Tour the former Old Patent Office, now the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Tuesday, June 12 Temple of Invention Tour

The building that houses the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery once served a very different function, as the Patent Office Building, the nation’s “temple to the industrial arts.” Built in 1868, the building is one of the country’s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture. Discover its rich history on a tour led by curator Charles Robertson, who will also discuss the patent exhibition “Inventing a Better Mousetrap: Patent Models from the Rothschild Collection.” Free. 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Meet in the F Street Lobby, American Art Museum.

Wednesday, June 13  A Healthy Future in Renewable Energy

How do we balance sustainable energy production with responsible environmental stewardship? In this evening seminar, Philippe Fauchet, director of the University of Rochester’s Energy Research Initiative, grapples with one of the biggest challenges facing the world population. Learn about global energy use and the potential of alternative energy sources like solar and wind power. $40 for general admission, $30 for members. 6:45 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. S. Dillon Ripley Center.

Thursday, June 14 Painting with Maya-Mam

Local Mayan artist Ubaldo Sánchez (Maya-Mam) uses this colorful family-friendly painting workshop to explain Mayan culture and art. Sánchez comes from a family of artists from Concepcion Chiquirichapa, Guatemala, whose projects represent the rich, crafts-based art of Guatemala here in the United States. Sánchez’s work includes painted pottery, sculpture, silkscreening, and painting. His 2009 painting of Barak Obama, New Dawn, was selected to represent Virginia students in the White House. Free. Repeats daily through June 17 at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. American Indian Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Ubaldo Vitali's Tureen for "Risotto alla Pescatore" (2001). Image: Gift of the James Renwick Alliance/Smithsonian American Art Museum

Each year the MacArthur Foundation embraces “genius” in many forms, providing a $500,000 no-strings-attached five-year fellowship to select individuals that show an innate creativity in their respective fields. Plus, of course, the potential for more of that creativity in the future.

Proudly, one of this year’s recipients has a Smithsonian connection. Silversmith Ubaldo Vitali, age 67, was one of four artists featured in the recent Renwick Gallery exhibition History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational (March 25 – July 31, 2011).

Vitali fuses old-world style craftsmanship with modern design. I spoke with him this past spring and he told me that silver was in his blood, and that it “always kept pulling me back.” The Italian-born and trained, Vitali came up in the old-school guild system in Rome, later emigrating to New Jersey in the late 1960s. And he maintains those roots, still a member of a Roman goldsmith’s guild. In fact, he’s the only member allowed to reside outside of Rome. Read the full interview.

Congratulations Ubaldo Vitali!

Shango’s most popular symbol, the double ax staff signifies the diety’s ability to reward the good and punish the bad. Photo courtesy of African Art; gift of Walt Disney World Co., a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company

Friday, June 3 Meet Shango, the Yoruba Diety of Lightning and Thunder

According to oral tradition, Shango, the 16th-century Yoruba warrior-king of Nigeria acquired a special “medicine.” He could bring forth lightning and rout his enemies on the battlefield. His powers enabled him to control much of southwestern Nigeria between the 17th and 19th centuries. Upon his death, Shango was deified and thereafter identified with thunderstorms, forces of nature that the Yoruba peoples  interpreted as a sign of supernatural justice. Shango worship, which spread beyond Nigeria to the Americas via the transatlantic slave trade, promotes the material and spiritual well-being of humanity and protects the powerless. Join Nigerian art historian Babatunde Lawal from Virginia Commonwealth University as he explores the changing interpretations of Shango symbols in Africa and the Americas. Free. 12 PM. Lecture Hall. African Art

Saturday June 4 Renwick Craft Invitational Family Day

Like to cut and paste the old fashion way? Gather at the Renwick for a family activity day making arts and crafts inspired by the work of the four artists on view. Docents will be on had to lead family-oriented tours through the exhibition History in the Making, featuring the work of stain glass artist Judith Schaechter, ceramicist Cliff Lee, silversmith Ubaldo Vitali and furniture maker Matthias Pliessnig. There will also be live music and a scavenger hunt.  Free. 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Renwick Gallery

