Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects book
Jo Lauria and Steve Fenton
Prologue by President Jimmy Carter
Contributions by Mark Coir, Jonathan Leo Fairbanks, Jeannine Falino, Steven L. Grafe, Jill Beute Koverman, Maile Pingel, Emily Zaiden
Copyright Š 2007 by Craft in America, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com
Clarkson N. Potter is a trademark and Potter and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-307-34647-6
Printed in China
Design by Maggie Hinders
Contents
1 FOREWORD
2 PROLOGUE: CRAFT IN MY AMERICA
3 INTRODUCTION: THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN CRAFTS
4 COMMUNITIES OF CULTURE
5 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THE HONORING OF THE HANDMADE
6 THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICA, 1890 – 1930
7 NATIVE COMMUNITIES – INDIGENOUS CRAFTS BY AMERICAN INDIANS
8 COMMUNITIES OF HERITAGE – SOUTHERN CONTRIBUTIONS
9 COMMUNITIES OF CRAFT TEACHING
10 RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN
11 CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
12 THE CRANBROOK VISION
13 SCHOOL FOR AMERICAN CRAFTS, ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
14 BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
15 CRAFT SCHOOLS AND RESIDENCY PROGRAMS
16 THE PLACE OF CRAFT IN AMERICA
17 THE NEW STUDIO CRAFTS MOVEMENT
18 SHAPING CRAFT IN AN AMERICAN FRAMEWORK
19 EPILOGUE
20 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
21 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
22 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
FOREWORD
The book you are reading is a companion to the Craft in America PBS television series and to the traveling museum exhibition of the same name. All three are the outcome of a ten-year project designed to start a conversation about the crafts and to elucidate their importance to our twenty-first century culture.
American craft, with a history that begins before the written word, continues to evolve. The past two centuries in particular have provided a stimulus for craft artistsâartists who work with clay, fiber, metal, and wood, rather than paint or watercolorâwho find a wide and varied audience and market for their creations. Our communities and schools, our ethnic and religious groups have all played a part in this ongoing story. Today we are a country rich in men and women who transform the ordinary object into the extraordinary.
This book will show that craft has never been just about pretty things. Or even just about useful things. It has always been about our things, our inheritance, our personal collections. It is about functionality, about identity, about conceptual thinking, about fun and experiment. Craft in America celebrates both men and women remembered by name and those who worked anonymously, country dwellers and city people, self-taught amateurs and university-trained professionalsâartists all.
The story of craft in America is too big to be condensed into one television series, or one exhibition, or one book. Consider this book a starting place for your own route of discovery. We invite you to find out more about the crafts that attract you, to learn about the techniques involved in their creation, to meet the artists, and to enjoy the pleasures derived from your explorations.
CAROL SAUVION
Executive Director, Craft in America
PROLOGUE: CRAFT IN MY AMERICA
As a child in rural America, I grew up surrounded by family and friends who made thingsâwomen who came together in quilting bees; carpenters who built furniture, carved whirligigs, and made pull toys; blacksmiths who forged raw iron into objects of beauty and utility.
I watched over their shoulders and gained an early appreciation for anyone who created things with their hands. These were people who took pride in their work and signed what they made with their names or with their special look or design. The recipients knew they possessed something that was filled with loveâ worth more than money could buy.
It wasnât that we could not afford store-bought items, but using materials that were all around usâgifts of natureâwas a way to be more in touch with ourselves and our talents. As I moved from Plains to Atlanta to Washington and back again, the value of the handmade has always had a special place in my heart.
During my presidency, I always had the desire to somehow recognize the skill and singularly American style that was present in handcrafted objects. I was fortunate that Joan Mondale, wife of my vice president, Walter Mondale, shared my love and interest in the expressions of our native artists. Few places in the world display the unbridled creativity exhibited by the tens of thousands of artists who make craft a unique part of the American experience.
Toiling individually, as part of craft circles, as full-time careers, or as escapes from their everyday jobs, these artists stand for everything thatâs good in our country. That is why we first established the White House Collection of American Crafts that continued through the Clinton Administration. For the first time, we recognized a medium that takes our ordinary, everyday objects like bowls, baskets, and quilts and elevates them to art forms that rival painting and sculpture in their impact. It shows that beauty can be found in the smallest things or in places we might overlook. Visitors to the White House, from ordinary citizens to foreign dignitaries, always were delighted by the colors and shapes of the pieces we displayed.
Craft, both historical and contemporary, is all around us, and it recognizes and communicates much about what we are as a country. It is our identity and our legacy. Handmade quilts and coverlets, pottery, furniture, glass, jewelry, and religious objects describe our society, as do the writings of our historians, poets, and statesmen. The things we hold most dear, often handmade, are a record of who we are as a nation. They stand for individualism and the satisfaction that comes from making something with oneâs own two hands. They appreciate the environment and the gifts the Creator has provided for use in our lives. They demonstrate the creative spirit within each of us.
One of the most satisfying things about American craft is its timelessness. Americans have a tradition of work, and the crafts are a continuous participant in that tradition. Manipulating clay, forming glass, shaping metal, weaving fiber, and working wood all require exertion that is strenuous, tactile, and satisfying for those who enjoy physical labor. There is a mind/body connection and collaboration that exists in few other activities.
Many objects used in our everyday lives become the subjects of museum exhibitions. The pieces in this book, and in the Public Television series and museum exhibition that it accompanies, are a chronicle of who we were and who we are: self-expression through homegrown skills that allows us to reflect on what generations of Americans have considered creative and important. In considering where we were, we can begin to get an idea of what we will become, and craft is the living link.
We could ask if drinking from a handcrafted goblet makes the wine taste any better, or eating from a crafted serving piece makes the food any more flavorful. Perhaps, or maybe not. But one thing is certain. Craft contributes to a life well lived in the same manner that paintings and photographs do. Without it, we would, as a people and a culture, be diminished as individuals and Americans.
Today I take pride in building homes for Habitat for Humanity, for the joy of both making something with my hands and bringing housing to those who need a place to call home. In my woodworking shop, Iâve made much of the furniture in Rosalynnâs and my home and auction items for our annual Carter Center fundraiser. I find it rewarding on so many levels, much like any artist does with his or her chosen medium. The beauty of craftsmanship is that it has the capacity to engage each of us in activities that nurture our humanity, satisfy our need to express ourselves, and give us the opportunity to learn with our hands in ways that are not possible with our minds alone.
Those of you who have already experienced this feeling know what I mean beyond my words. If you havenât, I invite you to read this book, consider the outstanding objects these artists have imagined, and partake in what could well be one of the most satisfying times of your life.
JIMMY CARTER
Plains, Georgia
INTRODUCTION: THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN CRAFTS
A CONVERSATION WITH RAW MATERIALS
To the casual observer, craft at its most elemental is simply taking a base materialâmetal or wood or fiber or glass or clayâand making something useful: a bowl, a vase, a quilt, a chair, a pot.
But itâs also about making that base material into something more. This is what separates the utilitarian from art. It takes creative, thinking, caring human beings who see their creations as something more, imbuing their work with a message or simply a feelingâfrom deep within their souls.
Historians and cultural anthropologists have evidence of craft dating well back into prehistory. If we take an ordinary object, like a hand ax, and do nothing with it, it remains that, and nothing more: a strictly utilitarian tool that does not garner any further interest or attention. However, when we make one special, giving it an extraordinary quality for, let us say, ceremonies or rituals, it enters a transformative state. It becomes Art, with a capital A.
Starting off flat and almond shaped by design, symmetrical front to back and left to right, an ax undeniably fits comfortably in the hand and has sharp cutting edges. That makes it what it is. But many are attractive, with embedded, ornamental fossil shells. Some, under inspection by electron microscope, show no evidence of the wear and tear of use. Even a plain, well-worn hand ax seems to show the result of far more care by our Homo erectus ancestors than merely one capable of cutting.
The naturalist Loren Eiseley tells of his encounter with just such a tool:
As I clasped and unclasped the stone, running my fingers down its edges, I began to perceive the ghostly emanations from a long-vanished mind, the kind of mind which, once having shaped an object of any sort, leaves an individual trace behind it which speaks to others across the barriers of time and language. It was not the practical experimental aspect of this mind that startled me, but rather that the fellow had wasted time. In an incalculably brutish and dangerous world he had both shaped an instrument of practical application and then, with a virtuosoâs elegance, proceeded to embellish his product.
In a more contemporary example, a war mask used by Tlingit Indians (of the northwest coast, now part of Alaska) can be approached on several levels. As a piece of carved wood with abalone, hair, and feathers, it is a striking object, to be admired for its use of mythical imagery. As a functional mask, it provides protection for the wearer against enemy weapons.
But it goes even further, extending to the extraordinary. The designs and colors go beyond mere decoration or tribal identification. The mask co-opts another basic emotion, taking the fear-inducing glare of a predatorâs eyes and teeth, and turning it against the selfsame predator or enemy. It takes on magic, and by transferring power to the wearer, the warrior feels empowered and invincible in battle. A practical object? Certainly. An object whose beauty is seen in a whole different light, emerging from a whole way of life? Definitely.
Perhaps the ultimate connection lies in the anthropological scholar Ellen Dissanayakeâs description:
There is an inherent pleasure in making. We might call this joie de faire (like joie de vivre) to indicate that there is something important, even urgent, to be said about the sheer enjoyment of making something exist that didnât exist before, of using oneâs own agency, dexterity, feelings and judgment to mold, form, touch, hold and craft physical materials, apart from anticipating the fact of its eventual beauty, uniqueness or usefulness.
CREATIVITY AND THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
To all this, the arts professor Howard Risatti adds another crucial dimension. The craft artist must engage the materials with an extraordinary understanding of the science of the materials he or she works withâtheir physical strengths, weaknesses, and capabilitiesâor the piece is doomed to fail.
What are the properties of a specific wood, and how can it be formed, glued, jointed, or laminated so it maintains its form and functionâas well as the artistâs creativity? How thin can a pot or vase or bowl be thrown and still function as a vessel? Can wool be handfelted without a comprehensive knowledge of the reaction of water temperature and hand pressure and of the physical properties of a myriad of wools from dozens of breeds of sheep? And what of the glassblower, who has to combine his creativity on the fly with more than a passing knowledge of glass solids and gases?
The probabilities of success in creating an object that is beautiful, functional, and, above all, possible, increase logarithmically with the artistâs knowledge and experience in making the right choices. As the scientist Louis Pasteur so famously observed, âChance favors the prepared mind.â
Fact is, craft artists know that âmakingâ is not the same as âmanufacturing.â And as if all that knowledge were not enough, they must bring to their work a requisite tactile feel and a sense they must experience before being comfortable and informed enough to turn it all into art.
For any person who creates things, the most terrifying thing is the âblank pageâ that needs to be filled. For a writer, that âpageâ is quite literal. For the craft artist, it is a tabula rasa of raw material that must be addressed and worked to within an inch of its life (for the material does absorb life, after all, from the artist), and become something that talks to us, sings to us, stays with us.
When asked how they get there, craft artists may not even be aware of their internal processes. Many instinctively say it happens by âbeing one withâ the medium. But itâs much moreâexperiencing what professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls âflow.â Metaphorically, it is a current carrying one along, an unconscious awareness of a conscious understandingâof what it takes to mold, meld, and fashion raw materials into something more. Among its components are concentration and focus; a loss of self-consciousness; merging action and awareness; losing track of subjective time; a sense of personal control over the activity; and an intrinsic reward by doing the activity, so there is an effortlessness of action.
âFlowâ is not unlike the discipline honed by practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism. Indeed, this idea of overcoming the duality of self and object was earlier popularized by Robert Pirsigâs 1974 cult classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There the author suggests, âWhen youâre not dominated by feelings of separateness from what youâre working on, then you can be said to âcareâ about what youâre doing. That is what caring really is: a feeling of identification with what oneâs doing.â
Of course, because craft is art, and all art is in the eye of the beholder, it is not without its detractors. These are those who have no time for what they perceive as quaint efforts to recapture a time past, in their minds better left forgotten. For them, Ken Trapp, former curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, has an answer:
Some may dismiss the handcrafted object as an anachronism, a nostalgic throwback to an earlier and supposedly simpler and happier time. But for many more, the handcrafted object is an authentic experience that is personalized, individualized and humanized.
CRAFT AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
We are the product of a vast and rich environment: an America blanketed by forests so dense we had to create legends like Paul Bunyan to explain how so much wood could be harvested; or like John Henry to build the railroads to transport it.
We are who we are as much because of rugged individualism as of rugged terrain. Our pluralism accounts for an America that is both the real and the ideal, a work in progress whose story has been written, rewritten, and will be rewritten again. The words and ideas are as old as the nation: individuality, democracy, diversity, equality, progress, and nationalism. They represent our dreams and ambitions, our successes and even our failures. And at the heart of this grand experiment are principles framed around the worth of its people and the value of their work.
AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
Coming to America, the artisans among the colonists, and later the foreign-born immigrants, discovered a remarkable entrepreneurial freedom that was outside their European experience. In a revelation that resonates to this very day, they were no longer restricted by the class and guild traditions of Europe: By working hard, they would succeed on their own terms, based on their own name, reputation, and quality of work.
This freedom was our countryâs signature as we progressed from thirteen colonies to a newly minted republic. For instance, in 1833, Christian Frederick Martin left Germany for lower Manhattan, combining his curiosity about what could be made and a continuous devotion to the handcrafted ethos to form a guitar workshop, the C.F. Martin Company, which has stood for almost two centuries. Now located in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, C.F. Martin makes, arguably, the best guitars, mandolins, and ukuleles. Even though most Martins are now factory made, their custom shop will create by hand a guitar to personal specifications.
Americansâ asserted right to the âpursuit of happinessââto be the masters of their own occupational destinyâis not something for just immigrants to enjoy. Ingrained in each of us from an early age, this goal is a cornerstone in choosing how we wish to live our lives. With so many crafts being individual endeavors, possessing that entrepreneurial streak is another dimension of the fully formed craft artist.
