Sewickley Gallery's 'Small Treasures' exhibit lives up to its name

Good art, really good art, is precious.

Smaller objects often are infused with this quality merely by their size. Not all small objects are precious, but the description fits most of the pieces that make up the exhibit "Small Treasures" at the Sewickley Gallery.

Some of the best examples are the silverpoint drawings of John Wilde, a Midwestern wonder from Cooksville, Wis., who walks the line between the observed and the imagined in his delicate drawings and paintings.

In three drawings from his "Naktes Fraulein" series - Nos. 4, 6 and 10 - small individual female figures are juxtaposed with large studies of a water glass, thimble and pipe, respectively.

Beautifully rendered with silverpoint - a time-intensive process of drawing on paper with a thin silver wire, dating from the Renaissance era - the small, pale-gray drawings have a lush quality unmatched by drawings made with graphite or "lead" pencils.

"You can't erase it," says Randi Morgan, the gallery's director. "There are no mistakes with silverpoint."

It is a fitting medium for an artist whose work is inspired by the art of the early Flemish, German and Italian Renaissance, evident in the fleshy female figures.

Like Wilde's silverpoint drawings, the drawings of Joseph A. Smith also are pale and delicate. A professor of fine art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., Smith has illustrated more than 20 children's books.

Smith has the imagination required for his medium.

"He gets images for his artwork sometimes through dreams or sometimes through meditation," Morgan says.

In "Dog Touched by Roses," a profile of a dog's head is depicted as twisting rose branches that allude to the heightened sense of the animals' smell. Likewise, in "Running Dog," speed is inferred through the form of a running dog made of small wispy shapes replicating torrents of air.

Additional drawings in the exhibit are the mixed-media works of local artist John Yothers. In "Childhood Discovery," he combines graphite and gold leaf in a drawing of a young girl picking up a rock from under which a frog leaps. The frog is the only gold leaf element, and even though it is disparate, Yothers' technical skill makes it a cohesive part of the work.

Another local exhibitor is Mark Blaustein. Formerly a dentist - he has become a furniture maker and artist - Blaustein makes both functional and nonfunctional objects out of hardwoods such as cocobolo, Makassar ebony and boxwood.

In the exhibit, four small nonfunctional pieces - two teapots, a vessel and a lorgnette (eyeglasses with a handle) - display his skill at combining these materials in intricate, lathe-turned constructions that include black pearls and ivory. Says Morgan, "He thinks of them as jewelry."

Other small objects in the exhibit display considerable skill. On the mantel of the gallery's fireplace, three small ceramic orbs by Toshiko Takaezu invite touch. Takaezu, considered a master in her field, was the first ceramist to create the sculptural closed form in clay.

The orbs fit perfectly in the hand, and each has a small bead inside that makes a rattle when the pieces are picked up, confirmation that the artwork was made to be touched.

Next to Takaezu's orbs is Betsy Schultz's "Bronze Legs." The simple piece - two separate bronze legs that can be manipulated into a variety of positions - begs for interaction. "You can rearrange them," says Morgan. "They are like your own little Zen garden."

The only actual jewelry in the exhibit is two pendants and a bracelet by ROY, the local metalsmith who gained international attention when the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, acquired her work for their permanent collections.

The two pendants, called "Cultivated City Pendants," are small, plantlike constructions of silver that rest on tiny silver plant stands. Each has a stone, one ruby, the other citrine. "They're clever and beautifully crafted," says Morgan.

Painting is well represented in the work of John Wickenberg, who displays four small gouaches. (Gouache is a method of painting with opaque watercolors.)

"Still Life with Gourd," "June," "Scuppernong Spring" and "Spring" display Wickenberg's abilities with the medium, regardless of size. At 3 by 6 inches, "Still Life with Gourd" may be the most intricately detailed gauche one will ever see.

Also packing a punch is Chris Johns' texture-laden mixed media works. Including collaged elements of tarot cards, invoices and pieces from an old National Geographic, all three works from his "Travel Takes" series have a depth that rivals larger pieces in the exhibit.

"When you step back, they look three-dimensional," Morgan says.