Sunday, June 5 DC Jazz Festival at American Art Museum

The award-winning drummer and composer Nasar Abadey is the founder and leader of the band SUPERNOVA. Come out to here the group’s performance as part of DC Jazz Festival.  Abadey defines his music as “mult-D,” which he calls multi-dimensional and multi-directional—a broad eclectic mix of Classical African American music, that includes everything from traditional to bebop to free form.  Free. 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. American Art Museum

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit goSmithsonian.com

Tear Drop by Cliff Lee, 2001, 2001, 2004, Collection of the artist. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Porcelain artist Cliff Lee spent 17 years trying to recreate a glaze. He succeeded. Then, he lost the formula. Three years would pass before he could successfully (and continually) reproduce the imperial yellow glaze of the 15th-century Ming court. The glaze is one of his biggest discoveries and remains, perhaps, his biggest secret.

More than 20 of Lee’s works are currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery (located at Pennsylvania and 17th Street, NW) in the exhibition, “History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011″ through July 31.

A self-described “type-A person,” Lee demands perfection—from himself and, by extension, from his art; he will not rest until he achieves it— if he rests at all. Ironic, since “rest” is what brought Lee to the craft in the first place.

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1951 and raised in Taiwan, Cliff Lee was exposed early on to Chinese porcelain through his parents’ vast collection of Chinese antiques. The son of a diplomat, Lee attended college and medical school in the United States, specializing in neurosurgery. The stress of the job led Lee in search of a release and, after a patient introduced him to ceramics, he began taking classes. Soon after, he left his surgical practice to pursue ceramics full time. Lee began his career creating vessels of clay painted with standard glazes. He then switched to porcelain, where impurities are difficult to mask, and began mixing his own glazes and firing his own work in the kiln so that he could understand and control the entire process from start to finish. Blending technical precision and artistic vision, Cliff Lee’s one-of-a-kind pieces reflect his dedication to a purist aesthetic. And, true to form, Lee does not spend much time on the computer, preferring, instead to speak by phone, or face-to-face. He recently chatted with ATM, revealing what he could about his technique, from his studio in Lancaster County, PA, where he was, of course, working.

How do you go about designing a piece?

Most of the time, I get inspired by my environment. I live in the county and I have very beautiful surroundings. Because I have high blood pressure—I am a type A person—I need beautiful surroundings to cool me off, calm me down. By observing nature, the surroundings, most of the time I get inspired for my work. I get ideas in my mind, sometimes for many months and I try to solve the technical problems. Then I start working on it and slowly, slowly it comes to reality. It’s a gradual process. It doesn’t just come out. The ideas incubate slowly and then I try many many times and fail many many times. Every time I try and fail, I learn from the mistake and it eventually comes. That’s why my work is one of a kind. Every one of them that comes out is different.

Does your training as a neurosurgeon ever play a part in how you go about crafting a piece?

Yes. Like chemistry, physics, calculus, surgical procedures are very tedious and require patience. I’ve got precision, I’m precise. You cannot make any mistakes, so all that training comes into practice. I’m a workaholic. I’m still working. If I don’t work on the potter’s wheel, in my studio, I’m reading or either studying, doing experiments.

What are you currently working on?

Now, I’m trying to perfect my persimmons glaze, a beautiful persimmons glaze. I saw one piece in the Sotheby’s catalogue. I studied it, looked at it and I said, ‘hey, I can do this.’ So, I’m working on it and it slowly comes out to be very beautiful. I want to perfect it. Because, when you do firing in a kiln, each one has a different location which is good for certain glazes. So, when you do experiments, you accumulate knowledge and when you know, the problem then becomes your knowledge. The ‘know’ comes from knowledge. You know something, then it becomes your knowledge.

Cliff Lee, Photo by Douglas Lee. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Why did you decide to work with a notoriously difficult sculpting material like porcelain?

I like the challenge. Life is full of challenges. If there’s no challenge, what’s life for? There’s no meaning any more. It’s too easy. That’s not in my nature. Just like doing sports. I was watching the NCAA man’s basketball [championship game]. The first half was terrible—they all missed all the shots. I say, ‘what’s going on with these kids,’ you know? They’re supposed to be very good at it; they’re supposed to be able to make the easy shot. If they cannot keep their cool, and take a deep breath before they take a shot, that means that they are not there. They need to practice. It’s the challenge, everyday life is just a challenge.