Following World War I, America turned inward, becoming insular and isolationist. Fortress America was more about building industrial capabilities and strengths. Then, when the Great Depression struck, and jobs were scarce, people turned to their hands and the skills of their forefathers as a source of sustenance. Domestic crafts, such as sewing, quilting, and needlework, were often taken up by those who needed money to support their families. In the mountains of southern Appalachia, in just one regional example, craft was often the only way a society could survive.
For the better part of two centuries, itinerant weavers traveled among small towns to weave coverlets. As todayâs artists carry their portfolios, the weavers, mostly men, would carry swatches and sample books, showing patterns with fanciful names that, like the constellations in the sky, often had no direct relationship to what they looked like, but captured imaginations nevertheless: Walls of Jericho, Sea Star, Lovers Knot, Philadelphia Pavement, among others. The men didnât merely take orders for future delivery, like traveling salesmen. They often stayed with the customer, weaved what was wanted, and then moved on to the next town and the next family.
The weaving tradition was exceptionally strong among the mountain people. With the turn of the century, settlement workers went to Tennessee, North Carolina, and Kentucky to start schools for needy communities. To improve their familiesâ financial situations, the women took up the weaving of guest towels, baby blankets, and place mats, which found an easy market in the womenâs network of churches, arts organizations, and civic clubs.
The Fireside Industries of Berea College in Kentucky began with women weaving to pay for their childrenâs school expenses. Berea later developed student labor programs allowing thousands of students to cover their tuition through a unique co-op system. Following the Berea model were Tennesseeâs Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Penland Weavers and Potters, begun at the Appalachian School at Penland, North Carolina. The idea was simple: Participants would take patterns and materials from the center, work the craft at home, and return with finished items to be sold. Soon, dozens of these weaving centers dotted mountain ridges.
THE GREAT LEVELING: THE CONTRIBUTION OF CRAFT TO EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
Democracy in America is meaningless without the values of equality and diversity. The Declaration of Independence, in what is arguably the best-known and most important phrase in any American political document, posits and promises that âall men are created equal,â and over the years, that status has spread to include women and minorities.
Sadly, the road to equality for our diverse populace has never been smooth and straight. The writing of our history has been witness to shameful episodes of societal schizophrenia marked by discrimination and worse. Yet, through it all, our history is also richer for recognizing their many contributions to our cultural lives. As they contributed to craft in America, they may also have contributed to their escape from prejudice.
A TURNING POINT FOR WOMEN
Until the Arts and Crafts period, âproperâ women were expected to be fluent in needle arts, making doilies and antimacassars. They learned their skills during breaks from often-busy schedules, creating complex samplers that featured a multitude of stitches used to create alphabets and religious sayings. But with the introduction of electricity and associated labor-saving devices, women found themselves with free time; many experienced a burgeoning commercial instinct that had become more socially acceptable, even if relatively few work opportunities were open to them.
In one such opportunity, young faculty members from New Orleansâs H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute at Tulane University established a groundbreaking program of vocational training. Under the directorship of chief artist Mary Given Sheerer, they combined fine arts curricula with commercial enterprise. Newcomb Pottery became a studio business, with ninety women artists producing some seventy thousand piecesâno two exactly alikeâbetween 1894 and 1940. No southern brideâs gift list was complete without at least one piece.
Also part of this sea change for American women was Mary Chase Perry Stratton, an important figure in Detroitâs artistic and cultural life who established Pewabic Pottery in 1903. On Jefferson Avenue, near the bank of the Detroit River, artists created art pottery that is now included in some of Americaâs finest collections. Their tile work and ornaments became part of countless churches, schools, commercial buildings, and public facilitiesâeven city subway systems. Strattonâs vision clearly mirrored that of arts and craftsâand craft in general:
It is not the aim of the Pottery to become an enlarged, systematized commercial manufacturer in competition with others striving in the same way. Its idea has always been to solve progressively the various ceramic problems that arise in hope of working out the results and artistic effects which may happily remain as memorials . . . or at least stamp this generation as one which brought about a revival of the ceramic arts and prove an inspiration to those who come after us.
Pewabic still conducts classes and workshops year round for children and adults at all levels of proficiency. The pottery also continues to produce tile that is handmade and hand glazed, often from original molds. These have been incorporated most recently in the new Northwest World Gateway at Detroit Metro Airport and the Tigersâ Comerica Park, one of the symbols of downtown Detroitâs renaissance.
Another woman of note in furthering craft through this period was Adelaide Alsop Robineau. Considered perhaps the finest ceramist of her age, she expanded her influence to countless students as the editor of the monthly journal Keramic Studio and as a teacher at Syracuse University.
Her signature piece was The Apotheosis of the Toiler (also known as Scarab Vase because of its exceedingly complex design motif). In 1910, it won the grand prize in pottery at the Turin International Exhibition, serving notice on the world that American art pottery could now hold its own with the finest studio pieces created in Europe. In 2000, it was designated by Art & Antiques Magazine as the centuryâs most important piece of American ceramics.
AMERICAN INDIANS
When the first Europeans came ashore in the New World, they found a native population practicing a mystical interdependence between the people and the earth. American Indians borrowed from nature and translated creation legends and landscapes into designs that graced their pottery, basketry, jewelry, clothing, and blankets.
Over time, American Indians were forced by government fiat and missionary zeal to relinquish their culture and to be relegated to reservations. Not without irony, at the same time, they were being canonized by the movies and other forms of popular culture for their classic character and nobility.
With Franklin Delano Rooseveltâs first administration, much (but certainly not all) of governmentâs attitudes changed. Recognizing Indian culture, Congress established in 1935 the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, which had the job of promoting âthe economic welfare of the Indian tribes . . . through the development of Indian arts and crafts and the expansion of the market for the products of Indian art and craftsmanship.â Under the leadership of Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier and Board general manager RenĂŠ dâHarnoncourt (who later became director of New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art), they succeeded admirably, establishing standards for quality, reviving declining art forms, and even curating major exhibitions at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939, and at MoMA in 1941, to call national attention to the Indiansâ extensive and expressive talents.
In 2004, the new home of the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution, opened its doors on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., alongside the capitalâs other great museums, allowing visitors to finally comprehend and appreciate the full breadth and depth of the many tribesâ rich contributions to our craft tradition and heritage.
JAPANESE-AMERICANS
Japanâs December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack had a traumatic impact on Americans as a whole, and in particular on 112,700 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry, 70,000 of whom were U.S. citizens.
Urged on by irrational panic and war hysteria, President Rooseveltâs Executive Order 9066 gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen (thus giving cover to the outward appearance of racism) from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal swath stretching from Washington State to California and extending inland to southern Arizona. Japanese-Americans were moved to military relocation centers in some of the most barren areas of the western states and as far east as Arkansas. The best known of the camps, Manzanar, sat at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in eastern Californiaâs Owens Valley.
Under orders, entire Japanese-American communities were given a week to settle their affairs and could bring with them only what they could carry. Everything elseâsometimes including their homesâhad to be abandoned or sold to often predatory merchants for pennies on the dollar.
Despite the grim surroundings, the internees were driven by the need to create. Forced behind barbed wire in whitewashed stables with only sleeping cots, their crafts were born of necessity, making rough-hewn furnishings and woodworking tools from whatever scrap or local raw materials they could find. As their confinement stretched from one year to four, their objects took on a startling elegance and irrepressible beauty. For these men, women, and children, pursuing their craft was the embodiment of gaman, the Japanese word for endurance with grace and dignity in the face of the unbearable.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS
While most peoples came to America willingly, Africans and their craft cultures of basket making, beadwork, and kente cloth came here by force, making their experience as harsh an abuse as any in American history. Their struggles for the same rights their fellow citizens enjoy continue to this day.
One person in particular, known to us as Dave the Slave Potter, was an integral part of the nineteenth century Edgefield, South Carolina, pottery community. (With emancipation in 1865, he took the name of his then-owner and called himself David Drake.) Dave was the first African-American to sign his ceramics. In addition to his proficiency and prolific output at some forty thousand pieces, they are often staggeringly huge. His smaller, ten-gallon pitchers would require moving 50 to 60 pounds of wet clay on and off his potterâs wheel. Many of his other pieces were four times the size.
In the 1930s, as crafts were revived, especially among the poor, some educated African-American leaders, particularly the Howard University philosopher Alain Locke, argued that this effort was counterproductive. His treatise, The New Negro, saw the avenue for black advancement tied to abandoning the folk culture of their slave days, with the exception of music, storytelling, and dance.
Ironically, while Locke was proposing this cultural amnesia, virtually all other ethnic groups were happily reinventing their craft traditions. And in spite of him, many African-American communities continued to prosper from their traditional crafts: quilting, basketry, ironworking, leatherworking, and pottery, practiced and perfected by black men and women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In the South Carolina Low CountryâCharleston, Mount Pleasant, and its environsâhundreds of women were daily fixtures in the central marketplace and along the Cooper River, coiling local sweetgrass and palmetto leaf into traditional baskets, trays, and hampers that were both artistic and commercial successes. The tradition continues to this day.
Being a port city, Charleston also had a great need for blacksmiths to make âboat ironââchains, anchors, keels, and the like. Originally enslaved and forced to do this heavy labor, African-Americans excelled at this occupation. By the mid-1920s, horses and buggies were replaced by cars and trucks, and a committed preservation movement sought out blacksmiths to forge ornamental ironwork that would restore the architectural treasures of the city. The leading figureâthe most talented in the areaâwas Philip Simmons. By designing and forging more than two hundred historically accurate gates, fences, grills, and more, Simmons has earned a most deserved reputation for preserving the image and soul of Charleston.
Among the quilters, crafts didnât have to be ârevivedâ; they had never fallen out of use. Perhaps it was because quilting brought together a primal functionality (âgood warm coverâ) and social importance as an opportunity to communicate through quilting beesâor even entire communities such as the recently discovered and newly appreciated quilters of Geeâs Bend, Alabama.
This community, hiding in plain sight thirty miles from Selma, was isolated by geography, poverty, and no small amount of government indifference. Perhaps because of this unique set of circumstances, generations of Geeâs Bend women have turned out quilts of astonishing artistry from scraps of salvaged fabrics, like feed sacks and worn-out clothes. Their bold geometric shapes and off-handed construction result in abstract designs more akin to the rhythms of jazz and African art than to the geometric order and repetition of traditional American quilts. The New York Times has hailed them as âsome of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.â
GREAT ART IS BORN OF GREAT OPPORTUNITY
Public education is perhaps the strongest evidence of a democracy, providing all citizens with the ways and means to secure equal opportunities and their place in the national economy. In the wake of World War II, with millions of returning veterans, the United States, as a matter of policy, determined that education was not only an individual right but also a public good, ensuring the future strength of the country. Many fields of study benefited from the fresh blood and new thinking these men and women offered. Few fields were changed as much, however, as craft.
After four long years on the worldâs battlefronts, American soldiers, men and women, officers and enlistees, returned battle scarred and often bearing terrible memories.
Humbled by their experiences and seeking direction, veterans were aided by the last piece of New Deal legislation, the Servicemenâs Readjustment Act of 1944. Known familiarly as the GI Bill of Rights, it provided, among other things, for full coverage of college tuition. The prospect of having the service membersâ entire higher education paid for caused college and university enrollments to double or even triple.
Many veterans sought out colleges and schools where art departments, without much fanfare, had been establishing craft programs taught by ĂŠmigrĂŠ artists and craft artists who had escaped from the Fascist front in Europe. In America, hand and spirit came together in a chance to create, rather than destroy.
If you were so inclined, you didnât have to travel far. The first college-level craft program (founded at New Yorkâs Alfred University in 1900 as The New York State School of Clay-working and Ceramics) was now joined by programs at schools literally coast to coast and border to border, from Black Mountain College in North Carolina to California College of the Arts (formerly, California College of Arts and Crafts).
Americans saw an opportunity to look within, to the values and ideals that have always seemed an integral part of Americaâs soul, and to spread the gospel of high craft art to others. A respite from noise, crowds, and pressure-packed nine-to-five days resided in the handmade, in a subdued, often solitary, environment. For many, it was just what the doctor orderedâoften quite literally. It also allowed those who had gone through years of following orders in a rigid, compartmentalized military system to explore their creativity.
THE BIRTH OF A NATIONAL CULTURE
In the Colonial era, craft was very much bound by regional characteristics. Each of the colonies, and later each of the states, took pride in its own distinguishing style and pedigree. While exotic woods like mahogany were imported for rich effect and show, most furniture was made from local woods and materials, such as walnut in Pennsylvania and cherry in Connecticut, with carved embellishments that reflected regional traditions or significance.
If you could hop into your time machine, youâd find craft everywhere you turned. Rather than announcing themselves with a simple line of emotionally cool Helvetica type, mercantiles and other establishments were marked by carved signs that exhibited skill and style in their typography, symbolism, and actual construction. Ships had ornately hand-carved figureheads to ward off the harpies that roamed the deep, while impressing viewers at dockside with the importance of their owners. Even the weathervanes on public buildings were as much works of art as indicators of changes in wind direction.
The handmade and handcrafted grew beyond utilitarian through the skill and energies of craftsmen up and down the Atlantic coast. Notable objects were created: In the metalwork of James Getty of Williamsburg, Virginia; the clockwork of Nathaniel Dominy, of East Hampton, New York, or Peter Stretch of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the furniture of Duncan Phyfe of New York Cityâobjects not just needed but also desired by those who could afford them.
Over a century and a half later, a nascent nationalism and resistance to waves of immigration would occur, during the period 1920â1945. Evidenced in legislation and newspaper editorials, this new perspective also impacted the arts, where it was known as the Craft Revival, expressed by a popular resurgence in colonial American (translated as âreal Americanâ) furniture and craft. One companyâs advertising proudly stated that âthe spirit of freedomâ was inherent in all things colonial, conjuring up the Founding Fathersâ ghosts (and their values) in every living room. Even Gustav Stickley, crusader against all things ornamental, got into the commercial act, producing a line of chairs and tables in the Windsor styleâclaiming he had always admired them.
And Val-Kill, a small shop producing quality furniture and other crafts, began under the sponsorship of Eleanor Roosevelt when FDR was governor of New York. Conceived as a way to provide supplemental income for the local Hyde Park farming families, who would make furniture, pewter, and homespun cloth using traditional craft methods, the shop had principal craftsmen who, ironically, were the same immigrants to which the movement was a reaction.
