Michael Lucero

Book excerpt: Lucero's colorful, imaginative sculptures and ceramics synthesize diverse forms and influences?bottle trees and face jugs inspired by African art; a hanging ram and blood-red sacred hearts with roots in Mexico; looming stick figures suggestive of Native American rock art; delicate totem poles that evoke Pacific Northwest Indian cultures. Hybrid animals, found objects, jug-headed infants in baby carriages and dreamers who externalize the contents of their dreams in multilayered glazes animate the work of this California-born artist, now living in New York. Cataloging a traveling exhibition that opened at the Mint Museum of Art (Charlotte, N.C.), this volume reproduces 47 of Lucero's glazed ceramic, bronze and mixed-media creations in full-page color plates. Co-curator Bloemink finds pervasive echoes of surrealism and Dada in Lucero's improvisations. Art historian Lippard relates his themes of intercultural exchange to his family history; his ancestors, practicing Sephardic Jews, escaped persecution in Spain by migrating to New Mexico. Also included is an interview with Lucero by Leach, the exhibit's curator. 74 colour & 58 b/w illustrations