Celebrating both the mundane and the transcendent, Don Weygandt's exhibit of vessel monoprints evokes the 'value of suggestion.'

In The Book of Tea, first published in 1906, Kakuzo Okakura asks readers to consider "the value of suggestion" in art. "In leaving something unsaid," he writes, "the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea, and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up to the full measure of your aesthetic attention."

A new exhibit of monoprints by Don Weygandt at Carmel''s Carl Cherry Center for the Arts offers an elegant forum in which to explore Okakura''s idea. These 26 prints of vases, jugs and teapots challenge our understanding of how shape and color intersect while appealing to our appreciation for beautiful objects that are both everyday and timeless. The show''s title, Walking the Edge, Roaming the Field, evokes the simple edges of, say, a teapot, that under artistic scrutiny reveal sudden perspectives of curious beauty. Rather than tell a story, Weygandt''s objects seem to float outside time--or perhaps they create a new time, one where the viewer''s own ideas and impressions run free.

But how, exactly, can art embrace "the value of suggestion"? One way is by doing what Weygandt has done: These prints are all unnumbered and unnamed. They simply hang on the walls in groupings that feel right but could easily be changed. Most artists apply numbers to print series, which creates a kind of narrative drama of the artistic process: First I made this one, then this one, then this one. We don''t know which pieces Weygandt made last month and which ones he made 20 years ago. That lack of knowledge opens up a huge space for us to imagine our own orderings, our own stories.

The absence of titles emphasizes still further this openness. We are a culture that loves to name things, map out connections, establish orders, hierarchies, paradigms. Yet when there is no name each person will dig into his or her imagination and make one up. I called one piece Alive and Still, then changed my mind and came up with Green Shadow, Dialogue and Old Ways. None of these titles matter, except to say that each marked a moment in time, an individual experience of artistic contemplation.

Weygandt''s prints glimpse at a wide range of traditions and creators, and this too honors "the value of suggestion." Each viewer will bring to the show his or her own specific art historical associations. While looking at Weygandt''s vases and jugs, I thought of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Georgia O''Keefe, ''50s Modernism, Arthur Dove, ancient Greece vases, Giorgio Morandi, Native American art, Zen Buddhism, Bay Area Abstract Expressionism and Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin. One pot done almost entirely in black reminded me of the mania for black kitchens that reigned during the 1980s.

It is appropriate that the form of all these objects is that of the container, for each work may contain not only references to past art, but the possibility of future art as well.

Weygandt''s use of color is exemplary. Colors seem not just to inhabit shape but to create it, and the sense of flow between the colors is both logical and original. After spending several minutes immersed in a group of prints that were quite earthy--thick blocks of reds and browns--I was startled by a stunning green vase set off against a deep yellow field. Weygandt designs a feeling of age in this piece, as if it were something unearthed from ancient ground. Underneath the green are delicate layers of blue, like the colorful rust of oxidation. Yet we can see the texture of the paper, and the ink is meltingly vibrant, as if still wet, as if in the world of shape and color, the time between deep past and right now is no time at all.

Next to this piece is a somewhat impertinent teal teapot, adorned with a hint of silver speckle, like the face of a saucy teenager. Depending on your mood, this teapot might seem whimsical, gaudy or just plain celebratory. It''s all up to you.

There are four prints in a smaller room adjacent to the center''s theater, two of which include collage elements.

At first I was put off by the small fragments of paper Weygandt has affixed to his prints--seemingly random smudge prints and perforated holes struck me as jarring amidst the meditative mood of the show. But then I saw that he had drawn a line that bound the fragment to the rest of the print, incorporating the ungainly scraps into a kind of whole. Or perhaps his intention is for us to ask ourselves how we decide something is "whole," or even "beautiful."

The artful juxtaposition of colors and forms is just one of this show''s many delights. To get a sense of how far Weygandt can go with his simple vessels, note against one back wall the actual models he used, a well-worn blue-and-white earthenware jug and a stately pewter teapot. Starting from these objects, it is interesting to retrace one''s steps, to look forward and back, and perhaps side to side.

So often museum exhibits are tediously scripted: We plod from one room to the next along a predetermined path, absorbing interpretations that someone else has figured out for us. Here the viewer can develop her own path, imagine his own edges, and freely roam the field, the endless field of human invention.

A lecture and dialogue featuring Don Weygandt and Robynn Smith is held at the center on Thursday at 7:30pm. Walking the Edge, Roaming the Field continues through Feb. 22, and can be viewed Monday through Friday from 11am-4pm or by appointment. All events are free and open to the public at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, 4th and Guadalupe, in Carmel. For more info, call 624-7491.