Then, under the staggering impact of the Great Depression, a series of bold moves by the government kept the craft movement alive, providing a work base for artists of all media, including craftspeople, and, at the same time, celebrating and honoring American values and regional history. Starting with the Public Works of Art Project (1933â1934) and culminating with the Works Progress Administrationâs Federal Art Project (1935â1943), murals in public buildings, adornment on bridges, and programs designed to encourage, record, and perpetuate communitiesâ heritages gave craft artists respectâand a paycheckâduring the most trying of times.
Another WPA/FAP project, perhaps the most fascinating conceptually, was the Index of American Design. The idea was simple: Assemble a broad visual archive of our native folk and decorative art as seen in objects, drawing on the particular American idiom of design. What made it unusual was that the record was made up not of photographs but of watercolor paintings that were magical in their detail and could easily be confused for the former. Over six years, 18,257 items were ultimately included, created by approximately 1,000 artists.
The Index was motivated in large part by a 1918 article, âOn Creating a Usable Past,â by the literary critic Van Wyck Brooks. In it, Brooks pressed for the need to discover what made America, Americaâand then to communicate its authentic, aesthetic selfidentity. In other words, what was its âusable pastâ? Building an identity was, after all, something all nations and civilizations had done selectively (something akin to Winston Churchillâs famous comment âHistory is written by the victorsâ).
It was Constance Burke, the noted cultural historian and editor of the Index, who fully realized and stated the American character: an abundant folk tradition whose very existence was largely unknown and seriously unappreciated. With the Index, original Americana, ranging from quilts to carousel animals, weathervanes to stoneware, shipsâ figureheads to cigar-store Indians, all were recognized for their place in our collective spirit and native tradition.
An even more significant effort to inculcate this kind of recognition and appreciation of the craft artist and his or her work was the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, opened in September 1956 in New York City. The location was auspiciousâon Manhattanâs West Fifty-third Street, directly across from the cityâs more prominent resident, the Museum of Modern Art. This physical proximity implied, at least subconsciously, that modern American craft and modern international art were equals.
MCC (later the American Craft Museum, and now the Museum of Arts & Design) was founded by Aileen Osborn Webb, perhaps the single most committed person to American craft in the entire country. Her unwavering support and patronage since the 1920s did for craft financially what the Index of American Design had done intellectually: It made indisputable that craft was an integral component of American life and was something to be proud of. Her interests extended from educational programs and workshops to exhibits to the 1943 establishment of the American Craftsmenâs Educational Council, which would become the American Craft Council. Going on seven decades, their mission reads, in part:
We value:
⢠making as fundamental to the human experience;
⢠craft as a means of learning and self-discoveryâa 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.
TECHNOLOGY: PROGRESS AND PROWESS
As all things change over time, so, too, have our attitudes toward the objects integral to our lives, and the way they are made. Not surprisingly, the transitions have sometimes led to mixed results.
When America was going through its youth in the 1700s, objects were largely handmade. It was how things were done, because it was the only way things could be done. True, raw materials were often processed by water power, steam, or the like, but the assembling itselfâthe makingârelied on hand tools, often the same kind used by craft artists today. Mass productionâthe producing of multiples quickly and cheaplyâwas not even a dream, let alone a reality, in the towns and cities across the heartland and in the vastness of unexplored America. There was no need to conserve; there were boundless natural resources that could be made into the objects we needed, when we wanted them.
By the mid-1800sâour countryâs adolescenceâthe wave of the Industrial Revolution that had already made its mark on these shores brought with it a flood of objects often decried by purists for their slipshod quality. But mass manufacturing equaled mass ownership, further evidence of a politically, economically, and socially democratic America. The idea that everybody could own a tea service, for exampleâand not just any tea service, but one that looked the sameâwas not conformity, but proof positive of a personâs success and position in life. This phenomenon would predate the historian Daniel Boorstinâs âconsumption communitiesâ formed not on the basis of common politics, religion, or stations in life, but on product ownership.
There has frequently been cross-pollination between industry and the world of craft, most notably in what is often viewed as the key process of production: the assembly line.
Although it was lauded as revolutionary in its approach, it was, essentially, an industrial take on the craft production line common at the time in craft workshops, when different artists were assigned tasks that complemented and maximized their particular skills.
By the early-twentieth century, and the beginnings of our road to national maturity, the epitome of uniformity as a status symbol came with Henry Fordâs Model T. Here was mass production for the purist, with every vehicle trundling down the line (and down the washboard roads) identical in every way, even to the point that Ford boasted, âYou can have it in any color you wantâas long as itâs black.â
The 1930s would begin as a decade of economic paralysis with people from virtually all tiers of society tired and worn down by daily struggles. But starting with FDRâs first hundred days in the waning days of winter 1933, the decade and countryâs confidence would slowly build, culminating in the soaring symbolism of a 610-foot-tall Trylon and Perisphere at New Yorkâs 1939 Worldâs Fairâheralding the âWorld of Tomorrowâ and the riches it promised. The streamlined Machine Age, typified by Art Deco and Bauhaus, became the rage in everything from cigarette lighters to the massive Pennsylvania Railroad S1 locomotive of Raymond Loewy. The often-futuristic industrial look would maintain a hold on many peopleâs imaginations.
In the 1950s, new technologies were adapted by multitalented practitioners such as the husband-wife team of Charles and Rae Eames, who drove their Cranbrook crafts background to, among other things, design a new range of furniture that took advantage of laminated woods. Extruded aluminum from aviation, advances in fabrics, and a new generation of colors and dyes would broaden horizons as well.
But this era also had its dark side. Advertising and mass branding created the consumerist society, and with it the infamy and waste of planned obsolescence. It was a time, too often, of kitsch instead of class; craft became synonymous with crafting, a euphemism for home hobbies. Leather moccasins and mosaic-tile bowl kits, desk sets made from Popsicle sticks, and paint-by-number art held a prominent place in everyoneâs home. And while craft may have been introduced to an even larger audience, we must ask, at what price?
Craft as a noble pursuit by serious artists was debased in the public eye. Because something could be so easy and require no originality, it could be done by anyoneâfrom school kids to grannies. No training. No skill. No experience. No commitment. And thus the very craft of craft was eliminated.
Today a new crafts paradigm, with its âtruth to materialâ credo, extends to all disciplines. Studio craft presents an alternative to the factory as the locus where objects, by dint of big tools and complex processes, can be made. Its proponents have demonstrated that these could be modified to work in smaller environments. With it has come the single most important sea change in the way craft has been conceived and executed: one person making an entire object from conception to completion.
Here in the first decade of the twenty-first century, we find craft at a high-water mark. Perhaps it is a need to find and hold on to tradition and comfort and trust in a world turned upside down. Perhaps it is that many people today have the means to acquire the finest examples of the craft tradition. But whatever the cause, the effect is clear: Craft is recognized, perhaps as never before, as an important part of our national heritage and psyche.
CRAFT ISNâT HIS STORY OR HER STORYâ ITâS OUR STORY
The story of craft in America is a journey of renewal and reinvention. We are a country people came to, rather than left from: a place big and brawny enough to accept and absorb the ebb and flow as well as the personalities, cultures, and skills immigrants brought with them. So, when scores of countries gave us their tired, their poor, and their huddled masses, well, they also gave us a rich tradition of craft that not only lives on in photographs and museums but also in todayâs homes, offices, and on our bodies. It is the output of a new generation, drawing on the skills of their ancestors.
The net result today is an amalgam of sources and resources unparalleled in history. With the breadth of our geography, the depth of our economy, and the openness of our society, things are tried here that might never be considered elsewhere in the world. America offers an environment that makes possible an infinite number of âwhat-ifsâ to develop new styles, new attitudes, new ways of doing things.
The architect Mies van der Rohe said, âGod is in the details.â To Miesâs maxim, we can rightly add Ezra Poundâs dictum to âmake it new.â Craft today is lush, rich, vibrant. It sings with renewed vitality like never before. It doesnât just stretch boundariesâit shatters them by ignoring perceived limitations and expectations. It would be a shame if we saw elegance without the exclamation point, design without the delight. We would be missing something, and it would be sad, indeed.
For F. Scott Fitzgerald there may have been no second acts in American life, but the genealogy of craft proves him wrong. Like a mighty chestnut, branches of this âfamily treeâ spread thousands of miles, traversing bodies of water and spanning mighty mountains.
There is nothing like American craft as a powerful reflection of our history, our culture, our society, and our common purpose. It is as much a part of our collective DNA as our imagination. It is a by-product of all we were, all we are, and all we can become. In sum, craft is us.
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JOHN TOWNSEND AND PAUL REVERE: REVOLUTIONARY CRAFTSMEN
Perhaps no one brought more praise to the American craftsman than the cabinetmaker and fifth-generation American John Townsend. His signature style was typically grand pieces capped by perfectly proportioned block-and-shell fronts and ball-and-claw curved cabriole legs possessed of both delicacy and power.
Assessing Townsendâs place in craftâs pantheon is the art critic Robert Hughes:
The strange and rather marvelous truth is that there was one area of the visual arts in which an American arguably was the best in the Western world, skilled and inventive to a degree that nobody else in Colonial America and very few in England or Europe could rival. This art was fine cabinetmaking; the place was Newport, R.I.; and the man was John Townsend. It was thanks to Townsend . . . and to his fellow craftsman John Goddard, that furniture became the first American art to attain complete maturity.
Perhaps the best remembered was the silversmith Paul Revere. Versatile and prolific, he produced more than five thousand silver piecesâmuch of it, like tableware or buckles, for citizens of middling means. In creating his classic âSons of Liberty Bowlâ he formed an icon celebrating resistance to the Royal Governorâs demands in 1768. It also established a new American style of silver. In one piece, it may well be our
historyâs most politically charged silver object; as the simple, classic âRevere Bowl,â as it is often called, it is also our most enduring.
TIMBERLINE LODGE
A living reminder of the Depression era is the crown jewel of the WPA, which can be found midway to the summit of Mount Hood, outside Portland, Oregon: the Timberline Lodge. Film aficionados will recognize its exterior, at times haunting and brooding, as the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrickâs epic horror movie The Shining. Inside and out, the lodge is an awe-inspiring place for all who visit and an homage to the crafts of the Pacific Northwest and the people who practiced them, from woodcarvers and stone masons to blacksmiths and needlecraft artists.
In a proposed report to Congress on the value of the WPA/FAP, aptly called Art for the Millions, one of the scores of anonymous writers from the Federal Writersâ Project made clear Timberlineâs lasting legacy:
Like the mountain upon which it is built, Timberline Lodge is symbolic of many things not seen in the timber and stone which make it. . . . (T)he building exemplifies a progressive social program which has revived dormant arts and pointed the way for their perpetuation. It presents concretely the evidence that men still aspire to the dream, often secret but always universal, of becoming greater than themselves through association with others in a common purpose.
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WOMEN AS LEADERS IN AMERICAN CRAFT
Just as women have been at the forefront as artists and entrepreneurs, they have been pivotal in establishing and nurturing organizations that support craft artists and foster appreciation of their work. Over one hundred years ago the photographer Sarah Choate Sears and the designer Sarah Wyman Whitman were prominent Bostonians who supported the 1897 establishment of Bostonâs Society of Arts and Crafts, making it Americaâs oldest nonprofit craft organization.
A common thread emerged in the 1920s and 1930s as craft was seen as an economic engine that could drive self-sufficiency among victims of hard times, led by the efforts of Lucy Morgan in Appalachia.
Less well known was Mary Hill Coolidge, a Bostonian who summered in Sandwich, New Hampshire, and formed Sandwich Home Industries in 1926 as a means of encouraging rural handicrafts and helping their makers earn additional income. As the Depression deepened, and the need to support craft arts statewide became apparent, she founded the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and served as its first president.
In Portland, Oregon, Lydia Herrick Hodge led a dynamic group of volunteers, including Katherine Macnab, in establishing the Oregon Ceramic Studio. A philanthropist, teacher, and activist, Hodge directed the studio from its inception in 1937 until her death in 1960. From the outset, its mission was to complement the education programs at institutions like the Portland Arts and Crafts Society. Here, artists would have a venue to show their work for sale. At the studioâs first exhibition in 1939, she purchased a yellow crackle-glaze bowl by the ceramist Glen Lukens that became the first piece in the collection of what has become Portlandâs Museum of Contemporary Crafts, a beacon of the Northwest aesthetic of natural materials.
The museum board voted to move from its original location to a 15,000-square-foot facility in Portlandâs art-centric Pearl District, reopening in 2007 as the Museum of Contemporary Craft.
More than merely a place to showcase established and emerging artists, the Museum of Contemporary Craft connects with the community to expand the audience for craft through workshops tailored to adults, children, and families.
But the grandest of the grand dames of craft was Aileen Osborn Webb. In just four decades she founded the largest craft organization in the nation; established the first museum dedicated to American craft; opened a retail shopâAmerica Houseâoffering artistsâ work; and edited a journal that continues today. Then, too, she helped establish the School of American Craftsmen, now at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and organized a 1957 international conference of craft artists at Asilomar, California, which announced the studio crafts movement to the world.
These three dynamic women put their substantial personal resources as well as their time into craft, and are largely responsible for todayâs acceptanceâand accessibilityâof craft. Our debt to them is far-reaching. Todayâs craft organizationsâlocal, regional, national, even global through the Internetâowe their genesis to these Founding Mothersâ foresight and passion.
Since then, women curators and show directors, like Eudorah Moore and her annual California Design exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum of Art in the 1960s and 1970s, have furthered their influence. By introducing a jury system, handsome catalogs, and promotional efforts that included coverage in national magazinesâshe heightened interest and raised the bar.
The importance of these shows cannot be underestimated; at the time, artists had few other ways to reach out to their fellow craftsmen or to find an appreciative audience for their work. As traveling exhibitions crisscrossed the country, they brought tangible evidence of advancements in the field and stimulated new bursts of creative activity wherever they appeared. The wealth of visual information and global networking that characterize the field today belies the fact that between the 1930s and 1950s books were chiefly limited to manuals, few periodicals existed aside from Aileen Osborn Webbâs Craft Horizons (now American Craft), and few organizations aside from her American Craft Council existed for the purpose of fostering a community of craftsmen.
