Originally published as Matter & Meaning vol.001. This Journal edition has been adapted from the original mailing and includes selected content from the issue.

Black Mountain College has long been a point of fascination—for its utopian ideals, its unorthodox creativity, and its lasting influence. From the experimental spirit behind our Tableware collection to threads explored in our journal and podcast, the school continues to surface in the background of our work.

We begin Matter & Meaning there. Each volume is a selective cross-section of what’s been moving through the studio—books, images, objects, passing thoughts. A distilled edit—what’s held our attention, and what’s held up.

LEGACY IN FORM — Black Mountain College

Black Mountain College was a radical experiment in how art could shape people. Founded in the shadow of WWII and guided by Bauhaus ideals and John Dewey’s progressive principles, the school placed art at the heart of education—not to train artists alone, but to foster independent and engaged citizens at a time of profound global crisis. Against a backdrop of fascism and displacement, the college framed unorthodox creativity as an act of optimism. Despite its brief existence, the college drew a remarkable number of luminaries such as Ruth Asawa, Anni and Josef Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly, whose groundbreaking work continues to resonate across contemporary art, design, and cultural thinking.

Though the school closed decades ago, its influence remains vividly present. Recent explorations—including a comprehensive Ruth Asawa retrospective at SFMOMA, podcasts revisiting Anni Albers’ pioneering textiles, and new insights into the college’s radical farming experiment—highlight how the school’s bold ideas continue to resonate within contemporary design, art, and culture.

On View / In Conversation

Exhibition: Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, at SFMOMA (April 5–Sept 2)
The first major posthumous retrospective of Asawa’s work—offering a full view of her six-decade practice. Raised on a Southern California farm and introduced to drawing in a Japanese American incarceration camp, Asawa developed a sculptural language all her own. Her wire forms—once dismissed as women’s craft—are now recognized as some of the most significant contributions to American modernism, alongside her lasting work as an arts advocate.

Podcast: Anni Albers: Her Life, Her Work, Her Words, hosted by Helen Molesworth
This podcast, featuring rare archival recordings, traces how Albers—one of the most important abstract artists of the 20th century—transformed a marginalized medium into a vehicle for radical visual expression, redefining the boundaries between art and craft. She found her way to weaving when no other medium was available to women at the Bauhaus.

Podcast & Book: The Untold Story of Black Mountain College, featuring David Silver and his book The Farm at Black Mountain College
A look at the school’s radical farming program—lesser known but deeply revealing of BMC’s pedagogical ethos: hands-on, communal, and grounded in the belief that labor and learning were inseparable.

The original issue continued with more places, objects and ideas from around the studio, from Roman interiors and Japanese listening culture to Mexican architecture and contemporary craft. This Journal edition presents a selection from vol.001; Matter & Meaning is published in full by email.

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