American Craft Council October 2009 lecture notes
Or “A Shortened Version of What I Really Wanted to Say”
discussion occurred 11am Friday October16, 2009
Craft in the 21st Century: Identity, Choice, Meaning
Moderator:
Sandra Alfoldy, PhD is both a professor and curator in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has also written three books on the theory of craft, including NeoCraft:Modernity and the Crafts, 2007.
Panelists:
Thomas Patti is an industrial designer and sculptor. He is most well known for his innovative use of plastics and glass to create visionary architectural systems, small-scale sculptures and large architectural commissions.
Claudia Crisan has trained in fibers and metals. Her most recent work takes the form of edible sugar sculptures. She and her husband own and operate Crisan, a small bakery and edible art gallery in Albany, New York.
Michael Sherrill is a self-taught, and internationally acclaimed ceramicist. He is the inventor of Mudtools®, a line of tools for potters and sculptors.
The Roundtable:
Alfoldy presented the topics as a series of assumptions, counting down from number 5
#5 You don’t need to use traditional craft materials to be a craftsperson.
- CC: Materials don’t make craft, but knowledge and training make it craft.
- TP: Craft is always practicing, making better and improving. He has always had a struggle being accepted as a craftsperson because his materials are not traditional craft materials.
#4 Craft is an environmentally sustainable set of practices.
- While the panel focused their answers solely on environmental sustainability, with a series of predictable answers about the ethical use of materials, I was very disappointed that no one spoke of sustainability in terms of techniques, practices and traditions.
#3 Functional craft is less important than one of a kind work.
- TP: There are no distinctions between one of a kind work and functional craft.
- General: Bringing : There is no hierarchy, a coffee cup and a wall piece can be made with the same level of intentionality
#2 Making it by hand makes it craft.
- CC: Using technology is OK, it is just a different way of making. Some of her pieces are so tiny that she could not possibly make them with her own hands, she has had to learn to manipulate a computer program to mimic her own hands.
- TP: Much of his work is done by hand, but because of his choice of materials, people assume it was machine crafted.
- MS: The piece is started in his head before he even makes it. Although he may not have the piece fully resolved, he knows the “spirit of the object.”
- General: Technology is here to stay and if that creates a platform to make our work better and stronger, both physically and conceptually, than we need to push those boundaries.
#1 The craft field is dying and D.I.Y. will save it. NB: this slide was illustrated not with an image of one of the panelists work—as all of the other assumptions, but with an image of the front cover of a Martha Stewart book.
- This is where the discussion took a turn towards very interesting. All of the panelists took a very middle of the road stance with statements such as “Martha is a an inroads to the craft world;” “making is important no matter what it is that you are making;” and “the craft movement is as strong as the people in it.”
- The audience Q&A period following was directly related to this statement, with various audience members contributing the following:
- What is so threatening about Martha Stewart? have we assumed an elitist attitude? Are we going in the wrong direction?
- Martha Stewart employs at least 50 artists, artists who earn a living, have healthcare and can afford to pay off their student loans.
- Martha Stewart has provided empowerment for women. She has offered them permission to make and be creative and not have it be marginalized as “Women’s work.”
The discussion did not come to an official end until Helen Drutt English accepted her Aileen Osborn Webb for Philanthropy at the luncheon. Although she had three minutes, she stepped outside of that to assert that Martha Stewart has no business at this conference, and further that Martha Stewart isnot a nice person and anyone who makes those sort of macaroni crafts is not a welcome part of the American Craft Council.
This was the low point of a conference whose goal was to address the future of craft in America. Such an elitist attitude is not going to further the mission of the ACC, as excerpted from their website:
- making as fundamental to the human experience
- craft as a means of learning and self-discovery – a way of unifying body, mind and spirit
- makers who work directly with materials, expressing their individual voice through objects that embody creativity and technical mastery
- craft traditions and the role of makers in passing these on to future generations
- innovation that reveals new possibilities in the relationship between maker and materials
- discourse on the evolving nature of the crafts
None of these values seems to include only crafters who can currently afford a university education or exclude the part-time crafter. Helen Drutt English’s slur against Martha Stewart’s personality was puerile and not remotely germane to the discussion. This attitude is indicative that the governing body of the ACC is only concerned with creating a new craft culture if it is exactly like the one that has existed for the last 50 years.
ACC conference: Lydia Matthews
October 19th, 2009
Lydia Matthews
New Models of the Marketplace: Re-Crafting Capitalism from the Ground Up
Lydia Matthews is academic dean and professor of visual culture at Parsons, the New School for Design in NYC. Her work and lecture focus on the point where creative practices meet global economies and local cultures.
After a morning where the lectures addressed crafts and the marketplace, or what have you earned for me lately, Matthews talk looked at the art of making for the greater good of humanity. Confronted with a glass whose water level came about midway up the vessel, she asked us how we define the volume of glass in the water: by what is present or what is missing. She drew further parallels between that outlook and our feelings towards the present state of our planet, most notably on our economy and our world as makers.
Our flawed capitalist system stresses competition over cooperation and profit over sustainability. Our society measures its worth through a Gross National Product (GNP), with a focus on monetary value, production and consumption. Bhutan has a different set of values in this regard and so in December 2006 launched their counter, which is the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index. The GNH places an emphasis on the intangibles that bring about a good life exclusive of financials and consumption like: family, well-being, friendship, health, community ecology and many others.
Towards that end Bhutan banned ads, smoking, traffic lights, wrestling on TV and plastic bags, among others. This inspired France’s President Sarkozy to create a similar program in his country and so created his Commission on Economic Performance and Social Progress Commission chaired by Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia and Professor Amartya Sen ofHarvard. The Bhutanese movement similarly spawned several small groups in the USA.
Matthews describes 5 types of capital and how we must recognize and utilize all of them equally if we are to create a society whose GNH and GNP are to be parallel.
- Financial capital (production, consumption, investments, etc)
- Social Capital (personal relationships, community)
- Cultural Capital (Knowledge, education, skill sets)
- Ecological Capital (awareness of our impact on the planet and environment)
- Physical Capital (infrastructure: bridges, roads, fresh water)
Networks are being created all over the world with citizens, artisans, and activists to create multiple forms of capital and awareness. Many of these are not professionals, but amateurs with a deep love for what they do, and thus operating on a professional level. These are the keystone Pro-Ams that forge ahead with so many amazing projects which have a huge impact on people lives, not just their wallets.
Bamboo Bike Project which aims to build a better bike for poor Africans in rural areas and to stimulate a bicycle building industry in Africa to satisfy local needs.
Ethical Metalsmiths is a group seeking to bring about greater awareness of where our metals and gems come from and to create ethical alternatives.
Counterfeit Crochet solicits individual makers to crochet their own version of coveted designer handbags.
Adbusters and specifically their Blackspot project which looks to take the brand out of branding, and teh sweatshop out of manufacturing.
OttoVan Busch worked with shoemakers in a Norwegian shoe factory to take over their modes of production for three days in 2006 to create a new dialog between the producer and the product.
Pioneers of Change a collaborative of artists, chefs, designers, and architects celebrating 400 years of Dutch/American friendship.
100 mile suit orchestrated by Kelly Cobb, and modeled after the locavore diet concept, is the design and production of a suit of clothes created from “fiber to finish” within 100 miles of Cobb’s Philadelphia studio.
Matthews stresses that through the interaction of professionals, amateurs, designers, producers, makers, and consumers working together we can achieve wealth in all five of the important forms of capital. By doing this we amass wealth in happiness, and our glasses will always be full.
