MAG Says Goodbye to Founding Member
merry renk (1921-2012)
"Live well, follow your passions, enjoy your life, learn, love, do everything you can with it, because you don't know where you're going and neither do I" -- merry renk, from video, " Merry Renk Curtis says goodbye" (June 2012)
This past Sunday, June 17th, the symbolic "little black convertible" drove our dear merry renk away into the starry night from this world, she smiling down upon us all. We salute her as one of MAG's Founders and Lifetime Member, and as a pioneer in the field of American Modernist jewelry.
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Fold crown 1954
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merry was active in the metals community throughout her life, up through her 90th birthday, as we had a joyous time celebrating with her during MAG's 60th Anniversary. She was a panelist in our Forging Communities Symposium, was featured in our Remembering MAG exhibition, and even welcomed me (and MAG members Christine Dhein and Shana Astrachan) into her home this past April (photo below) to share with us her life story and reminisce about Margaret De Patta for our Remembering Margaret event (hear the interview here).
She was a jeweler, painter, dancer, wife, mother, grandmother, mentor and lived with abounding joie de vivre that is an inspiration to us all. We will miss her dearly.
MAG has created a Tribute page to merry on our website. It will be updated with events as we find out about them. There are two events in July that are open to the public listed at the bottom of this newsletter.
We are collecting photos of merry and her work for a future MAG event - if you would like to share your photos, please send to: [email protected] with the Subject header: merry photos. Also, if you know of any other events celebrating her life, please contact: [email protected]
yours truly,
emiko oye, MAG President
A Glimpse into merry's life
Thanks to merry's daughter, Baunnie Sea, and Jennifer Cross Gans for providing the following biography text.
merry renk curtis was born in New Jersey in 1921. While in high school she attended Fine Art classes at the School of Industrial Arts in Trenton, NJ. Her marriage to Stanley Renk (Nov 29, 1941 - April 5, 1945) was short lived as he was killed during WWII in a B24 over the Netherlands.
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memory painting: We open "seven fifty studio" 1947
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She enrolled in the Institute of Design the American Bauhaus, Chicago from 1946-47, and left after completing the foundation course to open 750 Studio, a contemporary arts and crafts
gallery with fellow classmates Mary Jo Slick and Olive Oliver. The gallery was one of the first of its kind and well-received by the press, showing the work of well-known artists such as Henry Miller, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Harry Callahan, and Margaret De Patta.
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memory painting: "Boomerang" Earrings 1947
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Intrigued by enamel, merry spent a year learning techniques through trial and error. Only a couple of years after opening the gallery, she sold it and moved to San Francisco, where she continued to improve her self-taught goldsmithing techniques and connect with local metalsmiths such as Peter Macchiarini and Margaret De Patta.
In 1950 she traveled abroad to Paris, where she oil painted in her studio, and drove through Spain and Morocco with weaver Lenore Tawney, to return to San Francisco in 1951. Upon her return, that very week, Margaret De Patta called merry and invited her to attend the first meeting of the Metal Arts Guild (MAG), becoming a founder of MAG as well as its President in 1954. She was an active, Lifetime member, all the way through her 90th year.
She remarried to Earle Curtis, a potter, and lived near Twin Peaks (in a home they paid off fully in one year!), next door to sculptor, Ruth Asawa. merry and Earle had two daughters - Baunnie Sea and Sandee Curtis; grandson Ian Espinocilla, and two grandaughters - Elinor Espinocilla and Sabrina Settle.
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torch cut sculpture 1976
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During the 1960s, merry lost the sight in her right eye and decided she should construct large sculpture using the same interlocking ideas she used in jewelry. She torch cut iron, bronze, copper and brass between 1965-68. In the spring of 1981, the California Crafts Museum (Palo Alto, CA) hosted her show, "merry renk, jeweler: a visual biography and retrospective, 1947- 1981". She resumed her jewelry production until 1983.
The San Francisco Art Commission presented renk an Award of Honor for her "extraordinary contributions to the Bay Area community" and she has also been named fellow by the American Craft Council. Her oral history is held by the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.
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Blue Moon, MAG Permanent Collection
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merry's work is in collections of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC), the Museum of Arts & Design (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Oakland Museum of Fine Arts (Oakland) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), as well as MAG's Permanent Collection.
For more on merry:
UPCOMING LOCAL EVENTS
CELEBRATION FOR MERRY'S LIFE
JULY 14, 1:30-4:30
First Unitarian Universalist Church
1187 Franklin St @ Geary
San Francisco, CA 94109
THE ART OF MERRY RENK
Opening July 5, 6:30-7:45pm
Exhibition dates: July 1-31, 2012 
Meeting Room
2661 Oak Grove Rd
Walnut Creek, CA 94598 Contact: David Thomas, 925-938-1481
The art of merry renk, whose sculpture Mandala has graced the entrance of Ygnacio Valley for many years, will be celebrated in the library's display space during the month of the artist's 91st birthday celebration.
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