You have had an enormous amount of success thus far in your craft. Is the work still challenging?

Oh yes, because I have set a standard. I want to be better. Every year, every month, I want to be better.  So it’s just the beginning for me, everyday is just the beginning. I want to go one step beyond. I’ll never be happy, satisfied, isn’t that terrible? It’s a curse.

Why did you decide to focus on traditional Chinese ceramic forms and glazes?

In the early days, I lived with a whole bunch of Chinese porcelain; my parents have a vast collection of Chinese antiques. And when we were young, they took us to museums very often so I got attracted to those beauties, the color, the shape. So, subconsciously I got educated, that left an imprint in my mind. So I did not learn ceramics overseas in Taiwan. I learned everything in the United States. I owe everything to the U.S. They gave me a good education and they gave me good opportunities. I think that, in the United States, if you set your mind to it, you can do anything you want. The sources are infinite. Anything you want to get, you want to know, you can get it, if you work harder.

It took you 17 years to recreate a previously lost Chinese glaze—imperial yellow. What can you tell us about it?

Some of my personal secrets, I cannot tell. Everyone wants to know. You know that right? It was a very difficult process, long process. Like [the PBS show] “Craft in America,” next week is coming to my studio for four days. They are coming to my studio, a film crew, six people, for four days, to tape. They want to know all this too, but I cannot tell them, you know. Someday maybe I will give all the secrets to the museum. Maybe the Smithsonian, maybe the art museum; they can decide what they want to do. They can sell my secrets for a lot of money. That’d be fine.

How do you  keep people from finding out?

I don’t tell them. I keep my mouth shut. Everybody wants to know. Sometimes when you get online you can see the people say, ‘How did Cliff Lee do the yellow? We really want to know.’ That’s for me to know, for you to find out.

Hear Renwick curator Nicholas R. Bell discuss Lee’s Guan-ware Vase at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery tomorrow, April 20 at 12 PM in the first floor lobby. See more of Lee’s work, including pieces painted in the famed imperial yellow glaze, on display in the exhibition “History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011,” at the Renwick Gallery through July 31. The artists were selected by Bell, Ulysses Dietz, senior curator at The Newark Museum and Andrew Wagner. The exhibition also features the work of silversmith Ubaldo Vitali, stained glass artist Judith Schaechter and furnituremaker Matthias Pliessnig.

This post was updated to clarify the role of the visiting scholars.

The John Santos Sextet will perform jazz from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the United States. Santos, a four-time Grammy nominee, is an expert of Afro-Latino music and is known for his innovative use of traditional forms and instruments in combination with contemporary music. He has performed, recorded and studied with some of the masters of Afro-Latin Jazz such as Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Bebo Valdés, Lázaro Ros, Armando Peraza and Eddie Palmieri. Sextet members include Santos, Saul Sierra, Marco Diaz, John Calloway, Melecio Magdaluyo and David Flores. Free. Natural History Museum. 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM.

Hurry In. The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef closes on April 24. Photo courtesy of Eric Long, SI.

Saturday, April 16: Celebrating the Crocheted Coral Reef

Families with kids take note. At the crochet coral reef exhibition over at the Natural History museum, a festival of fun is planned. Kids are invited to learn how to crochet, color a coral reef button and meet Sanctuary Sam, the sea lion mascot for Quiksilver. Smithsonian zoologist Stephen Cairns will be answering questions about coral reefs and the creatures who live in and around them. Check out this article about the reef exhibition from Smithsonian. Free. Natural History Museum. Exhibition closes April 24. 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

Sunday, April 17: Meet the Artist, Silversmith Ubaldo Vitali

Silversmith Ubaldo Vitali is one of only four artists to be selected for this year’s Renwick Craft Invitational. Vitali trained under the guild system in Italy and is the only member of the Roman goldsmith’s guild who lives outside Italy. He designs using traditional techniques with a modern flair. The artist be in the gallery Sunday to answer questions about his life and work. ATM blogger Jeff Campagna interviewed Vitali earlier this month. Free. 1:30 PM. Renwick Gallery

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com

Judith Schaechter, Widow, (2008), Collection of Colleen and John Kotelly, Photo by Dominic Episcopo/Renwick Gallery, SI

According to one of Judith Schaechter’s bios, she “single-handedly revolutionized the craft of stained glass through her unique aesthetic and inventive approach to materials.” Judith Schaechter, while flattered by the description, wants you to know two things: one, she did not write that bio and two, she does not believe herself to be “some kind of Grand Poobah Savior of Stained Glass.”  But Schaechter has, admittedly, made significant contributions to the field.