Webb and her fellow craft advocates changed the landscape. They knew that if people could have a better understanding of handmade objects and more access to them, crafts could have an influence on mass-produced design. They also felt that craft could improve not only the lives of those who did the work but also the lives of those who enjoyed their products.
COMMUNITIES OF CULTURE
Craft and community have always been inseparable. America is a nation of diverse cultures and each has given rise to distinctive crafts. Although America has been referred to as a melting pot of cultures, it might be more vividly described as a woven tapestry, the âthreads [brought] from around the world . . . Having these threads come together, coalesce, [is] what has created the fabric of our nation, not a traditional fabric, but something different, something uniquely American.â1
In Americaâs past, the links between communities and the crafts they produced are not all the same: For some, crafts are part of religious practices or are expressions of philosophical ideals; for others, crafts are rooted in heritage and reverence for the handmade or, in the case of established craft communities, in craft making itself. Members of religious communities such as the Shakers, Quakers, Amish, and Mennonites have added their design aesthetic and handwork to the structure of American crafts. They have created craft traditions that are strong, essential, elevating, and, by now, recognized as distinctly American. The early-twentieth century Arts and Crafts communities and related utopian societies that championed the moral superiority of the handmade and the integration of art into daily life have also added to the American aesthetic landscape and have left their stylistic imprint on the crafts.
American Indians from the plains, the plateaus, and the pueblos have passed on their own creationist cultures through the oral tradition of storytelling, reflected in the symbolism and representation of their physical crafts, from pottery to painting to beadwork. In the twenty-first century, the legends, mysteries, and messages remain constant, interpreted anew by the latest generation of the same communities.
Countless immigrants, ĂŠmigrĂŠs, and displaced African-Americans have given us a rich tradition of craft that lives on as decorative art in our homes and wearable art on our bodies. The work of furniture makers, carvers, glassblowers, and potters who evolved a very American style from their homeland heritages pays homage to the skills and styles of their forbearers.
The abundance of community is infinite and may also be found among teachers, students, and schools throughout the country, from the traditions of the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina to the arts and crafts curricula developed at the California College of the Arts in northern California, from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan to Berea College in Kentucky, where the students work their way through college in the craft shops. This is craft as communal family tree: Skills take root in the rich soil of the campus and are carried out by each and every student who passes through its gates.
The exploration of the many communities of craft reveals the origins and substance of our artistic identityâelucidating who we are as a people and highlighting the objects we craft by hand to give meaning to our lives and experiences.
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THE HONORING OF THE HANDMADE
THE SHAKER SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA
Sometimes beautiful handcrafted objects come from surprising, unexpected sources. This is certainly the case with the exemplary furnishings and household goods created by the skilled hands of Shakers. Although they were a religious community and not affiliated with any craft society or guild, the Shakers, believing in the inherent beauty, utility, and spiritual transcendence of objects made by hand, were inspired to create superbly designed and crafted items.
Formally named the United Society of Believers in Christâs Second Appearing, the Shakers were a religious sect founded in the eighteenth century by the mystic Ann Lee, a humble textile-mill worker from Manchester, England.1 The âShaking Quakersâ were persecuted for their outspoken and demonstrative style of worship: Shaker Believers expressed their fervor at worship services through shouting, singing, and ecstatic dancingâagitated shaking, swirling, and leapingâ practices that were regarded as acts of profanity by the leaders of traditional Anglican religions. âMother Ann,â as she was called by her followers, received a vision from God instructing her to lead a ministry of Believers into the New Worldâto Americaâwhere they would be free from religious persecution.
She and eight devoted followers emigrated to America in 1774 and established the first Shaker settlement in upstate New York, in Watervliet, on a piece of wilderness land near Albany. By 1840, at the peak of their membership, there were nearly six thousand Shaker Brothers and Sisters living and working together in nineteen official communities, scattered from Maine to Kentucky. The furniture and products the Shakers created for their community needs were spare and beautiful, intelligently designed, well constructed, and sturdy.
Although their communities were governed by religious doctrines, not design principles, the Shakers nevertheless created craft communities where useful, high-quality goods with a sophisticated design sensibility were made for their own consumption and for sale to others in âThe World,â that is, beyond the borders of their own communities. Today, Shaker objects have become classic examples of functionalist design and virtuosic craftsmanship, appreciated by collectors for their honest, graceful style and superior workmanship. These inspired, handcrafted furnishings and commodities are one of the bequests of Shakerism and can be best understood in the context of this sectâs history, framed by the religious beliefs and spirituality that motivated their production and shaped their aesthetics.
ESSENTIAL SHAKER BELIEFS
The basic tenets that directed the Shakersâ way of life were beliefs in communal living, celibacy, confession of sin, pacifism, gender equality, and hard labor. Their guiding principle was simplicity in all matters pertaining to material, temporal, and spiritual life. The âsimple life,â according to Mother Annâs teaching, meant giving up marriage, private property, and personal desire for the common welfare of the community. Believers would attain true selflessness and eternal redemption by following these Shaker doctrines.
As communitarians, the Shakers set themselves apart. They shunned extraneous ornament and adornment in their surroundings, furnishings, and personal dress; they required neatness, order, uniformity, and utility; and they upheld a strict work ethic that demanded industrious, conscientious effort. Laziness, slovenly behavior, and inferior work were not to be tolerated. Reflecting their belief that work was an act of worship, all forms of work, from the most menial and manual to the most skilled and sophisticated, were to be performed with care and a commitment to perfection. âPut your hands to work, and your hearts to God, and a blessing will attend youâ was one of Mother Annâs âwisdomsâ and was a bedrock principle of the sect. When Eldress Bertha Lindsay of Canterbury, New Hampshire, declared, âYou donât have to get down on your knees to say a prayer,â she was affirming the Shakersâ beliefs that work and worship were inseparable and that honest hard work, done well, was a spiritual offering.2 In Mother Annâs own words: âLabor to Feel the Life of God in your soul; labor to make the way of God your own; let it be your inheritance, your treasure, your occupation, your daily calling. Labor to God for your own soul as though there were no other soul on earth.â3
THE END OF THE SHAKER FAMILY TREE
The Shakersâ monastic and communitarian way of life has existed for more than two hundred years, but the number of Shaker Believers and their religious communities has been diminishing since the mid-nineteenth century. Community buildings that formerly comprised Shaker villages were sold or converted to historical properties after the last member living in the settlement died. Today only one Shaker community remainsâa farm and village at Sabbathday Lake, Maineâand fewer than a handful of Believers are living there. However, the lure of the Shaker way of life still attracts âinquirersâ at the Sabbathday Lake community where visitors numbering from thirty to fifty attend Shaker public meetings during the summer months.4 It is unknown whether Shakerism as a theology will endure beyond the passing of the last Believer residing at the Maine community. What can be conjectured, with some certainty, is that the sensibility that was informed by, and responsive to, their physical environment will live on. Shakerism resonates in contemporary culture through the recordings of their songs and hymnsâthe sacred hymn âThe Gift to Be Simpleâ was popularized by celebrated composer Aaron Coplandâthrough their colorful and compelling âgiftâ or âspiritâ drawings, visions documented by Believers such as the well-known Tree of Life drawings, which have served as inspiration to generations of artists, and through their purposeful and beautiful crafts.
SHAKER FURNITURE AS AN ENDURING LEGACY
The Shakersâ legacy, their traditions and values, can be seen in the fine craftsmanship and the distinctive designs of their furniture, woodenware, baskets, and textiles. All their furnishings and household goods were made according to the Shaker precepts that governed every aspect of their lives: simplicity, utility, order, permanence, versatility, clean lines, and unadorned surfaces. Perhaps the most iconic Shaker objects are the slat-back or ladder-back chairs: the side chairs and rockers that were made by the thousands for Believers in every settlement and produced in great variety for sale in Shaker village stores and catalogs to this day.
Shaker craftsmen brought to their communities the skills they had acquired in The World before they converted, and they carried with them the knowledge of worldly styles. In general, Shaker furniture is remarkable not for its originality but for its elegance and refined simplicity.
Shaker ladder-back chairs are based on the vernacular New England side chairs and rockers that were popular in the early 1800s, but they reveal notable refinements of formâa composed, quiet grace in their straightforward design, balanced proportions, and delicate profilesâthat set them apart from their lumbering ancestors. The chairs are angled back at a slant to provide greater support and comfortable seating; they are light and easily moved from room to room as necessitated by community activities; they can be hung on pegboards when not in use. Many were constructed with woven-tape seats, a Shaker advancement that made them more resilient, durable, and attractive, the tape offering a variety of colors and patternsâcheckerboard, herringbone, and basket weave. Other materials used for seat construction included rush, splint, leather, plank, and cane. Entirely distinctive, and unique to the side chairs, were the âtilterâ feet, attached to the back posts to allow the sitter to tilt back in the chair without toppling over and helped to prevent damage to the wood flooring.
The aesthetic impression of the Shaker ladder-back has strongly influenced chair design for the past two centuries. Its form and concept are continually being reworked and reinvented by modern furniture makers, who borrow from the store of Shaker style.
By merging key elements of Shaker design with their own vision, contemporary makers evoke the purity, simplicity, and utility of Shaker objects and reference the plain living and spiritual lifestyle of the Shakers, while adding their personal stamp of creative expression and artistry. What results is not so much a hybrid as an adaptation: a new look at a timeless form that is inflected by history but succeeds in making a statement of its own time and place, often poignantly commenting on ideas that have currency in American contemporary culture.
âTHAT WHICH IN ITSELF HAS THE HIGHEST USE, POSSESSES THE GREATEST BEAUTYâ
The most direct application of the Shaker conviction that âutility is beautyâ is seen in the eminently rational designs of their everyday containers and utensils. Shaker baskets, wooden boxes, and buckets are ineffably simple and practical, yet they show a cultivated sensitivity to proportion, balance, line, color, texture, and volumeâthe formal qualities that generally define sculpture. These beautiful, useful, and bold objects own their beauty naturally, their decorative elements imbuing them with sensate qualities that are intrinsic to their design. Shaker baskets, woven in open or tight ornamental weaves depending on function, delight the eye that beholds them; oval boxes, with their repeating pattern of swallow-tail joints and perfectly aligned copper tacks, seduce the hand that holds them; and buckets, in a spectrum of colors and shapes, display precisionist attention to detailâthe firm anchoring and proper arc of the handle, the exact fit of the lid, and the delicate banding. As the Shaker saying goes: âTrifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.â5
INTERWOVEN WITH THEIR BELIEFS: THE MAKING OF SHAKER TEXTILES
The Shakersâ reverence for the integrity of craftsmanship, the value of the handmade, and the necessity for order and uniformity are demonstrated in the textiles they produced. Sisters in every settlement were occupied in making the vast array of textiles necessary to supply the community. They prepared home-dyed yarn and cloth; cut and constructed clothing; made textiles for domestic use such as coverlets, sheets, woolen blankets, linen towels, tapes for chair seats, and rugsâbraided, hooked, crocheted, and knitted; they wove neckerchiefs of wool, cotton, and silk, bonnets of palm leaf and poplar cloth, and warm, woolen cloaks that were part of the Sistersâ uniform ensembles and, when made more elaborately, sold to women âoutside.â
Shaker textiles are recognized today for their consummate refinement. The workmanship, from the homespun thread to the expert weaving and sewing, was exemplary. Although the Sisters used conventional loom patterns in their clothâplain, âdiaper,â goose-eye, huckaback, Mâs and Oâsâthey made subtle variations in the weave pattern and added sections of colors to the weft and warp threads, making their woven goods both distinctive and desirable. Characteristic of Shaker household textiles are their restrained, orderly patternsâdelicate stripes and lattice designsâfinely woven in two colors, most often white with blue.
The common use of the color blue may have been as much practical as aesthetic: Blue was a regularly used dye at many of the Shaker Villages, and âthousands of yards of clothâ were dyed and woven annually by Sisters to supply the community and the marketplace. This nearly mass-production approach was economical and resulted in consistency and samenessâall attributes coveted by the Shakers.6
STRIVING FOR THE HEAVENLY IDEAL
As many historians have noted, the Shakers were not as aesthetically severe as they are often portrayed, and their world was neither colorless nor completely stripped of decorative appeal. The handcrafting of beautiful objects and environments reaffirmed their deeply held conviction that heavenâa spiritual place of purity, simplicity, and intrinsic beautyâcould be built on earth. This Shaker Hymn from Mount Lebanon, New York, written in 1884 well illustrates the concept:
My heavenly home is here,
No longer need I wait
To cross the foaming river,
Or pass the pearly gate;
Iâve angels all around me,
With kindness they surround me,
To a glorious cause theyâve bound me,
And my heavenly home is here.7
Beauty, too, was part of the âheavenly idealâ that the Believers sought in their villages through their architecture, gardens, interiors, handmade furnishings, and everyday objects. âDonât make something if itâs not useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, donât hesitate to make it beautiful, as long as the decorative elements are an inherent part of the design and donât interfere with function.â8 This philosophy pervades all things Shaker and foreshadows the principle expressed as âForm follows functionâ advocated later by leaders of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
CRAFTS AND SHARED BELIEFS: THE QUAKERS, ANABAPTISTS, AND INSPIRATIONISTS
Many of the cardinal principles upon which Shakerism was founded were shared by other religious sects that settled in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Condemned at home as heretics for holding radical beliefs, the persecuted congregants began migrating from England and Continental Europe to America in the mid-1700s.
The constituents of the Religious Society of Friends (known informally as Quakers) and the disciples of the Amish (also known as Anabaptists, meaning ârebaptizersâ) made up the first wave of immigrants. Initially, they settled in and around Pennsylvania, the Quakers homesteading in the Delaware Valley and most of the Amish settling in Pennsylvaniaâs Lancaster Countyâstill one of the most notable Amish communities today. By the turn of the nineteenth century, large numbers of Quakers and Amish were moving westward to establish communities in Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio.
