Ron Fleming, Firebird, 1997  Black Mangrove  Racine Art Museum, Gift of Jane and Arthur Mason Photography: Jon Bolton, Racine

Each year, the Racine Art Museum welcomes the newest gifts of artworks to its permanent collection with a debut exhibition. Open through January 23, 2011, Knock Wood: New Gifts to RAM's Wood Collection unveils some of the recent offerings that have come to RAM in the past two years from three families who are known nationally for their support of contemporary crafts. While the most recent medium to enter the collection, RAM is presently documenting the works of contemporary wood sculptors, wood turners and furniture makers.

The gallery features platters, bowls and sculptural forms in wood by an array of internationally known artists such as the three generations of the Moulthrop family, Ron Kent, Melvin and Mark Lindquist, Ron Fleming, William Hunter and Bob Stocksdale. A number of artists are represented in multiple examples, with the work coming from the same collector or representing overlaps from more than one donor.  Artists including Michele Holzapfel, Robyn Horn, John Jordan and Stoney Lamar are represented by two, three and even four examples from different years in their career. Exhibiting multiple works from one artist enables the museum to provide guests with a glimpse into how an artist develops the use of different forms in his/her work and how specific pieces of wood and kinds of wood offer certain challenges as materials for art.

These artworks are some of nearly 150 works that were presented to RAM by three families. These families have had ongoing relationships with RAM since before the museum opened in 2003. The three families are Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser of Los Angeles, Jane and Arthur Mason of Washington, DC and Ronald and Anita Wornick of San Francisco. Each of these collecting couples is nationally known for their specific support of the wood medium and contemporary crafts in general. The size of each family's recent gift equals or exceeds the scale of their gifts to RAM's collection in the past. These three gifts unite at RAM to significantly increase the museum's representation of the medium.