Crafty folk

Jennifer K Mahal

Corona del Mar’s Linda Bergman and Costa Mesa’s Caleb Siemon work in

very different mediums. One designs jewelry dripping in pearls. The other

shapes molten glass into stunning artwork. One sells to Nieman Marcus.

The other sells to small galleries across the country. But both will have

work on display -- and for sale -- at the Orange County Museum of Art’s

Pacific Craft Show next week.

The show, which features 53 artists who work in everything from wood

to metal, opens to the general public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 15 and

16, although there are events associated with it as early as Tuesday.

“I think a lot of people come in for this from out of the area,”

Bergman said, sitting in her cozy Dover Drive office. “It gives them a

reason to come in and see the crafts and see this is a museum and it’s

interesting. It’s not just art to hang on walls.”

The artwork Bergman creates hangs around people’s necks, shoulders and

wrists. This is the fourth year the jewelry designer and museum

Visionaries member has set up a table at the show. This year, she said,

they’ve placed her in a back area, away from her usual spot near the

front door.

“People stopped in the space to look,” Bergman said with a grin,

adding that it was disrupting the traffic flow into the show.

She started designing pearl jewelry on a whim. The self-taught artist

with an interior decorating degree began her own business four years ago

after receiving numerous compliments on her jewelry. Now Bergman, the

former creative director for Nieman Marcus, sees her jewelry sell in her

old workplace.

“These are definitely not your mother’s pearls anymore,” said Bergman,

who creates pearl-encrusted handbags and mixes the oyster’s gift with

precious and semiprecious metals and jewelry.

Siemon’s work is worlds away from Bergman’s, even if his background is

not. His father makes jewelry and his mother is a painter. This is the

Newport Beach native’s second year in the craft show, and on Tuesday he

will join with show artists Randall Au and Sandra Jones Campbell for a

free discussion of the creative process.

Siemon’s love of glassblowing goes back to the first time he tried it

at summer camp in high school. He graduated with a degree in the art from

Rhode Island School of Design and spent two years in Venice, Italy,

studying from a master.

It was not an easy apprenticeship, Siemon said. Without knowing anyone

in Venice, he knocked on the door of glass sculptor Pino Signoretto and

asked if he could observe his work for a month. Signoretto said yes, and

then proceeded to ignore the artist who came in every day.

“It was tough being there, eight hours a day, every day, sitting

behind him and watching all he did,” said Siemon, sitting at the table in

his United Glassblowing studio.

One day toward the end of the month, Signoretto called Siemon and

asked him if he wanted to have lunch on his boat. After that, Siemon was

asked to do little things at the studio. As the time wore on, he became

more and more involved in helping and learning. But he never got paid.

“I learned a ton of stuff,” he said.

He opened his own shop 2 1/2 years ago and has hosted several Italian

master glassblowers there. The latest one left a few days ago.

With the old ways of apprenticeship dying out in Italy, many

techniques are starting to get lost.

“There’s no one to pass it to,” said Siemon. “Some are really uptight

about [teaching] foreigners, but some just want it passed on.”

Siemon’s work, which ranges from small paperweights to heavy clear

screw-like vases and bowls infused with layers of color, can be found at

the museum’s gift shop and at small galleries and shops across the

nation.

“I like simple forms, but I kind of like just natural stuff,” Siemon

said. “I don’t like things to be so forced.”

“If you try to control it too much, it ends up being contrived.”

FYI

WHAT: Tuesday Talks at Noon with Caleb Siemon and others

WHEN: Noon Tuesday

WHERE: Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport

Beach

COST: Free

CALL: (949) 759-1122, Ext. 570

WHAT: Pacific Craft Show

WHEN: Opens to the general public 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 15-16.

WHERE: Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport

Beach

COST: Free

CALL: (949) 759-1122, Ext. 570