About one hundred years later, the Quaker and Amish were followed by the Mennonites and adherents of the Community of True Inspiration, the Inspirationists. The predominately Swiss-German Mennonites (a splinter group of Anabaptists known as âPlain Peopleâ) first settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1863 and then moved as far west as the plains of Iowa and Illinois. The Inspirationists, also of Swiss-German origin, first settled in upstate New York, near Buffalo, in the early 1840s, and then moved to the much less populated Iowa River Valley, where in 1855 they established the Amana Colonies, a collection of seven separate communalist villages.
For more than 150 years, members of the American Quaker, Amish, and Mennonite communities have variously built religious meetinghouses and community dwellings in the simple, unadorned style characteristic of Shaker settlements, and the women have woven fabric and constructed garments, handsome hand-embroidered samplers, and designed, pieced, and stitched remarkably fine quilts, for which they have become renowned. Committed to communal living and accomplished in the traditional arts of weaving and quilting, basket making, woodworking, and blacksmithing, the Inspirationists built their villages by hand on the rural Iowa land they purchased to accommodate their twelve hundred believers, each village comprising between forty and one hundred buildings.
THE WORSHIPFUL WORK OF THE HAND: AMANA COMMUNITY CRAFTS
The Community of True Inspiration was a religious sect founded in Germany in 1714. Fleeing persecution, its members converged in the liberal province of Hesse.
By 1842, persecution had worsened, and the communityâs spiritual leader, Christian Metz, prophesied that the community should immigrate to North America. Metz said the Lord had told him, âYour goal and your way shall lead towards the west to the land which still is open to you and your faith.â9 Some sailed that fall and established two villages in Canada and four at Ebenezer, near Buffalo, New York, on a 5,000-acre tract of the former Seneca Indian Reservation.
Within a few yearsâ time, the Inspirationists had outgrown the land, and Metz received a second message from the Lord, telling him to again move farther west. This time, members settled in Iowaâs fertile River Valley in 1854 and built a larger community with seven villages on 26,000 acres.
Most of the Inspirationists who had come to America were of the artisan and peasant classes, which prepared them for the tremendous work of building entire villages from the ground up. The planning and architecture of their communities reflected their beliefs in simplicity, equality, and uniformity.10 The new Iowa commune adopted the biblical name Amana, meaning âbelieve faithfully.â11
In their new American community, domestic interiors were simple, although far more comfortable and colorful than those of other religious communities, such as the Shakers. The silhouettes were similar to their European counterparts but construction was simplified and with little ornament.
Although isolated in their community, the Amana did subscribe to several newspapers and trade journals, so contemporary design and ideas did, to a certain extent, enter their world. Church interiors, however, remained spartan, in a traditionally Germanic way. The plain pine benches, some over 20 feet long, were joined with wood pegs for easy disassembly.12
The Amana were able to produce nearly everything they needed. Cabinetmakers made not only furnishings but also wheelbarrows for the fields and spoons and other utensils for the communal kitchens. Blacksmiths made everything from machinery to crochet hooks.13 Yet of the many crafts they produced, baskets and textiles especially embody the communityâs spirit.
Craftsmen made baskets of split oak and coiled grasses, but willow was the most common material, and each village planted its own willow crop with seedlings that had originated in Germany. The basket shapes were modified to suit their intended purpose: Apple-picking baskets had two handles on one side and were tied to the body, leaving both hands free; laundry baskets had hinged lids to secure the contents; and baskets used for gathering heavy crops had iron handles for extra strength. Each was given a 1-inch bottom rim that could be replaced when worn to extend the basketâs life. Weavers created pattern, color, and texture with peeled and unpeeled branches.14
Amanaâs textile arts included knitting, quilting, tatting, or lace making, and crocheting as well as hand-woven rugs. The two most significant ventures were the production of woven woolens and the calico print. The Inspirationists first made woolen materials in one of the early Germany communes. The work was so successful (and necessary, as they used it for their own garments) that they brought the equipment to Ebenezer, and then to Iowa. The Amana villagers raised thousands of sheep but imported additional wool from places as far away as Australia to meet their needs. They produced a heavy wool flannel for work clothes and winter garments and later a more refined wool for menâs suitsâthe latter was sold across the United States, especially to retailers in New York and Chicago.15 That one Amana village had a railroad station made the sometimes necessary contact with the outside world possible, and it also made Amanaâs products more easily distributed, thus making the community financially sound.16
Amanaâs calico production began much as its woolen production didâin Germany, with the equipment moved from one location to the next. Calico, a printed or painted cotton muslin imported from Calcutta, was a popular textile in Europe from the seventeenth century.17 It became a widely used textile in the United States from the early-nineteenth century, when many mills were established on the East Coast.18
Unbleached cotton muslin and twill were imported to the Amana Colonies from southern and eastern states, then dyed and printed at the factories. Printing was done in several ways: by hand with carved blocks, by roller printing, by discharge (the pattern is bleached out of dyed fabric), or by resist (the pattern is drawn on with a dye-resistant paste that is then washed away to reveal the pattern after the fabric has been dyed). The patterns were usually white on a blue, brown, or black ground with a small geometric design, stylized flowers, or narrow stripes.
Thousands of designs were created, all of them by Amana members. Like the woolen flannel, the calico was first produced for their own use, as it was appropriate for their plain dress. Soon, however, they saw the opportunity to cultivate a larger market and produced sample catalogs and traveling salesmen who went from New York to California. At its height in the early 1890s, the Amana factory was producing 4,500 yards of material a day and grossing enough income to support all seven villages.19
In 1932, Amana society members voted to end communalism and establish a joint stock corporation to run the economic aspects of the villages, with a church society to oversee the spiritual components. The restructuring, coupled with the hardships of the Great Depression, forced the corporation to close many of the crafts shops to concentrate on the production of more profitable items, such as furniture and baked goods.
In 1934, a young Amana member named George Foerstner responded to an Iowa businessmanâs challenge to build a beverage cooler. Foerstner did just that, employing the talents of his community of craftsmen. This led to Amana Refrigeration, which grew into one of the largest appliance companies in America, with its humble beginnings in the former wool factory.20
By the mid-twentieth century the postâWorld War II studio crafts movement was gaining importance in the overall discussion of American art and beginning a reexamination ofâand appreciation forâAmerican crafts. In 1965, the Amana Colonies were designated a National Historic Landmark.
With a renewed sense of pride and industryâand tourismâmany of the old Amana crafts were revived. In 1968, a group of Amana members established the Amana Heritage Society in order to preserve the history and experiences of the Community of True Inspiration.21
CRAFTS AS COMMON THREAD
There are, of course, many differences in the doctrines and practices of the Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, and Inspirationists. A common thread, and one that ties these congregations to craft making, is their shared respect for hand work. The members of all these religious societies were instructed by canon to pursue the simple life, to search for a âcertain kind of perfectionâ or spiritual self-fulfillment through honest, productive labor, to live close to the land and attain self-sufficiency, to maintain their distance from the âWorldâ and its âOutsiders,â and to follow rigorously a work code that mandated integrity and pride of workmanship.22
QUILTING: THE FABRIC OF A CULTURE
The most enduring aesthetic legacy of the Quakers, Amish, and Mennonites has been their textile arts, particularly their quilts. This is a result, in part, of the long-standing tradition and continued development of quilt making among the women of these communities, where skills and advancements have passed from mother to daughter, carrying on their commitment to excellence and superior workmanship.
Like other pioneer women of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Quaker, Amish, and Mennonite women made quilts as part of their dowries and later to provide warm bedding for their families. But they devotedly made quilts to communicate their beliefs and record family and community historiesâcommemorating significant religious events as well as births, weddings, departures, and deaths. They also made quilts for donation. Women cut, pieced, and expertly stitched outstanding quilts, which they gave to their community leaders to be sold or auctioned to Outsiders. The funds raised would be used to support the communitiesâ relief efforts in foreign missions or to provide assistance to the poor and disadvantaged at home. This is still the practice in many communities, and the Mennonite Relief Auctions in Goshen, Indiana, are recognized as a source of exceptional quilts.23
ORIGINS AND INNOVATIONS
The English brought their quilting skills to the colonies in the late 1700s and inspired their neighbors to become prolific quilters: âSoon quilting became a mix of influences: The Pennsylvania Germans, who originally would have made woven bedcovers (coverlets), became enamored of the craft, as did the Quakers and Scots-Irish Presbyterians, who were early settlers in the region. Along with the plain sects (the Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren, who adapted the techniques to their own use), other Pennsylvania German religious groups also make many quilts.â24 Making quilts from scraps and pieces of worn clothing would become an attractive activity among early settlers when resources were in short supply and the recycling of materials appealed to their cultural and religious values of frugality and thriftiness.
Innovation, resourcefulness, and imagination soon became part of the expressive vocabulary of pioneer quilters. âAmericaâs greatest contribution to quilting was developing the use of pieced work in creating quilt tops . . . English quilters had employed piecing techniques as an element in their work, but Americans were the first to organize pieced tops into blocks.â25 The pieced quilt, assembled from many small pieces of material cut into geometric shapes and sewn together in blocksâwhich are often repeatedâopened up new avenues for creative ingenuity as it provided quilters with almost limitless choices for organizing patterns. Block construction also lent itself to quilting bees, as women could gather in âbeesâ to sew blocks together, the blocks having been made entirely by a single quilter or by many quilters responsible for one or more blocks of the design.
QUILTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF CREATIVITY AND SPIRITUALITY
Quaker and Mennonite quilts, which share many characteristics derived from similar traditions, can be grouped together stylistically. Interestingly, and paradoxically, the decorative, colorful, and intricate patterns of their quilts are in marked contrast to the plainness of their households and their personal dress. Following religious guidelines, Quaker and Mennonite women avoided elaborate domestic furnishings and the wearing of âluxuriousâ clothing (fabricated of extravagant materials, in vibrant colors and prints, with cuffs and buttons and embellishments of any kindâincluding fancy topstitching, ribbons, and lace). Instead, they âshowed an increased attention to God rather than to worldly fashionsâ by choosing to dress simply, which was interpreted as a modest full-length dress of plain cut, of subdued solid colors, and devoid of trimmings or finery.26 A typical âplain dressâ ensemble from the mid-eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century included a fall-front floor-length gown (usually of a dark, somber color), a neckerchief, a light-colored shawl, a white cap, and a bonnet of dark cloth for outdoor wear. Thus clad, women identified their religious persuasion and affirmed their separateness from the outside world.
Although their religious convictions demanded austerity in their home, personal effects, and dress, the Quaker and Mennonite world was not without beauty, evidenced by their lush gardens and strikingly bold and multihued quilts. As among the Shakers, beauty was admired and cherished as one of Godâs gifts. Linda Boynton, an authority on Mennonite culture, explains this perceived contradiction:
There is no room for pride within the culture. Regulations on dress and lifestyle are in part to squelch temptations toward vanity. But the line here is delicate. In work, a job well done is imperative, yet pride in that job is not tolerated. There are few exceptions, but quilting is one of them. This is an avenue in which a woman may show off her skills unashamedly. Quilting allows her a vehicle for the expression of feelings otherwise restricted. The freedom of expression allows these women the opportunity for creativity in a world of limited options. Through quilting, utilitarian objects are elevated through imagination, enterprise and love to the status of an original art form.27
DEFINING DIFFERENCES
Roderick Kiracofe, a quilt historian, identifies the years between 1875 and 1900 as âThe Grand Epochâ of American quilt making, and notes that the emergence of the block styleâfrom the 1840s through the 1860sâlaid the foundation for this golden age. The best Quaker and Mennonite quilts are considered to be those made between 1840 and 1900.
It has been noted that Quaker and Mennonite quilts are difficult to identify by their appearance alone, partly because the women of these religious sects borrowed patterns from their âEnglishâ neighbors, and partly because the quilts were made of similar and limited materials. Close examination, however, reveals some distinctive traits: the excellence of the needlework, principally of the quilting stitches, which may amount to between eight and ten stitches per inch (rather than the five or six stitches sewn on quilts by other makers); the directness of the design and avoidance of the late-Victorian penchant for decorative excess and fussiness; the repeated use of Biblical names for patterns rather than the secular names in common use; and, unique to Quaker quilts, the incorporation in the quilt top of Chinese export and Quaker silks (somber-shaded silks the Quakers special-ordered for their âplainâ dresses), and the unusual notation of the date in the sequence of day, month, and year.28
STITCHES OF MEMORY
The album or autograph quilt (also known as the memory quilt) was the pattern type preferred by Quakers, and it enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1840s and 1850s. The design was most frequently composed of pieced and/or appliquĂŠd squares resembling the sheets of a scrapbook or family album, and the quilts were signed like the pages of an autograph book, inscribed with names of those who were near and dear, the names often accompanied by inked inscriptions of mournful and moralistic themes. These quilts provided Quaker women the means to express their hopes, beliefs, and individual storiesâpoignant documents of family and community histories that kept memories alive through a visual record long after they might otherwise have faded or been lost in the passage of time.
BOLD GRAPHICS AND DARING VISUAL EFFECTS
The Mennonites were more daring and freewheeling in their adaptation of quilting patterns and techniques. Nineteenth century Mennonite quilts are usually constructed of wool or cotton fashioned into small strips, squares, or diamonds, cut primarily from recycled suiting or printed-clothing materials. Inexpensive calico prints purchased in local stores or by mail-order catalog often supplement the mix of reclaimed materials. Mennonite quilts are characterized by their dynamic interplay of multiple materials pieced together to create vibrant patterns emboldened by lively color combinations and contrasting textures. Above all, the quilts illustrate the Mennonitesâ âability to be bold in color selection and patternânot afraid to experimentâand [to] maintain a high quality of workmanship.â29 Moreover, Mennonite pieced quilts are recognized for the artistry of their rigorously geometric designs. Consisting of small squares or diamonds arranged in patterns such as Sunshine and Shadow (Trip Around the World), Log Cabin, Philadelphia Pavement, and a variety of Star compositions, these exuberant, multicolored, complex quilts make bold, graphic statements that are commendable for their technical virtuosity, fine stitchery, and compelling visual effects.
