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Fulper

Damage Control for a Rare Bowl

By: - Sep 20, 2014

 

FULPER

 

What is the value

Of something?

It is the price

Paid plus

An ephemeral

Built-in

Beauty

Of form, idea,

Execution,

And what it contributes

Take the

uniquely

glazed, footed

Fulper bowl,

An example of fine 20’s

Arts and Crafts

It suffers in

Places along

The foot

Where the glaze has

failed to cover the

clay below.

This makes it

Unique,

But not perfect.

At auction

It carried the allure

Of early modernist

American directness,

The only embellishment

A spectacular

Splash of silver

In the center of the bowl

With a subtle

Recollection of the

Excitement of

silver riding the scalloped rim

It rang true!

 

 

 

Now the bowl

Is just one more

Middling

Object torn

From the fabric

Of what was

a common good.

The character

That once

Conceived to make

Everyday household

Items

Within a kind of

Manifesto,

A belief that the vitality

Of American ideas

Could sustain

the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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