The decorative arts – fine furniture, jewelry, ceramics, and glass – are all around us and in the Museum. FODA expands understanding of their variety and beauty. Plus, you will make new friends at the meetings. Annual dues are $50 in addition to a minimum of a Dual Level Museum membership.

FODA programs are held on the second Tuesday of the month at 2 pm during season. Non-FODA members can attend for $5, plus MFA admission. Carolyn Nygren is the volunteer coordinator.

Join us as Dr. Rhiannon Paget, Ph.D., Curator of Asian Art at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art speaks on Japanese ceramics and international trade. After abandoning its isolationist policy in 1854, Japan discovered its decorative arts, especially ceramics, as a means of supporting its ambitious modernization project. Western desire for things Japanese funded schools and hospitals, fleets of battleships, and thousands of miles of railway line. Seeking to cater to Western tastes, Japanese craftsmen modernized their products while also mobilizing, and even reevaluating, their cultural heritage. This talk explores how new foreign markets shaped the development of Japanese ceramics from the nineteenth century and into the present.

[Image: Sleeping Cat, Japanese, late 19th to 20th century, Kutani ware; glazed porcelain with overglaze enamels, Bequest of John Ringling, 1936]