Hand-appliquĂŠing techniques are also found in Mennonite quilts, and most appliquĂŠ designs follow a block format. AppliquĂŠ is a process by which the quilter applies and sews cut pieces of fabric to a plain white or solid-colored top to create an overall design scheme. This technique permitted more freedom in the design since the quilter was able to determine the placement of the cut-out appliquĂŠs and was not restricted by the rigorous geometry of pieced patterns. Mennonites favored the use of appliquĂŠs for designs based on patterns of repeating images that formed the central composition, and these designs were often bounded by decorative borders of scrolling floral motifs, some depicted quite abstractly.30 Old Order Mennonites maintained that quilts constructed exclusively of intricate appliquĂŠ work were indications of undue pride and vanity; because the technique is purely decorative, the production of such quilts was regarded as a âfrivolous endeavor.â Nevertheless, Mennonite women were always able to justify the elaborate needlework designs they labored over on their quilt tops as necessary and purposeful because the quilting stitches joined together the three layers of the quilt and kept the batting secure.31
THE AMISH REINVENT THE QUILT
Although the Amish came late to quilt makingâthe earliest examples of Amish quilts date from the 1860s, with very few known to have been made before the 1900sâcultural historians view these quilts as significant in the development of American textile arts; they are wholly original in their palette and patterns and ârepresent what is arguably the single most impressive body of expression in American quilting.â32 Amish quilts made between 1880 and 1940 are considered to be the most desirable for their authentic patterns, distinctive color combinations, and meticulous needlework. Some historians conjecture that the quilts are so unusual because of the Amishâs self-enforced isolation and their independence from the outside world. Effectivelyâuntil the mid-twentieth centuryâAmish women were unaware of established conventions; their quilts were made without the pressure or distraction of external opinion and custom.
Most Amish quilts were made from solid-color fabrics in basic, natural colors and earthy hues. The pieces of the quilt top were commonly sewn together by machine (foot powered, not electric), and were primarily fabricated of wool in the 1900s, of cotton in the 1920s, and of rayon and other synthetic materials in the 1940s. The quilts mirrored the colors and fabrics of their customary âplainâ dress, as dictated by their Ordnung, the set of guidelines that govern Amish life, including personal dress and belongings. Like the Quakers and Mennonites, the Amish endeavor to live simply and humbly and to eschew frivolity, pretension, and excessiveness. Because patterned and printed materials were forbidden in Old Order Amish clothingâthe sect viewed the wearing of printed-patterned fabrics as signs of vanity and prideâprinted fabrics were not used for the quilt tops either. In the past, decorative printed fabrics, if used at all, have been limited to quilt backings.33
Yet Amish quilts are far from identical. Depending on the communityâs location, vernacular traditions, relative conservatism, and the availability and selection of materials, there is much diversity to be found among Amish quilts. The largest Amish settlements in North America today include the communities of Lancaster and Mifflin Counties, Pennsylvania, in the East; and Holmes County, Ohio, and Elkhart and LaGrange Counties, Indiana, in the Midwest. Each community has historically produced distinctive quilts that reflected the particular religious practices and regional preferences.
AMISH QUILTS OF THE EASTERN AND MIDWESTERN COMMUNITIES
Traditionally, Amish women have been very skilled quilt makers, sewing between nine and eleven quilting stitches per inch rather than the average five to seven stitches per inch sewn by non-Amish quilters. The quilt makers of Lancaster County are âconsidered the most accomplishedâ among the Amish and their fine needlework can be seen in such quilting designs as feathered wreaths, diamonds, expansive eight-pointed stars, flower motifs, pinwheels, and hearts. The âclassicâ era of Lancaster County quilts spans the period from the late-nineteenth century to World War II. The quilts made then are typically of wool and have large flat planes of rich colors juxtaposed to create striking designs, resulting in compositions that are often astonishing for their daring color contrasts, tonal variations, and graphic effects. These traits are visible in the patterns identified with Lancaster County: Center Diamond (which is exclusive to this community), Center Square, Sunshine and Shadow, and Bars.34 The large, uninterrupted areas of color, frequently framed by broad outside borders, and the overall geometric abstraction of the design, demonstrate that classic Amish quilts, particularly those from Lancaster County, share compositional qualities with twentieth century painting. Jonathan Holstein, the curator of the landmark exhibition Abstract Design in American Quilts, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1971, remarked that âthe often startling resemblances between the total visual effects of some pieced quilts and some examples of modern painting are intriguing.â This exhibition was the first in a major art museum to display, assess, and appreciate quilts on a purely aesthetic level and introduced the public to the beauty and inventiveness of Amish quilt designs.
The quilts emanating from Mifflin Countyâthe other large Amish settlement in Pennsylvaniaâare the work of three different Amish communities, all named after important Amish leaders: the Nebraska Amish, who are the most conservative of the three; the Byler Amish; and the Renno or Peachey Amish. Cottons and rayons are the materials of choice for Mifflin County quilters, although wool and polyester are not uncommon. Quilts of the Nebraska Amish are generally dark and subtle in coloration, incorporating shades of brown, blue, purple, and gray in such designs as One Patch, Four Patch, Nine Patch, and Bars. These same patterns are found in the quilts of the Byler Amish, along with the Irish Chain, Jacobâs Ladder, and Tumbling Blocks, designs favored for their optical effects and complex geometric framework. Byler quilts are further identifiable by the integration of dazzling, brilliant-colored fabrics in pinks, yellows, oranges, and blues.
The Renno or Peachey Amish also use vivid colors in their designs, including pieces of bright yellow, blue, purple, and green. Their quilts are similar to midwestern Amish quilts in the use of repeating block patternsâLog Cabin, Shoofly, and Stars were apparently their favorites. Also similar are the placement of the blocks against a dark background and the frequent use of borders of black or dark blue. Midwestern Amish quilts are much like those of their Renno or Peachey brethren, repeating block constructions used against dark, solid-colored, plain backgrounds. Constructed mostly of cotton fabrics, often from vividly colored polished cottons and sateens, they are easily recognizable within the Amish quilt group as their patterns are frequently the same as their non-Amish neighbors.
Midwestern quilters often appropriated such mainstream patterns as Stars, Baskets, Bow Tie, and Log Cabin, and then modified them. Perhaps only in the Midwest can one find an Amish quilt with pastel colors. Occasionally, quilt makers of Ohio and Indiana used pastel fabrics in a repeating block format, as on a Baskets crib quilt. The softer, quieter composition is markedly different from the boldness and exuberance of archetypal Amish designs.
THE UNBROKEN CHAIN OF A TRADITIONâQUILTING INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Quilting has persisted and remained vital throughout the centuries. Remarking on the endurance of the quilt as an art form, culture historian Robert Shaw notes: âMore than any other folk craft, it has weathered and absorbed changes in fashion and continued to attract attentive practitioners to the present day.â35 Quilts provide a compelling visual history for the last two hundred years of craft imbued with the indomitable spirit and creativity of Americaâs diverse cultures. A handmade quilt unfolds its story: It communicates aesthetic diversity, complexity of workmanship, the traditions it engages and expands, and the blend of shared community values and individual artistry that has produced its design. These attributes are embedded in the quilts associated with various religious communities, and they have been carried forth into the present by those who continue the tradition, assuring that quilting retains its purpose and potency. Contemporary quilters and textile artists bring a current view to the art form and new technology, materials, and ways of thinking to the traditional techniques and perspectives of their ancestors.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE FIBER ARTIST
After World War II, university and art school programs began to teach textile history and techniques, graduating what they designated âfiber artists,â who infused quilt making with new talent and experimental daring. In this new era, the âfolk craftâ of quilting was held to the same rigorous standards of design theory, mastery of technique, innovation, and application of artistic vision found in the fields of ceramics, glass, metalworking, and furniture making. Further, another shift occurred: As veterans returned and enrolled in college using the benefits of their GI Bill, male students began to attend textile classes. Quilt making as an art form was embraced by both men and women.
Michael James and Arturo Alonzo Sandoval are exemplary representatives of this first generation of male artists who reinterpret the quilt as a canvas for contemporary expression, and Wendy Huhn represents a new movement among younger women who become quilters to use the the quilt format as an interchange between material and meaning. Traditional and nontraditional fabrics and techniques of printing, cutting, piecing, layering, and stitching the quilt are used to create a âtextile painting,â a veritable pictographic wall hanging that is no longer tied to the customary functions of the quilt as only a warm and comfortable bed covering.
Artists like them, and many others who have pushed the boundaries of this medium, are expanding the meaning and implication of âquilt.â In their hands quilting has become an interwoven dialogue of folk, craft, and fine arts traditions, articulating a new language that will be learned, mastered, exploited, and expounded by successive generations of textile artists.
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NEW EXPRESSIONS, OLD FORMS: SHAKER CHAIRS ARE REINVENTED
Many contemporary furniture makers have been inspired to create new chair forms by recalling traditional Shaker ladder-backs in their designs. Leon Rasmeierâs Old Rocker combines the essential style elements of the historic Shaker rocker it reflects, but the artist has made the chair a product of its time by using the contemporary materials of bent plywood for the frame and red-colored plastic for the runners. The Shaker ladder-back was also used as source material and point of departure in the whimsical chairs designed by Jon Brooks and Garry Knox Bennett. Brooks amusingly elongates the back of his chair to an impossible length, and one wonders if his design is a playful reference to an actual Shaker ladder, such as the one shown here, used for apple picking. Bennett wittily constructs the ladder-back of his chair to mimic a modern-day ladder, although presented here in smaller scale. Bennett further complicates the chair by incorporating the seemingly real ladder of the ladder-back with a Z profile, the overall design of which mirrors the famous modernist Zig Zag Chair by Gerrit Rietveldâa clever combining of art historical references, indeed.
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EAST MEETS WEST: THE JAPANESE-SHAKER FURNITURE OF GEORGE NAKASHIMA
In his contemporary designs, George Nakashima, the Japanese-American architect, furniture maker, and master craftsman, embraced the Shaker aesthetic of simplicity, harmony, fitness for purpose, and reverence for the natural beauty of wood.
Nakashima often described his furniture as âJapanese-Shaker,â and, referring to the deliberate reductivism, clarity of design, and emphasis on evident handwork, commented that, for him, âfunction and beauty and minimalism of line are the main goals in the construction of a chair.â Moreover, Nakashima believed, like the Shakers, that a manâs life and work should be integrated and not separated; he maintained the holistic view that living life through work was âa way of beingâ that nurtured the spirit.
Nakashima, trained as an architect and furniture designer, honed his woodworking skills while incarcerated in an internment camp in the Idaho desert during World War II. He produced many functional furniture forms, particularly benches, during his long life.
Stylistically, Nakashimaâs spindle-back bench (1960) is a direct descendant of the meetinghouse bench made by Shaker craftsmen more than a century earlier. Shakers produced these long spindle-back benches to be used in their meetinghouses, their places of worship, as pews, with the added requirements that the benches be light in weight and portable. The spindles are delicately hand turned and slightly canted back for comfort. The legs and stretchers are austerely slimmed to economize on material and underscore the minimalist profile. These features impart a regularity of line, rhythm, ethereal lightness, and natural grace to the design.
Nakashimaâs contemporary spindle-back bench mirrors all of these qualities and expresses his innovations: the width of the crest rail is thinner and more fluid; and the stretcher support is eliminated, resulting in a cleaner design with more physical and visual space beneath the seat.
In Nakashimaâs second-generation benches, the Conoid series, there is a perceptible change. Here one sees a deft blending of Shaker tradition with Nakashimaâs own signature. The conventional right-angled, modestly proportioned bench seat has been reconfigured as an organic, monolithic freeform plank of beautifully figured wood. Some seats retain natural edges; some retain inherent imperfections.
Nakashima carefully chose each slab of wood and precisely cut, sanded, and finished it by hand. This massive, freely contoured bench seat of polished walnut, from which the spindle-back lithely rises, exalts the raw beauty and physical power of the wood. Each Conoid Bench is a testament to the unique partnership between woodworker and tree, and underscores Nakashimaâs deep reverence for nature, as stated in his writings: âIt is an art- and soul-satisfying adventure to walk the forests of the world, to commune with trees . . . To bring this living material to the work bench, ultimately to give it a second life.â
Mira Nakashima, who attended Harvard University and received a masterâs degree in architecture from Waseda University in Tokyo, worked for many years with her father as a colleague and designer in his workshop. Since his death in 1990, she has been the creative director of the Nakashima studio, where she continues to produce her fatherâs classic furniture designs and to design and produce her own work as well.
THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICA, 1890 – 1930
The roots of contemporary craft lie in the Arts and Crafts movement, which emerged as a social and artistic response to the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution. The first people to express these ideas lived in mid-nineteenth century Englandâthe most industrialized country in the modern world. Rapid, unregulated mechanization had forced workers into overcrowded, polluted cities, where many lived in squalor and were exploited in dangerous working conditions. Critics alleged that industrialization made workers into wage slaves and tenement dwellers, lowered the standards of design and workmanship, and diminished the quality of life by destroying human dignity and creativity.
Reformers, among them John Ruskin and William Morris, sought to revive a better, preindustrial world in which factories were banished and the necessities of the simple life were produced in conditions that would restore harmony and beauty to daily life.
A CRY FOR REFORM
In their antipathy toward the factory, the proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement saw the arts and crafts as instruments for social change. The movement was based on the belief that a return to handmade objects and to âthe simple lifeââan emulation of the lifestyle of the craftsmanâwould provide an antidote to the ills inflicted on society by modern life. The movement took root both philosophically and aesthetically in England, spread through continental Europe, and crossed the Atlantic in the early 1890s. In America the movement permeated the visual arts and architecture and effected sweeping changes in domestic life. Its philosophy, ideals, and doctrines have left a stylistic imprint on the design and making of crafts and provided the standards against which the quality and worth of handcrafted objects are judged today.
THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MANIFESTO
The essential tenets of the movement were conceived and developed as early as the 1850s by John Ruskin, an art critic and professor at Oxford University. Ruskin preached spiritual transcendence through harmony with nature and believed that the unity of heart, hand, and mind in the practice of traditional crafts was the best way in which to live a full and vital life. William Morris, a theology student at Oxford, became Ruskinâs passionate disciple and, in essays on the virtues of crafts and the life of the craftsman, expanded on his precepts. Both men aspired to reform not only the appearance of useful art objectsâthose that were variously known as the decorative arts, the applied arts, and the craftsâbut also the processes by which these objects were made, the environment of their making, and the way in which they were taught, thought about, exhibited, and discussed. The teaching of art, they felt, had been corrupted since the Renaissance by elitist academies that had created artificial, hierarchical distinctions between the high arts of painting and sculpture and the applied arts.
