Artist pulls the wool over SOFA Chicago

ART | Carpet maker explains his process

It all starts with the sheep, says Iranian-born artist and carpet designer Bahram Shabahang. Shabahang resides in Milwaukee and will be at SOFA Chicago this weekend exhibiting his unique and beautiful carpets, but when he travels back to the country he left 35 years ago, as he often does to oversee every detail of the carpet making process, he returns to a sheep farm where wool is produced the same slow way it was centuries ago.

Shabahang, whose handwoven carpets are represented by Orley & Shabahang Gallery in New York, Palm Beach, Detroit and Milwaukee, will join 67 other international galleries and art dealers this weekend at the 16th annual Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair in Festival Hall at Navy Pier. The fair, which features galleries from 10 countries this year, runs from Friday through Sunday.

Like most artists, Shabahang is particular about his materials.

"To choose a good sheep for wool is like choosing a good grape for wine," he says. "We raise them the old way. What they eat affects the wool."

Shabahang explains that every day a shepherd takes the herd to the mountains to graze and every afternoon brings them back to the barn to sleep. Free-range sheep eat a variety of herbs and grasses and thus are healthier and happier, he says. The result is better wool, rich in lanolin, which makes for more beautiful carpets.

Shabahang's carpets, which can be as large as 20-by-30 feet and sell for as much as $150,000 apiece, are only one example of the tens of thousands of one-of-a-kind objects that will be on view and on sale at Navy Pier this weekend.

Whether visitors to the fair will be buying though is another matter. Chicago arts philanthropist and collector John Bryan discovered Shabahang's carpets on a trip to a remote Iranian village last year and commissioned several for his residence at Crab Tree Farm in Lake Bluff. But that was then. Dealers have traveled a long way this week at considerable expense in hope that collectors will be as interested in buying now, despite the yearlong downturn in the economy. Some dealers have come from as far away as Tel Aviv, Melbourne, Venice and Helsinki, while others are from just across town.

Chicago exhibitors include Perimeter, Jean Albano, Ann Nathan, Portals Ltd., Ken Saunders, SABBIA and Pistachios galleries. In addition to commercial galleries, this year SOFA program includes representatives from art museums and universities who will offer a full schedule of panels and talks, lending weight to a show that some may once have written off as merely a craft fair but which now holds its own in the fine art world.

The work on view, as the fair's moniker suggests, is an eclectic mix of arts and artfully designed functional objects in a profusion of styles, materials and techniques. Some of the varied art forms on display include fiber art, mosaic, ceramics, sculpture, woodworking, glass art, jewelry and silversmithing. This year the show focuses particularly on artist-made furniture in tribute to the legendary furniture designer and wood artist Sam Maloof, who died in May.

Maloof, who was named a McArthur fellow in 1985 in recognition of his innovative approach to design and woodworking, was a leader of the California modern arts movement and considered by many to be the father of the studio furniture movement. Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton all have owned Maloof's signature rocking chairs. A series of lectures devoted to Maloof's artistry and philosophy will run throughout the weekend.

Also presiding in spirit this weekend will be Ruth Duckworth, the much-revered Chicago ceramic sculptor, whose prolific career spanned six decades and who died Oct. 18 at age 90. German-born Duckworth came to Chicago in 1964 when the University of Chicago offered her a teaching job and she stayed, maintaining a studio here for decades in a former pickle factory on the north side. Her work will be featured in a special exhibit presented by the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts.

Margaret Hawkins is a local freelance writer and art critic.