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Jim Webb
"If we're not here doing the work, the work doesn't get
done." That is the unassailable, universal reality
expressed by any artist or craftsperson dedicated to
producing fine work in a small studio, in explaining an
absence of diversions." And that is how Barbara Webb,
wife and working partner of Jim Webb, explains the
absence of Studio 233's hand-built ceramic lamps from
important Arts and Crafts shows outside the Boston-
New York-Washington corridor.
"We're here pretty much seven days a week," she says,
as she and Jim sit together in their sun-drenched studio
in Lambertville, NJ, on a bright spring morning.
"Fortunately, because we're located in central New
Jersey, it's fairly easy for us to get to the major high-end
shows in the Northeast. "But we simply can't take the
time necessary to travel to more distant show." She
adds that the presence in the household of their third
child, a 14-year-old daughter, adds to the importance of
making trips short and of Jim's staying home while she
makes most of the show appearances.
Jim, who grew up in Washington, DC, as the son of
former NASA administrator James Webb, Sr., earned a
B.A. in art history from Princeton in 1970. While there, he
took a ceramics class from Toshiko Takaezu, the
Hawaiian-born artist and teacher who headed
Princeton's ceramics department for 25 years. Although
Jim went on to do archeological work with Louis Dupree
in Afghanistan, spend a year on the New York City local
desk of the Associated Press and earn a master's
degree in economics at Columbia, his exposure to
Takaezu's approaches to teaching and living turned out
to be a defining experience.
"In college I loved clay work but didn't think I could do
that for a living," he told a reporter for the New York
Times in 2002. "It was only after trying a lot of other
things that I knew the most interesting thing for me to do
was to work with my hands." In 1978, when he
communicated that decision to Takaezu, with whom he
had remained friendly, she invited him to come to
Lambertville and join the now-defunct Clay Co-op. He
moved into an early 1800's two-story stone house in
1979 and began making ceramic tiles. Jim moved out of
the house when he and Barbara married in 1989, and
changed his focus from tiles to lamps when Sue
Johnson Custom Lamps and Shades in Berkeley, CA,
commissioned some bases in the mid-90's.
The lamps are structural marvels of the ceramicist's art.
Jim begins constructing each monolithic-looking base
by putting a large lump of clay through a slab roller to
produce a sheet of uniform thickness. He cuts out the
four sides, stamps each side with a hieroglyph of his
own design, bevels them at the corners, and joins them
with slip to form the basic shape. As the clay dries over
a period of days, he spends many hours paddling and
shaping each piece to be similar ’but not identical’ to the
one before. Even the glazing of each base is unique: he
pours the carefully mixed glazing liquid over each base
as it sits in a bucket. The final step is to spray an iron
and manganese oxide mixture onto the stamps and
along the four edges of the base, where it soaks into the
glaze to prevent the light-colored clay body from showing
through.
The shades are made of either mica or handmade
paper. Sue Johnson provides mica shades, while
Barbara began making the paper shades a few years
ago, using Lokta paper, which is handmade from inner
bark of the Daphne, a fast-growing, high-altitude shrub
native to Nepal. The paper is known for its strength,
durability and resistance to decay.
Toshiko Takaezu, whose 80th birthday Jim helped
celebrate three years ago, continues to influence both
art and life at Studio 233.
"Looking back, I'm struck by how much Toshiko's
teaching style was one of seeing each student as an
individual," Jim says. "She, of course, was less well
known in the late '60's when I first studied with her, but
as a student I was given minimal exposure to her
artwork and was therefore free of the temptation to
emulate her pieces. She gave demonstrations of
technique, but encouraged each student to arrive at their
own means of expression in clay.
"Toshiko also teaches a remarkable work ethic by
example. Her prodigious energy rubs off on the people
around her. Another lesson she imparts through her
daily living is the importance of keeping yourself fresh by
shifting gears between art and other passions in her
case, her garden, which often gets as much time and
attention as the clay. For Barbara and me, one of our
favorite diversions is the water. Lambertville is on the
Delaware River, which is a great place to paddle the
canoe, as are the extensive canal systems on both
sides of the river."
Jim adds that William Daley of Philadelphia has also
been an influential teacher, although mostly from a
distance. "His sculptural and architectural clay forms, as
well as the infectious humor of his teaching style, have
been a great pleasure and inspiration over the years."
Historic Lighting in Monrovia, CA; the Gamble House
Bookstore in Pasadena; Simply Stickley in Albuquerque,
NM; and the new Bellevue Arts Museum gift show in
Bellevue, WA, are among the stores that carry Studio
233 lamps outside the Northeast. Style and Form, a
gallery in Redwood City, CA, that opened in June 2005,
and other stores in Chicago and Charlotte, NC, also
carry Jim's work.
Barbara's presence at shows and the studio's outreach
through a select group of galleries and stores across
the country have helped Studio 233 flourish, although
the output remains small, at about 15 to 20 lamps per
month, most on order. "We love it when people come
directly to us," Barbara says, "but the shows are very
gratifying. The responses are overwhelmingly positive.
People seem to really appreciate finding an art piece
that also illuminates their art and furnishings."
"Studio 233: Clay as Art and Light"
by John Luke
("Arts & Crafts Profile" in American Bungalow Magazine,
Issue 47, Fall 2005, p.118-119)
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