Further, they held that mechanized industry generated poorly designed objects of substandard workmanship and in an environment that reduced the factory worker to a machine, thus debasing both product and maker. Factories adopted economies of scale that imposed an onerous division between intellectual and physical labor in the workforce. Assembly lines increased the speed of production and profits, but they also separated the craft from the craftsman: No longer did one individual control the making of an object from its inception to its realization.
Declaring that handmade objects were not only qualitatively better but also morally superior, the advocates of the Arts and Crafts movement promoted an ideal system in which designer and maker were one and the same. In 1882, in an impassioned address entitled âThe Lesser Arts of Life,â Morris stated that craft provided a crucial link to human creativity. He chastised English society for brutalizing the crafts and âcutting them off from the intellectual part of us . . . making us more dependent on one another, destroying individuality, which is the breath of life to art.â1
FERTILE GROUND FOR REFORM
As in England, industrialization had changed the face of late-nineteenth century America:
Urbanization, immigration, and the factory system seemed responsible to many for destroying community, undermining the work ethic, destabilizing the family, and replacing the purity and godliness of the past with greed and commercialism. The rise of giant corporations and the nationalization of business and intellectual life also seemed destined to crush the individual, leaving him or her a cog in the machine of progress.2
Following the example of Ruskin and Morris, American reformers supported the concept of the craftsman societyâa place of âbrotherhood and beautyââand found models to emulate in Ruskinâs utopian community, the Guild of St. George, and in Morrisâs eponymous and successful workshops.
LABOR REFORM AND THE MORAL CODE
According to Arts and Crafts philosophy, the craftsmanâs workshop embodied the most humanistic alliance among workers, modes of production, and products. In the model workshop, individuality and creativity could be nurtured in a small, decentralized setting, close to nature and in a healthy environment, all conditions that were to be entirely different from the âfactory system, surrounded with its filth, bad ventilation, and unwholesome influences.â3 Artists could control not only the design but also the methods of production and the aesthetic determination of the final product. Working cooperatively, they would enjoy the fruits of their labors equitably through profit sharing or communal land ownership. Morrisâs maxims, âHave nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautifulâ and âArt is the expression of manâs pleasure in labour,â became the movementâs touchstones.4
MORRIS & CO.: ARTS AND CRAFTS AS BUSINESS
It was William Morris who most successfully applied the movementâs theory of ethical art into business practice. In 1861, he established the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. (restructured as Morris & Co. in 1875), organizing it as a collaborative enterprise of designers, craftsmen, painters, and architects who worked together on the design and making of furniture, textiles, stained glass, and tiles. Morrisâs workshop-based firm produced quality goods and offered a viable alternative to the factory production system. Furthermore, mingling the talents of fine and decorative artists raised the status of the applied arts.
GUILD AND SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT: A MEDIEVAL REVIVAL
Less practical but equally influential was the craft theorist Charles Robert Ashbee (1863â1942). Following his graduation from Kingâs College in Cambridge, where he had read Ruskin and Morris, Ashbee moved to London to work as an architect. His evenings were spent in the poor Whitechapel section of the city, where he worked at Toynbee Hall, the first university settlement in England, created for Oxford and Cambridge students to better understand and improve the lives of the poor. In 1886, Ashbee offered to teach a course on Ruskinâs writings. A year later, after a class discussion about the dignity of manual work, the class decided to do something about itâand resolved to decorate the dining room of Toynbee Hall. The success of this enterprise gave Ashbee the idea of establishing a school for the settlement house, and in 1887 he founded the School and Guild of Handicraft with the intention of providing training and craft production side by side (the Guild of Handicraft was started a year later). In 1902, in an effort to distance the school from the pressures of London, Ashbee relocated it from the city to western England. In the Cotswolds, in the town of Chipping Campden, he formed eight separate workshops that specialized in wrought iron, silver, furniture, printed books, and other crafts.
Among the many Americans who were impressed by visits to Ashbee and his workshops in both locations were Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House in Chicago; Ernest A. Batchelder, an influential teacher, writer, and tile maker; and H. Langford Warren, a professor of architecture at Harvard University and a founder of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston. Financial difficulties forced the guild to close after about six years, but by this time it had received much good press, and Ashbee had made a few influential speaking trips to America, during which he spread the word about his activities.
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT COMES TO AMERICA
Americans who wanted to take part in the reforming efforts did so in a multitude of ways. Elbert Hubbard (1856â1915), a successful soap salesman, visited Morrisâs workshops, and Gustav Stickley furniture workshops, commercial ventures based on Arts and Crafts aesthetics and some of its principles. Two utopian communities, Byrdcliffe in New York and Rose Valley in Pennsylvania, attempted a more idealistic approach, with mixed results. In each case, the craftsman was allotted a lesser or greater degree of involvement, credit, and compensation, depending upon the goals of these enterprises. All, however, shared a commitment to good design and craftsmanship.
ROYCROFT AND THE POPULARIZATION OF THE CRAFT IDEAL
While traveling abroad Elbert Hubbard was so inspired by Merton Abbey and the Kelmscott Press, where William Morris produced richly printed books using type of his own design, that he began a periodical, The Philistine, through which, with a mixture of humor and common sense, Hubbard popularized the craftsman ideal to a broad audience. With a never-ending stream of articles, books, and sayings that poked fun at the stuffy side of human nature, Hubbard adapted the ideas of Ruskin and Morris for the American middle class.
It was not long before Hubbardâs operation expanded with the establishment of the Roycroft Community in East Aurora, New York, and the production of furniture, metalwork, and leather goods. An inn was built to receive celebrities and the many admirers of âFra Elbertus,â Hubbardâs name for himself, an allusion to the ostensible medieval roots of his enterprise. This reference to brotherhood notwithstanding, Hubbard was above all a businessman, and he held the economic and social reins of his community firmly in hand while acting as a paternalistic and even enlightened employer. His commercial success can be measured by the circulation figures for The Philistineâmore than 100,000 copies were apparently sold each monthâand by the size of his operation: Four hundred workers are said to have been in his employ by 1906.
The medievalism implied by some of Hubbardâs rhetoric and his adoption of the Roycroft symbol was little more than symbolic. Working conditions at Roycroft were healthy but were marred by the intrusion of assembly-line work and mechanized operations. Hubbard offered a menu of cultural and sports activities to his staff but maintained a distance between workers and management. As a âsocial and industrial experiment,â Roycroft fell short of the mark although it did continue until 1938, many years after the death of the founder in 1915.
STICKLEY FURNITURE: ADAPTING THE IDEAL FOR COMMERCE
Another American proselytizer of the Arts and Crafts movement, Gustav Stickley, began as a furniture designer and maker. He and his younger brothers, Albert, Charles, Leopold, and John George, worked together and separately over the years in a variety of furnituremaking partnerships.
In 1901, he founded a periodical, The Craftsman, which was a promotional vehicle for his company and a guide to developments in the Arts and Crafts field. His first issue was on the life and writings of Morris and the second was devoted to Ruskin. The magazine provided crafts projects for the aspiring artist and articles on craft workshops and communities, Native American crafts, and European folk art.
The next year, he began to produce unadorned, rectilinear furniture that constituted a radical break with the historicized Victorian furniture that he and most American manufacturers had produced. His furniture was admired for its materials and finish but criticized for being overly large and heavy. Stickley defended it, alluding to Ruskin when he wrote, âIt is true that our severe and simple style now errs upon the side of crudeness. But it suggests vital force in progress.â5
In 1902 and 1903, Stickley traveled to London to attend the seventh exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, and there he met the English architect and designer C. F. A. Voysey, among others. In London he found works that echoed his own aesthetic and confirmed his belief that he was on the right path in making this new kind of plain, well-made furniture.
Beginning in 1904, Stickley began to produce furniture in a profit-sharing enterprise that he named United Crafts. However, rapid growth and poor bookkeeping led him to abandon this approach and reorganize the company along more traditional business lines, as Craftsman Workshops.
His furniture was recognizable by its plain, sturdy shapes, exposed oak joinery, and unadorned leather upholstery. Although called Mission furniture, the association with the furnishings of early California churches built by the Spanish had more to do with nostalgia than with true precedent. In a significant break with Ruskin, Stickley advocated the use of power machinery, stating that âit should be the privilege of every worker to take advantage of all the improved methods . . . that relieve him from the tedium . . . of purely mechanical toil, for by this means, he gains leisure for . . . working out his designs, and for the finer touches that the hand alone can give.â6 Machines were also the pragmatic choice if the company were to turn a profit.
The year 1904 was also when Stickley began to promote Craftsman homes in his magazine. Intended for middle-class subscribers, he provided a full set of architectural plans for construction by local builders. Like his furniture, Stickleyâs houses included exposed structural elements and natural materials. Following the lead of English and European Arts and Crafts architects, he employed built-in elements such as benches or cabinets and considered all furnishings, including lighting fixtures, as part of the overall design concept.7
By 1908, encouraged by the success of his magazine and furniture company, Stickley began to assemble a large tract of land in Parsippany, New Jersey, for a farm school and community that he called Craftsman Farms. The first and only building constructed was a magnificent log clubhouse, which he and his family eventually occupied. In 1913, he built a twelve-story building in New York City that included a showroom and offices for his publishing operation, a library, lecture hall, and restaurant.
Despite these prodigious efforts, his expansionist goals proved costly at a time when economic constraints caused by World War I were contributing to the demise of the Arts and Crafts movement. The company entered bankruptcy in 1915, and the magazine ceased publication in 1916. Meanwhile, his brothers Leopold and John George formed their own company, named L. and J. G. Stickley, which produced a more conservative version of Arts and Crafts furniture, among many other styles. They absorbed Craftsman Workshops in 1918. Today the firm is known as Stickley, Audi & Company, and sells high quality Gustav Stickleyâs Craftsman furniture for the twenty-first century consumer seeking a plain but handsome style that resonates with the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement.
BYRDCLIFFE: IDEALISM AND THE ARTISTIC COLONY
Far smaller in scale than either Roycroft or Craftsman Workshops was the Byrdcliffe community in Woodstock, New York, which was founded in 1902 by two wealthy philanthropists, the English idealist Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and his wife. Intended to be an artistsâ colony, school, and farm, the enterprise failed as a self-sustaining community, but it has provided a supportive environment for the arts and continues to flourish today.
The son of a wealthy industrialist, Whitehead became a student and soon a disciple of John Ruskin. He visited and may have briefly participated in Ruskinâs Guild of St. George, and was inspired to apply his own wealth to a similar purpose. Under Ruskinâs tutelage, Whitehead resolved to improve the lot of the workers in his familyâs felt-making business and to reduce the pollution created by the factory. His family, however, did not share these noble Ruskinian goals and presented considerable opposition.
In 1900, he married the American artist Jane Byrd McCall (1861â1955), and the couple moved to Woodstock to establish Byrdcliffe. Whitehead chose the location for its natural beauty and for its access to railroads, a necessity for reaching the markets that would enable the community to be self-sustaining. He and his wife engaged the artists who settled in Woodstock, and the couple spared little expense in providing them with comfortable and well-equipped studios. The Whiteheads themselves lived in a house called White Pines, for which a pottery run by Jane Byrd McCall was later named. The site was quickly dotted with many buildings, which survive today.
Despite Whiteheadâs efforts, and in part because of his autocratic style, the community that he had dreamt of did not last more than a year or so. Furniture was the chief product, and the large cabinets that craftsmen fashioned, with delicately carved or painted panels, were competitively priced. But Whitehead had no taste for marketing or cultivating a brand identity, which had made Stickley and Hubbard successful.
Nevertheless, the colony survived in a manner that continues to attract visitors to the present day. While the couple made hand-built pottery and weavings when living in Byrdcliffe on and off for thirty years, dozens of professional artists in all media came intermittently to work, some of whom rented space to teach and create works of art. And the colony inspired the formation of other artistic groups, among them the Maverick colony, the summer school of the Art Students League, the Woodstock Artists Association, and the Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen.
Today Byrdcliffe survives as the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, which joins the Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts Colony with the Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen.
ROSE VALLEY: A COMMUNITY FOR ALL CLASSES
Best known for coining the phrase âthe art that is life,â Will Price (1861â1916) was an architect, furniture designer, and social reformer. In 1901, he established the Rose Valley Association on eighty acres of abandoned industrial land situated outside Philadelphia. Their plans for the industrial ruins included a library, theater, museum, and school. Surviving records document that association members regularly mounted plays, performed concerts, and invited lecturers to speak and that some worked privately as painters and illustrators. As an outlying village that was accessible to Philadelphia by train, the community thrived until 1909.
Furniture and pottery were the primary crafts produced for sale. Price designed the furniture, which was fabricated in a workshop in a former textile mill by immigrants with the requisite skills, which few Americans had, for carving, piercing, and shaping wood. His designs were in the Gothic, Renaissance, and colonial styles, and many were constructed with keyed tenons so that the furniture could be easily disassembled.
Like Stickley, Price was a publisher. In his writings he professed a desire to foster an environment where oneâs work and surroundings were in harmony. His woodworkers, however, could not have been satisfied with the arrangements. They had no say about the design of their furniture, and although they worked at Rose Valley, they were apparently not fully accepted as members of the association. Ironically, labor disputes may have led to the closure of the woodworking shop by 1906.
SUCCESSFUL WORKSHOP MODELS
TIFFANY: THE VALUE OF CREATIVE RISK TAKING
Although the utopian concept of an artistic community was beset with challenges and usually ended in failure, a more successful model was the workshop led by a gifted artist and a talented circle of associates: the glass, metal, wood, and clay workshops founded by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848â1933). Because Tiffanyâs personal fortune permitted him to take risks in experimenting with new media and designs, his workshops, with their outpouring of lighting fixtures, furniture, pottery, metalwork, and jewelry, much of it in an art nouveau style, mark a high point in the history of American decorative art.
