IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2013 - 14

but I know from my own history as a former dealer,
there was never anything else to compete with
SOFA. If you were showing work in these materials,
this was the fair to be at. We've created and
nurtured a community, really.
The stability of SOFA must also be related to
the stability of the market, yes?
The market boomed, actually, in the 1990s, until
the recession in 2008-2009, when there was a
significant drop. But generally there have been
steady sales at SOFA of about $10 million, which
I think is remarkable over a three-day weekend.
Another factor in the stability of SOFA is the fact
that its founder, Mark Lyman, has been around
from the beginning. Now he has sold the fair,
which I imagine must be cause for a bit of anxiety
for some of the regulars.
I can understand why they might feel that way,
but they shouldn't. Yes, Mark started it and evolved
it, but he actually sold it the first time in 2005, to
DMG World Media, a British firm. Mark joined
with Michael Franks, the COO of DMG, and formed
the Art Fair Company, which bought back the fair
in 2007. There was still a lot of continuity of
management then, as there is now; Mark is still
involved as a consultant.

Donna Davies, a former Chicago art dealer now
in her third year as director of SOFA Chicago-the
acronym stands for Sculpture Objects Functional
Art + Design-presides over the nation's oldest,
largest and most prestigious design and decorative
arts fair. SOFA, which celebrated its 20th season Oct.
31-Nov. 3 at its longtime venue, Chicago's Festival
Hall at Navy Pier, specializes in gallery-represented
three-dimensional art, including ceramics, wood,
glass and textiles. The fair is also in its first year
under the new ownership of Urban Expositions,
an Atlanta-based show management company.
The art-fair scene in Chicago over the past ten
years has been volatile, even dramatic-fairs
coming and going, venues changing, lawsuits
being filed and so on. But in the midst of the
madness, SOFA has been a model of sanity and
stability for two decades-same management,
same schedule, even the same venue for most
of that time. How is it that SOFA has remained
so stable for so long during such a fractious
period for art fairs?
The answer is that we've stayed focused on
our original mission, which was to be a community,
a gathering for-and we've all been trained to move
away from it, because it's sort of a dirty word-
the craft world. The thought in 1994 was to start
moving away from being relegated to a subcategory in the art world, and I think we've done that.
The secondary focus was to be about education. It
was a place to sell, yes, but if we weren't educating
the next generation of collectors, gallerists,
designers, museum curators, and so on, we were
going to die on the vine. As it is, SOFA was the first
fair of its kind in this country, the first to garner
this kind of acclaim and prestige, and certainly
the first to have developed the audience of the size
we have. There have been other fairs that started
with similar goals, but they haven't stood the test
of time. Not to be derogatory of those other fairs,
14

Above: Donna Davies,
Director of SOFA
Chicago, stands in front
of "Mountain Shadow"
by Shihoko Fukomoto
(courtesy Gallery FW).
Right: The Illinois
Institute of Technology's design
environment for SOFA
is based on a revamping
of Miller Beach, a 19th
century artist enclave
and leisure destination
near Gary, Indiana
that drew visitors from
Chicago. The IIT team
designed and fabricated
"Urban Elements" that
embody their ideas
for the neighborhood.

You mentioned the idea of "the craft world" as a
pejorative, or at least a lesser-than term in relation
to contemporary art such as painting. Does the
public still view these various niches of the art
world in a hierarchical way, or has that changed?
If someone is not aware of the rich history of the
decorative arts-and we do have an educational
program that encourages people to learn more
about that history-then they might have the
opinion of 20 of 30 years ago, where there was
"art" on one hand and "craft" on the other, with one
below the other. When you say "art," you weren't
thinking as much of ceramics, textiles, glass, wood,
jewelry. Photography had to fight that same stigma
for a number of years. But that's changed, which
is one of the main reasons we started SOFA. I mean,
look at the word "design." There are "design" fairs
now, and where did they come from? They came
from the craft world and from fairs like SOFA.
Still, there's a sense, I think, that certain media,
such as ceramics, are somewhat more impervious
to innovation. Pottery is pottery, right? Also, a lot
of people practice pottery, so it's kind of a populist
form-as opposed to, say, glassblowing, which
is less accessible, because of the equipment and
materials you have to have. So does the relatability
of ceramics hurt it with collectors in terms of
perceived value and prestige?
Well, circa-1970s glass is certainly not refined, but
they've come a long way. They've evolved beyond
just blowing, in fact; they're lampworking, they're

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2013