Art Within Reach

Pitchers of American Life: Art Within Reach (Bloomsbury, 2026) discusses vessels preserved from ancient indigenous American cultures, those caught in the spiderwebs of antique shops, and common tools used for drinks lurking in modern kitchens. Might a history of art extracted from the cupboard liberate us from usual cultural hierarchies of the Grand Tour—and make the idea of art more accessible and relevant? A vision of design/craft/art intersecting at our fingertips provides a deliberately provocative strategy to move beyond inherited limitations and prejudices.

The presentation will include “show-and-touch” engagement with a selection from mass-produced goods. How does a design once on display at the London Crystal Palace in 1851 compare to one from our Plasticine era?

Professor in the History of Art Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Ezra Shales, Ph.D., is the author of The Shape of Craft (Reaktion, 2017) and Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era (Rutgers University Press, 2010). He has contributed to exhibition catalogs for artists Polly Apfelbaum, Neil Brownsword, Kim Dickey, Shari Mendelson, and Dan Walsh and published in the Journal of Modern Craft and Journal of Design History.