8]

In 2007, the PBS documentary of the same name debuted. The Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning Craft in America explores America's creative spirit through all things handmade. [9] It introduces viewers to diverse artists, regions and cultures and documents the vitality, history and significance of the craft movement in the United States. [10] [9] [11]

In 2009, Sauvion established the Craft in America Study Center in Los Angeles, California. The research library houses craft and art-oriented books, periodicals, and videos. The center also mounts rotating exhibitions, hosts artist talks, hands-on-workshops, and various other public programs. [12]

Sauvion serves on the Board of Trustees of the American Craft Council, [13] and was recognized for her decades of craft advocacy with the 2019 Distinguished Alumna Award from Manhattanville College.

On December 27, 2019, PBS Premiere's Craft in America's "Quilts" and "Identity", the twenty second and twenty third episodes in the series.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don McLean</span> American singer-songwriter (born 1945)

Donald McLean III is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Known to fans as the "American Troubadour" or "King of the Trail", he is best known for his 1971 hit song "American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation. His other hit singles include "Vincent", "Dreidel", and "Wonderful Baby"; as well as his renditions of Roy Orbison's "Crying" and the Skyliners' "Since I Don't Have You".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manhattanville University</span> Private university in Purchase, New York, U.S.

Manhattanville University is a private university in Purchase, New York, United States. Founded in 1841 as a school at 412 Houston Street in Lower Manhattan, it was initially known as the Academy of the Sacred Heart. In 1917, the academy received a charter from the Regents of the State of New York to raise the school officially to a collegiate level, granting degrees as the College of the Sacred Heart. In 1937, it became known as Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, and from 1966 to 2024 as Manhattanville College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hazel Dickens</span> American bluegrass musician, singer, and activist

Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." The New York Times extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album. She was posthumously inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame alongside Gerrard in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potter's wheel</span> Machine used in the shaping of round ceramic ware

In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, and for applying incised decoration or rings of colour. Use of the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World, where pottery was handmade by methods that included coiling and beating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toshi Reagon</span> American musician, composer, and producer (born 1964)

Toshi Reagon is an American musician of folk, blues, gospel, rock and funk, as well as a composer, curator, and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clearwater Festival</span>

The Clearwater Festival is a music and environmental summer festival and America's oldest and largest annual festival of its kind. This unique event has hosted over 15,000 people on a weekend in June for more than three decades. All proceeds benefit Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy M. Lewis</span> Native American potter

Lucy Martin Lewis was a Native American potter from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. She is known for her black-on-white decorative ceramics made using traditional techniques.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto and Vivika Heino</span> American artist duo (1915–2009 Otto, 1910-1995 Vivika)

Otto Heino and Vivika Heino were artists working in ceramics. They collaborated as a husband-and-wife team for thirty-five years, signing their pots Vivika + Otto, regardless of who actually made them.

The Overbeck sisters were American women potters and artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who established Overbeck Pottery in their Cambridge City, Indiana, home in 1911 with the goal of producing original, high-quality, hand-wrought ceramics as their primary source of income. The sisters are best known for their fanciful figurines, their skill in matte glazes, and their stylized designs of plants and animals in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. The women owned and handled all aspects of their artistic enterprise until 1955, when the last of the sisters died and the pottery closed. As a result of their efforts, the Overbecks managed to become economically independent and earned a modest living from the sales of their art.

Toshi Seeger was an American filmmaker, producer and environmental activist. A filmmaker who specialized in the subject of folk music, Toshi's credits include the 1966 film Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison and the Emmy Award-winning documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, released through PBS in 2007. In 1966, Seeger and her husband, folk-singer Pete Seeger, co-founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, which seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands. Additionally, they co-founded the Clearwater Festival, a major music festival held annually at Croton Point Park in Westchester County, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Brown (director)</span> American film director

James Bradford Brown is an American film director, primarily known for his work in documentary film. He has won four Emmys, most recently for Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. He has directed and produced four feature documentaries that received theatrical distribution. He heads Jim Brown Productions, LLC and Ginger Group Productions, Inc., production companies specializing in cultural and social documentaries and music concerts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Andreson</span> American ceramic artist and educator

Laura Andreson was an American ceramic artist and educator at University of California Los Angeles.

Frances Maude Senska was an art professor and artist specializing in ceramics who taught at Montana State University – Bozeman from 1946 to 1973. She was known as the "grandmother of ceramics in Montana". During her career, she trained a number of now internationally known ceramic artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aileen Osborn Webb</span> American patron of crafts

Aileen Osborn Webb (1892–1979) was an American patron of crafts. She was a founder of the organization now known as the American Craft Council, which gives an annual award named for her. She was considered a "principal supporter" of the American Craft movement during the Great Depression. She founded the School for American Craftsmen (SAC), which is now part of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

Craft in America, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Carol Sauvion in 2004, based in Los Angeles, California. The organization documents and promotes contemporary American and traditional craft practices through educational programs across various media. It aims to foster an appreciation for handmade craft, recognize the craft makers, and emphasize the cultural significance of craft in the nation's heritage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayumi Horie</span> American studio potter and digital marketer (born 1969)

Ayumi Horie is a Portland, Maine-based studio potter. She is recognized for her unique aesthetic as well as for her pioneering use of digital marketing and social media within contemporary ceramics. She is curator of the popular Instagram feed Pots in Action and is a 2015 United States Artist Distinguished Fellow in Craft.

Handcrafted America is an American TV series, which is broadcast on INSP. It is hosted by Jill Wagner, who travels across the United States visiting people with specialist crafts. Each episode, Wagner visits three different artists to discuss and study their craft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margot Mayo</span>

Margot Mayo was an American dance instructor, educator, and collector of folk music.

Cynthia Bringle was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and has lived and worked in Penland, North Carolina since 1970. She is a potter and teaches at the Penland School of Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and John C. Campbell Folk School.

<i>Ornament</i> (magazine) Magazine about jewelry and personal adornment

Ornament is a periodical magazine that documents the history, art and craft of ancient, ethnic and contemporary jewelry and personal adornment. It presents and discusses a wide range of personal adornment and wearable art, including beads, jewelry, and clothing.

References

  1. O'Neill, Claire. "Craft In America Is Alive And Well". NPR. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  2. "CraftTexas 2014 Jurors Houston Center for Contemporary Craft". Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
  3. Howard, Alan (2007). The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Songs. Lulu Press. p. 420. ISBN   978-1-4303-0682-5.
  4. Friedman, Roger (March 11, 2016). "Don McLean's Wife Files for Divorce Citing "adultery, cruel and abusive treatment, and irreconcilable differences"".
  5. 1 2 Balzar, John (April 15, 2005). "America's story crafted from passion". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  6. "Freehand". West 3rd Street. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  7. Moore, Indigo. "Carol Sauvion '69". Manhattanville College. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  8. Sauvion, Carol. "Mission". craftinamerica.org. Craft in America. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  9. 1 2 "Craft in America". Create TV. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  10. "Craft in America". PBS.org. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  11. "Craft in America Center". Idealist.org. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  12. Muchnic, Suzanne (October 7, 2009). "A crafty way to study the handmade". LA Times. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  13. "Board of Trustees". craftcouncil.org. The American Craft Council. Retrieved December 16, 2019.