Running,+The

Date: 2008
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/2010/2010.50_1a.jpg&max=460 width="331" height="313" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=79033"]] || Title: **The Running**

Artist: **Ron Layport** Born: Elyria, Ohio 1942

Medium: bleached maple, paint, dye, stain, and resin Dimensions: 6 1/2 x 18 in. (16.5 x 45.7 cm) diam. Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase made possible by the Windgate Charitable Foundation © 2007, Ron Layport

Accession: 2010.50 || Many believe that the lunar phase determines the frenzy of the rutting season. This bowl celebrates that life-dance. And though the vessel appears to be assembled from separate elements, it is turned and sculpted from a single piece of wood. @http://collectorsofwoodart.org/artist/portfolio/18/180
 * About the Artwork: **

// Background // // 'Ron Layport: Vessel Narratives' showcases beauty in the details // By Kurt Shaw | Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011 @http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/museums/s_719950.html

We've all seen turned wood vessels at local art and craft fairs, but it's unlikely you've ever seen anything as detailed as Ron Layport's wood vessels. Yes, like any wood vessel of that ilk, they are turned on a lathe. But that's just the beginning for Layport. From there ,he punctures, carves, sands and polishes the forms to perfection, oftentimes arduously honing them into elaborate, repetitive animal motifs.

Currently, four of Layport's wood vessels, as well as four cast in bronze, can be seen in Society for Contemporary Craft's Satellite Gallery in the lobby of the Steel Plaza T-Station at One Mellon Center, Downtown, comprising the exhibit "Ron Layport: Vessel Narratives." What may surprise you even more than their sheer beauty is that Layport is a local. Living and working in Mt. Lebanon, Layport, 68, has been quietly turning out about a dozen masterpieces a year, like the ones on display at One Mellon Center, for nearly 20 years.

This legend of the lathe has work in the collections of major museums, such as the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Carnegie Museum of Art. His work was last featured locally in the Society for Contemporary Craft's 2009 Raphael Founder's Prize exhibit.

Like many a great artist, Layport didn't start out making masterpieces in wood. He came to woodworking after a long career in advertising, most notably as veteran creative director and a founding partner of Gray Baumgarten Layport Inc., one of Pittsburgh's longest-running ad agencies. He retired in 2000 and within a few short years that agency was absorbed into another.

Layport began working with wood in the 1980s, building one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture. Although his work was met with success -- including being featured in Fine Woodworking magazine -- it wasn't until 1992 that he found his niche, when he took a class with David Ellsworth, a well-known wood turner from Philadelphia who is widely acknowledged as the pioneer of turning thin-walled hollow vessels in wood.

Ron Layport on Robyn Horne - Connections Video
 * Resources: **

SAAM Collections Page
 * Links: **