“I would say that my contribution has been both technical, as well as in terms of how one might use contemporary content as inspiration, without sacrificing the medium’s spiritual essence,” Schaechter says, “or something like that.”

Born in Gainesville, Florida in 1961, Judith Schaechter grew up in Massachusetts, visiting art museums where she was drawn to “scary paintings,” which would later influence her work. Schaechter began her career as a painter and later switched to stained glass, “a notoriously difficult medium,” according to Andrew Wagner, editor-in-chief of ReadyMade magazine and co-curator of a contributing scholar to the exhibition, “History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011.” And she’s been shattering conventions ever since. Traditionally, stained glass is created by cutting the glass, painting it using the matting and tracing method and assembling it with lead. Schaechter’s technique, by contrast, involves sandblasting, layering and painting the glass with vitreous paint and using copperfoil instead of lead, sometimes referred to as the “Tiffany Method.” She also displays her works more like paintings, instead of in architectural settings. Judith Schaechter, quite simply, is an unintentional rebel. So don’t ask her to define her art or deconstruct its meaning, the witty artist simply can’t, and more importantly, won’t. Instead, she prefers to let the pieces speak for themselves. Here, she offers a few thoughts on her process.

You describe yourself as an outsider. In what way(s)?

My parents were a mixed background couple.  My father is of a Jewish background (and he immigrated to the USA in the 1950s) and my mother, Episcopal (from Oklahoma), although both were atheists before I was born. I grew up in a largely Catholic area of Newton, Massachusetts and to the children in the neighborhood I was “Jewish.” To Jewish children I was “Christian.”  And that is only part of the story. . . I was also 100 percent nerd. I was not just bad at sports, but truly appallingly awful, (left handed, but right legged and also right eyed and left eared—I am hopelessly miswired— for one thing). My brother was strange to others because he was learning disabled. . .. There are many obvious and not so obvious ways I didn’t fit in as a kid. I believe that this taught me to see way beyond any socially designated boundaries and to see them as artificial (albeit sometimes necessary). Think outside the box?  I’m so outside the box that first I’d have to pick one to think “inside” of!

How does this designation inform your art? Or your  chosen medium?

Well, I would not designate myself as either a “Fine Artist” or “Craftsperson,” for one thing, but some sort of melange. I also can hold contradictory beliefs in my head without much conflict. I am very open-minded yet paradoxically very stubborn. And, I am fine being alone for long periods of time.

Judith Schaechter at work. Image courtesy of the artist.

Why glass?

I have often wondered if I had a predisposition to the medium or if it’s all coincidence. All I can say for sure is that I knew almost instantly when I tried stained glass that that was what I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life. Amazingly, this turned out to be true.

The fact is I feel my medium is a separate and living entity with which I have a relationship not unlike a marriage. Glass seems to love me back unlike anything else I’ve ever worked with and therefore, no matter how bad things get, there’s always incentive to “try to work it out.”  For some reason, my medium HAD to be glass and believe me, I tried other media! I truly thought and wanted desperately to be a painter—but it was not to be. Glass was the only thing I could bear to work with long enough to become fluent in. I strongly believe that stained glass is an unlimited expressive and virtually unexplored technical medium—when I get bored with glass it’s something wrong in my own head, a failure of my own imagination which would translate to any medium—so switching would be not only  futile but also a cop out.

I have a crisis about every three years or so when I not only feel I am in a rut with glass but actually tell everyone I am quitting.  Like anyone who’s  ever truly loved something, I regularly DESPISE IT WITH ALL MY HEART. But I always go back to it.

What, if anything, do you want visitors to take away from your pieces, or understand about your work that may not be immediately evident?

Let’s just leave it that I want them to take away something!  Anything they may want or need that they might find there –that’s for them!!!!

