Curator and ceramics historian Margaret Carney has amassed enough dinnerware to start a museum. Upon moving to Ann Arbor, last year, the new Ann Arborite enacted a dream and founded The Dinnerware Museum. The new foodie-friendly cultural attraction is the world's only museum entirely devoted to the objects we use to eat and drink, along with dining-inspired fine art and kitsch.
Curator and ceramics historian Margaret Carney has amassed enough dinnerware to start a museum. Upon moving to Ann Arbor, last year, the new Ann Arborite enacted a dream and founded The Dinnerware Museum. The new foodie-friendly cultural attraction is the world's only museum entirely devoted to the objects we use to eat and drink, along with dining-inspired fine art and kitsch.
Exhibitions have commenced, but "I'm still looking for a permanent home for the museum," says Carney.
She is no newbie to museums. Carney's past experiences include founding the ceramics museum at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, were she also taught, and her most recent job as curator at Toledo's Blair Museum of Lithophanes, among other curatorial and teaching gigs over the decades.
However, Carney "never anticipated starting The Dinnerware Museum as a 'pop-up'," she says. Her ultimate plan is to open a permanent museum and gift shop, but she is still looking for a "rent-friendly" space. Until then, the museum is using others' venues. Last year, objects from the collection appeared in a SoFA Chicago exhibit at Navy Pier that attracted around 34,000 visitors and Ladies Literary Club of Ypsilanti hosted a show. Now, the museum is debuting in Ann Arbor.
"I knew I wanted to put the museum in Ann Arbor because it's such a foodie community," Carney says of Ann Arbor's existing reputation. "We want to be a destination attraction here," she says.
Currently on display, The Dinnerware Museum is serving up a sampling in "Three Courses," at the Museum on Main Street (500 North Main; Ann Arbor Historical Society), through May 12, Saturdays and Sundays noon to 4 p.m. or by appointment. "Three Courses" fills 3 rooms with treasures from the collection, new works by old students, and extraordinary loans from other museums, including some famous pieces.
Since formalizing it as a nonprofit 501c3, she has come by some exceptional loans and promised gifts. A limited-edition Roy Lichtenstein pop art dish set comes from local ceramists Susanne and John Stephenson's collection. The Liberace Museum loaned the extravagant dishware pattern that he convinced his fan Queen Elizabeth to let him copy from her set of gold-rimmed Moser glass dishes and goblets. Henry Ford took fine china on his famous camping trips, on loan from the Henry Ford Museum. "The Four Vagabonds" - Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs - and other notable moguls and politicians went on these decked-out excursions.
More than 1,000 pieces in her collection form the museum's core. Like the current exhibition, it's a little of everything. The collection is both mainstream and elitist, elegant and humorous, refined and kitschy - all together in one museum.
Popular industrial consumer designs include dishware by Russell Wright and Glidden pottery, brightly-colored Fiestaware and much more.
One of Carney's favorite designers is Eva Zeisel, who was born in Hungary and emigrated to America. "She designed the two best-selling sets of dinnerware in the 1950s. All the parts of the set are different but they look like they are related - like brothers, sisters or cousins. She was imprisoned once, falsely accused of plotting to assassinate Stalin when she was in Russia. She has a fascinating story," she says.
While working at Alfred, Carney paid a visit to Hall China Company to interview industrial ceramics designer Don Schreckengost. Her husband Bill Walker, an industrial ceramics engineer, had worked there in the 80's and knew Don and Viktor Schreckengost (featured in "Three Courses").
Hall China had more than 100 of Eva Zeisel's plaster molds. "We retrieved the Hallcraft molds of the china Zeisel designed, and then did an exhibit and small catalog at Alfred." Later on, Crate and Barrel re-released Zeisel's designs.
Objects range from purely functional dishes to purely aesthetic pieces of fine art. Portuguese artist David Oliveira bends wire to create sculptures that look like 3D line drawings. Michelle Taylor's conceptual artwork, in which she deconstructs her mother's china and then starts to recreate the pattern in embroidery, is "a comment on her mother's death and also the demise of the industry in the UK," Carney explains.
For "Three Courses," Carney also commissioned new works from 11 former art history students at Alfred College and Ohio State. The one-of-a-kind snack trays all contain a "compartment" for a drink or such. Donated artworks are for sale.
"It dawned on me then, just like it continues to, that dinnerware is a common denominator between peoples, countries and cultures. We all eat, and what we eat and the dishes we use are windows into our material culture, norms and attitudes towards food and dining. It brought out the foodie in me and a love for the beautiful and fun utensils we all use - no matter the material - ceramic, glass, metal, plastic, paper, wood, etc.," she says.
"I also have a sense of humor, and I love kitschier stuff. The weirder the better," Carney says.
A locally-made Constructive Eating dining set for kids looks like a construction site - you can enter a drawing to win one - a silly and creative way for kids to eat.
Iowa-born, Carney considers Ann Arbor to be "my ancestral home," because "my grandparents lived here," she says. While in Toledo, she and her husband frequently returned to Ann Arbor to dine.
"Bill and I already loved Ann Arbor so it was a logical step to move here when Federal Mogul [where Walker works now] closed the Toledo research facility and he was commuting to Plymouth," she says.
"However, I didn't know just how expensive the rent is downtown. People have told me to go to Detroit or Ypsilanti for the rent, but I've decided this is where the museum is going to be," says Carney.
Beyond a permanent space; "My wish list for the museum has just outrageous stuff on it. Not just grandma's dishes, but also wonderful designers and fantastic one-of-a-kind contemporary fine art referencing dinnerware, work from all over the world, including cultural artifacts," she says, adding that another major goal "is a large endowment that would support our educational programming, special exhibitions, research library and archives, and more," she says.
Later this year, from Sept. 2-29, "The Art of High Chair Fine Dining" will include "things for babies and young children, celebrities, some of the designers in the current show, and contemporary works that will be juried in - and we'll have a small prize," Carney announces.
Visit The Dinnerware Museum online, http://dinnerwaremuseum.org, to keep posted.
Jennifer Eberbach is a freelance reporter for The Ann Arbor News.