I bought this pot from Gerard O’Brien at his Reform Gallery in 2004. I remember we were sitting around after hours, drinking beers and smoking weed, when Gerard pulled out what may have been about a dozen tiny, amazing, beautifully glazed and thrown weed pots (how appropriate). I was smitten, and ended up buying four or five from him, plus a bowl full of beads for $700. Man, how times have changed! The very next day, at the set-up for LA Modernism, I bought three more from another dealer for five hundred dollars. The dealer told me he had bought them for five bucks each at a yard sale on the way to the show. I kept all of them until James Zemaitis convinced me to sell the group at the 2020 Objects USA show at R & Co. All except for this one were acquired by museums.
If asked to select one word to describe Patrick, I would resist and pick two. The first would be curiosity — a fundamental essential, to stimulate inquiry and rigour in all things, both great and small, of any era or region, type or surface. Even the most fleeting survey of this selection for sale is a celebration of innovation and of inspiration — an unerring eye for the unusually exceptional, or perhaps the exceptionally unusual. The chances are, that these are indeed discoveries that you have not yet realised that you needed to make.
Mentor, would be my second word. If artefacts and objects articulate visual, cultural and historic language, then the fluency of skillful mentorship — to guide, nurture, describe and explain — releases the eloquence of murmuring histories. In this capacity Patrick is that most earnest and sincere of excellent narrators. If ever I had friends, clients or colleagues visiting New York looking for unusual inspiration, there was always the certainty that Patrick’s venues would offer them a glimpse of the hitherto unseen or the unusually seductive, always with the reassurance of the most fascinating story waiting to be told.
Mentorship and curiosity, when balanced in equal measure, reveal the precious alchemy of a curator. And it is the duty of the mature curator to discern and detect, to cultivate change, and from there to pioneer, and to share. Innovation is never static, and the Present is already the Future. Fresh dialogs evolve, energies to be nurtured, opportunities to be guided. Renewed and re-orientated, Patrick’s decision to exchange his bricks-and-mortar Tribeca gallery for a new interactive Brooklyn space aligns him towards a new inquisitive future as supportive benefactor, interlocutor and mentor to a fresh yield of talented creators — those established and those rising — and the quest for discovery rejuvenates.
— Simon Andrews
andrewsartadvisory.com
Doyle Lane 1925–2002
Doyle Lane was a master craftsman, a true artist with an enormous talent matched only by his technical skills. Born in New Orleans in 1925, Lane moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s and maintained a studio in the El Sereno district. He studied at Los Angeles City College and later attended the University of Southern California. Under the tutelage of designers Glen Lukens, Vivika Heino and F. Carlton Ball, Lane honed his pottery skills at the wheel and in the kiln, crafting beads, pots, stunningly glazed tiles and abstract “clay paintings”. Undeniably tactile and bold, his innovative glazes screamed to be touched. Ranging from volcanic and rugged to glossy and slick, Lane’s artworks are both physical and visual delights.
A committed artist, Lane supported himself through his artwork and technical expertise alone. When a fellow Black student at LACC declared ceramics as “…mainly for white people.” Lane bristled at the limitation. He had a tireless work ethic, spending countless hours in the studio perfecting his technique and using creative business strategies to promote and sell his works. (Lane was known to carry boxes of his “weed pots”—tiny bud vases for holding a single wildflower—to galleries and architectural offices in Los Angeles). These door-to-door ventures paid off, and the artist became popular with architects, completing many large-scale commissions for tile mosaics including works at the Golden State Bank, International Children’s School, Miller Robinson and the Mutual Savings and Loan Association (which was later acquired and installed at the Huntington Library in 2016). Along with public works, Lane exhibited at the Brockman Gallery in Leimert Park, at Ankrum Gallery on La Cienega and in the seminal California Design exhibitions in 1958, 1959 and 1960.
While he was an established and well-regarded figure in West Coast ceramics during his time, it is also undeniable that Lane was not afforded the same opportunities and representation as his white peers. In recent years, his oeuvre has garnered long-overdue and much deserved recognition, and Lane’s expertly crafted works continue to be highly sought-after by private collectors and institutions alike.