See more of Judith Schaechter’s work in the exhibition “History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011,” on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery through July 31. The show was curated by Renwick curator Nicholas R. Bell. The artists were selected by Bell, Ulysses Dietz, senior curator at The Neward Museum and Andrew Wagner. The exhibition also features the work of silversmith Ubaldo Vitali, ceramic artist Cliff Lee and furnituremaker Matthias Pliessnig.

This post was updated to clarify the role of the visiting scholars.

Ubaldo Vitali, 25th Anniversary Tea & Coffee Service, 2004 (glass by Leonard DiNardo). Collection of Janet and Ricardo Zapata. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Ubaldo Vitali (b. 1944) is “arguably the greatest living silversmith in the United States,” according to Ulysses Dietz, one of the curators of the new Renwick Gallery exhibition, History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational. Vitali is a go-to-guy for commissioned work from high-end houses like Tiffany, Cartier and Bulgari, as well as for restoration of antique silver pieces. Stylistically, he combines traditional craftsmanship and technique with elements of modern design.

As an artist, Vitali is constantly aware of the ever-changing interplay of light as it bounces off of the surface of his works, or as he puts it, “each object reflects its own structure, its own soul, its own personality.”

Italian-born and trained, Vitali came up in the old-school guild system in Rome, later emigrating to New Jersey in the late 1960s. And he maintains those roots, still a member of a Roman goldsmith’s guild. In fact, he’s the only member allowed to reside outside of Rome.

Vitali’s pieces are featured in the exhibition, along with works by three other artists—ceramic artist Cliff Lee, furniture maker Matthias Pliessnig and glass artist Judith Schaechter—that share his sensibilities regarding updating classical technique with modern style. He’ll also be giving an artist talk about his work Sunday, April 17 at 1:30 at the Renwick Gallery.

I caught up with Vitali at the press preview and found him to vaguely resemble an older, more Italiano version of George Clooney in his suit. It was almost difficult to imagine the elegant gentleman in front of me pounding sheets of silver and making the precious metal bend and melt. But initial appearances can be deceiving, and Vitali’s enthusiasm for his craft, as well as his humble nature, shine through when he speaks.

Silversmith Ubaldo Vitali at work. Photo courtesy of SAAM

What attracted you to working with silver, as opposed to, say clay, stone, or other metals?

I come from a family of silversmiths. I am the fourth generation. I went to my father and grandfather’s workshops since I was very young. However, all my studies were in the arts, and I was given the freedom to be a painter or a sculptor. But I guess it was in the blood. Silver was in the blood, and it always kept pulling me back.

You were trained in the old world-style guild system of silversmiths. Briefly, what is that like, and how long does it take to go from being an apprentice to a master?

The guild system is [now] more a symbolic thing. In the past, the role of the guild, besides controlling the metal, was to be insurance for the family. If you died young they would take care of your widow and the children. It was a system of support. Today we don’t need that anymore, so it’s basically symbolic. As far as apprenticeship is concerned, by the 20^th century, you don’t have to be an apprentice in order to become a master, at least in my field. But most of the people that start in this business are young, usually ten or eleven [years old]. They go maybe two, three hours a day, like in internships here. Then if you feel you have some kind of attraction to it, these people will become more and more involved.

Do you think traditional silversmithing has become a lost art?

Yes and no. Actually, it’s practiced more in the U.S. than the rest of the world, because you have so many colleges that offer courses. However, whenever you make something institutionalized, it loses a lot…When people come out of an institution, even if they have a Master’s, they will end up teaching, because it’s very difficult for a silversmith to establish an economically viable business. It’s almost impossible.

Do you think technology has helped or hindered the process of silversmithing?

In my shop, I use the oldest techniques…But on the same token, I have the latest technology, from hydrogen flames to induction melting, all kinds of microscopy. You name it, we have it. There is no reason to shut the door to technology–You embrace it.

History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitation 2011 is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, located at Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W., through July 31. The show was curated by Nicholas R. Bell. The artists were selected by Bell, Ulysses Dietz, senior curator and curator of decorative arts at The Newark Museum and Andrew Wagner, editor-in-chief of ReadyMade Magazine.

This post was updated to clarify the role of the visiting scholars.