Louis, the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of the luxury goods retailer Tiffany & Co., studied painting as a young man, traveled to Europe and to North Africa, and immersed himself in foreign and exotic cultures as he traveled. Upon his return, he and several others formed Associated Artists, an interior design firm patronized by many of New Yorkâs elite families.
Interested in colored flat glass that could be used for windows, Tiffany established the enterprise that would gain him the greatest acclaim, Tiffany Glass Company, in 1885. The company enjoyed numerous commissions from private individuals and churches for stained-glass windows and mosaics. Following a visit in 1889 to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where he admired work by French glass artists, especially Ămile GallĂŠ, and where American artist John LaFarge received prizes for his stained glass, Tiffany began to experiment with blown-glass vessels. A year later, he invited the English glass specialist Arthur J. Nash to New York. Nashâs considerable technical expertise encouraged Tiffany to envision new ways in which to create glass vessels. Their efforts soon led to what he would call favrile glass, a term based on the Latin fabrilis, meaning âhandwrought.â
By the late 1890s, the glass enterprise had grown to the extent that Tiffany was obliged to maintain between 200 and 300 tons of glass on hand and in more than five thousand colors and types in order to meet demand. Clearly a large staff was required to execute the commissions; the venture could hardly be called a workshop; it was, in fact, a firm with many dozens of employees. Tiffany exercised creative control over the whole, but he also enjoyed the assistance of talented designers and craftsmen, many of them female. At a time when women were beginning to enter the workplace, he hired graduates of New Yorkâs many art schools, employing about thirty women in the Womenâs Glass Cutting Department who worked with flat glass intended for stained glass windows and mosaics.8
The same was true, albeit on a smaller scale, in his jewelry and enameling work, which after about 1902 was located within Tiffany & Co., where he became artistic director. Tiffany functioned as both artist and entrepreneur. He worked with talented designers and craftsmen for his most important creations, and delegated the fabrication of less demanding work and of multiples to other staff members. The uniformly fine quality of his production is proof of Tiffanyâs unwillingness to compromise his artistic vision, and was no doubt aided by his staff âs efforts to meet his high standards of design and craftsmanship.
RECOGNITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL CRAFTSMAN AT ROOKWOOD POTTERY AND AT THE SILVERSMITHING WORKSHOP OF ARTHUR STONE
Other crafts enterprises were the work of many identifiable hands. The Rookwood Pottery was established in 1880 by Maria Longworth Nichols in Cincinnati, Ohio, as a result of her early experiments with overglaze decoration. As the business expanded quickly, she added a decorating department and the Rookwood School for Pottery Decoration to train new designers and painters, many of whom were accomplished painters and sculptors in their own right. Some of the companyâs most memorable vessels are those painted with delicate floral motifs, for which they became known. Unlike Tiffany, who used the company name on all finished work and did not credit individuals, Nichols granted more autonomy to her artists, allowing them to sign their own work, a pattern followed by some other art potteries in this country.
Similarly, the silversmiths employed by Arthur Stone (1847â1938) of Gardner, Massachusetts, enjoyed the privilege of having their work acknowledged. Stone himself designed nearly all of the objects produced by his workshop, but the silversmith who had the primary responsibility for making an object was permitted to add his own touchmark (an English term) to the studio mark that was struck on each vessel. Stone also divided the profits from earnings among the staff twice each year, which may have contributed to their long and faithful service to him. His workshop remained in business from 1901 until Stone retired at the age of ninety in 1937, after which it continued under new management until the 1950s.
A THERAPEUTIC CALIFORNIA CRAFT COMMUNITY: AREQUIPA POTTERY
Vessels and tiles from Arequipa Pottery, in Marin County, California, embody progressive ideas about the dignity of work and the curative value of making craft. Founded in 1911 for tubercular working women who could not afford the cost of a sanatorium, the pottery enabled patients to earn a modest income while regaining their health. The name of the pottery, taken from a Peruvian city, means âplace of peaceâ or âplace of rest.â
The English potter Frederick HĂźrton Rhead (1880â1942) was the director. He taught the women to throw pots and decorate the vessels during the few hours each day that they were allowed to work. He and other male assistants dug the clay, loaded the kiln, and fired the finished pieces, but the creative aspects of making the forms were done exclusively by the women.
Using slip-trail decoration, carving, and incising, the women ornamented the vessels and tiles with designs drawn from the native plants of California. Manzanita, iris, poppy, oranges, and eucalyptus were among their memorable subjects, and a trailing vine at the shoulder of vessels was one of their most typical and pleasing patterns.
Arequipa participated in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915, exhibiting in the Palace of Education and Social Economy, where it received the gold medal. Although the exposition brought significant attention to Arequipa, rising costs and the loss of manpower brought about by World War I caused the pottery to close in about 1918.
THE LEGACY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS
The Arts and Crafts concepts of simplicity and usefulness were expressed in several key tenets: the application of form to function, the importance of hand workmanship and honest, evident construction methods, and the use of indigenous materials and vernacular motifs drawn from nature. These principles were translated into architecture, furniture, metalwork, textiles, glass, pottery, and books that form a beautiful and captivating visual record of the era. The force of the movement left a profound mark on the society and art of its day. Its legacy has been to validate the handmade object, the dignity of the worker, and the pure joy of creation.
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THE ALLURE OF JAPAN AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE EAST
Ever since 1854, when Japan first opened its doors to the West, the country has held a special fascination for European and American artists. Japanâs allure, whether real or perceived, lay in the apparent innocence of its preindustrial society, a quality valued by the Arts and Crafts movement, whether it was manifested in medieval Europe, colonial America, or feudal Japan.
The arts of Japan captivated artists in all disciplines, and many acquired examples for study from the quantities of decorative arts and paintings that were shipped to the West by the end of the nineteenth century. The unusual costumes of the Japanese, the flat perspective of their landscapes, and the sensuous approach to nature found an appreciative audience in the West. Japanese pavilions, such as those seen by Greene and Greene, were featured at the great international exhibitions held in the United States and abroad, and enchanted visitors with exotic materials and subjects from a faraway land.
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HEART, HAND, AND MIND: THE CRAFTSMAN LIFESTYLE
WHERE traditional craftsman was artisan because of material necessity, fashioning objects necessary to society, the new craftsman in the industrial society chooses the path of making the unessential necessity, fashioning his lifestyle to realize the creative impulse so vital to the whole person, providing those objects of the hand and mind so necessary to us all.
EUDORAH M. MOORE in The Craftsman LifestyleâThe Gentle Revolution (1978)
Arts and Crafts principles have endured into the twenty-first century through the creative voices and lifestyle choices of many craftspeople who have chosen to dedicate their life and work to handcraft and art. Internationally acclaimed woodworker Sam Maloof, now in his nineties, is the contemporary embodiment of the spirit and ideals of Arts and Crafts. He has captured the sense of mission that fueled the movement by continuing to work in time-honored craft traditions and creating a holistic living environment where the handmade is necessary, vital, and exalted. Like the founders of Arts and Crafts, his aim is the unity of art and life and Maloofâs motto of âeye, hand, and heartâ has been the guiding force in his life.9
A TEMPLE OF CRAFTSMANSHIP
Maloofâs handcrafted furniture and homeâreferred to as a âtemple of craftsmanshipâ because his hands had created everything in the houseâdemonstrate his lifelong commitment to handiwork, as well as his heartfelt belief in the moral and spiritual benefits he derives from his work.
Maloof and his late wife, Alfreda, were inspired over a span of fifty years to transform the modest, low-cost house they had built in the late 1940s into a monument to their creative vision and craftsman values. More cottage than house, the 800-square-foot, flat-roofed structure was built from discarded wood and with borrowed tools, on land Maloof reclaimed from a citrus orchard in San Bernardino County, California. Maloof built their first household furnishings from âdunnage found along the railroad tracks.â
Today, that same structure has been disassembled and moved to a new location in Alta Loma, and it has been absorbed into a greatly expanded house that has grown organically to encompass twenty-three rooms and cover 8,500 square feet, with every linear inch, every intricate architectural detail, every piece of exquisite oil-rubbed furniture designed and crafted by Maloof.
THE âLINE OF BEAUTYâ CAPTURED IN MALOOF FURNITURE
Maloofâs first furniture pieces for his new home in the mid-twentieth century may have been improvised, and no doubt he had to make compromises because of a scarcity of means. But during the ensuing fifty years, Maloofâs vision has evolved, and his work has matured into a sophisticated dialogue with material, form, and function, resulting in timeless designs that have become archetypes of the modern expression. Maloofâs aesthetic, modeled after Arts and Crafts ideals of beauty, is characterized by the inherent splendor of the wood, careful attention to structural articulation, and polished simplicity. The form of his Double Rocker is a study of quiet grace, straightforward design, balanced proportions, and delicate profiles. Put into motion, it becomes a kinetic sculptureâline, mass, volume, and space engaged.
Maloofâs furniture forms have become an emblem of elegant craftsmanship, and the Smithsonian Institution has called him âAmericaâs most renowned contemporary furniture craftsman.â His mastery of the craft of woodworking and his classic furniture have also earned him celebrity status as furniture maker for the White House. His rocking chairs have seated presidents including Jimmy Carter, who visited Maloofâs âtemple of craftsmanshipâ to observe the master at work.
NATIVE COMMUNITIES – INDIGENOUS CRAFTS BY AMERICAN INDIANS
The oldest craft traditions in the United States belong to its American Indian residents. For several millennia, artists working within diverse Native North American culture groups have used indigenous materials to produce functional and decorative works for personal, family, and community use. Ancient artistic traditions continue to inform the work of contemporary Indian artists and to impact modern Indian societies.
CRAFT, COMMUNITY, AND IDENTITY
Prior to the establishment of reservations during the mid-nineteenth century, all Indians were working craftspeople. Family and tribal economies required that everyone help produce the items needed for everyday life: clothing, pottery, basketry, tools. Artistic skill and creative drive prompted many artists to produce works that were finished beyond what was necessary for their basic function. The highest value of these works was nonetheless as utilitarian objects.
In the past, Native North Americans did not make a distinction between fine art and fine craft. Many Indian languages have no special word for art, and the making of beautiful objects was not considered a specialized occupation. Within Indian communities, however, the skills of some artists were recognized as being superlative. Their accomplishments were widely noted and appreciated. In addition to making fine things, these individuals influenced their social groups by sharing technical information, helping novices develop individual decorative vocabularies, and setting the standards of style. They were also frequently called upon to produce objects that had enough social and ceremonial importance to be seen as community property.
Like craftspeople in traditional societies throughout the world and like the artists who worked in the close ethnic, social, and religious communities that have existed throughout the United States, American Indian craft artists have at once been guided and constrained by the communities within which they lived. The forms and imagery used in their crafts historically served two essential purposes: to reinforce the identity of their own social group and to distinguish that same group from outsiders, whether allies or enemies.
Meyer Schapiro, a prominent art critic, has defined communal artistic style as being a âmanifestation of the culture as a whole, the visible sign of its unity,â and a reflection or projection of the ââinner formâ of collective thinking and feeling.â This definition is particularly appropriate to the understanding of traditional American Indian crafts. The vagaries of life and the necessity of community survival prompted artists to produce works using shared technologies, similar expressive styles, and common iconographic systems. Within these expressive parameters, however, individual artists could still be known through their use of specific motifs, the skill and methods they employed when fabricating and finishing items, and other identifying factors.
In some Indian communities, the creative expressions of men and women took divergent forms. Menâs work often displayed representational imagery that described an individualâs success in war or his encounters with the spirit world. Conversely, womenâs crafts were usually adorned with geometric motifs. The exemplary life of a woman was not revealed through unique behavior, but through her handiwork skill, her overall productivity, and her generosity. Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) men attached figurative murals to kiva walls. They decorated rock outcroppings with pecked and painted human and animal figures. At the same time,
Ancestral Puebloan women adorned their pottery and baskets with abstract geometric patterns. Plains Indian men kept calendars and winter counts and used figurative symbols and glyphs. They recorded the details of their lives by painting pictorial narratives on tipi exteriors, robes, and clothing. The women in their communities painted rawhide containers and produced quill-and-bead embroidery by combining small abstracted designs into larger compositions. Apart from the changes wrought by outside patrons, Indian basket makersâmost of them womenâusually worked within these same design parameters. As with all generalizations, there were exceptions to this rule and the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw figurative imagery appearing in diverse womenâs arts.
Historically the specific motifs used by womenâwhether worked on baskets, pottery, beadwork, or rawhideâwere often the property of individual artists. The designs were frequently inspired by the natural world or seen in dreams. Artists did not usually copy the work of others, although an artist might allow her close relatives to borrow or modify select motifs. As a result, observers could often identify which individuals or families might have produced similar-appearing objects.
CRAFT, GEOGRAPHY, AND ECONOMY
American Indian crafts reveal the creative thinking of artists as they were influenced by the material needs and cultural values of the societies within which they have lived. Regional differences in craft production were linked to the specific natural resources that were available within a given landscape, although long-established trade systems did provide artists with small amounts of exotic raw materials for their work.
The relationship among local geography, tribal economic life, and individual craft production is significant. Plains Indian artists produced many functional items using the skins, bones, and horns of buffaloes. Because Plains people were generally mobile, the objects they made were necessarily lightweight and not prone to breakage. In contrast, the sedentary agricultural peoples who lived in the American Southwest and along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers dug clay and made pottery. Artists who lived in the wooded regions of the Atlantic Northeast and Pacific Northwest became skilled woodcarvers. Residents of the Great Lakes region produced objects adorned with intricate moosehair embroidery. Skilled basketmakers lived throughout the continent, and their baskets were produced using many different plant materials and diverse weaving and twining techniques. These were occasionally adorned with additional materials, such as the shells and feathers favored by some California Indian people.
The people who lived in coastal areas and along major rivers made diverse items from carved shell and from shell beads. Southwestern Indian peoples, for example, mined turquoise and sometimes combined this stone with the shells that they had acquired through trade. Thousand-year-old shell-and-turquoise necklaces, pendants, and earrings have been recovered from locations in New Mexico and Arizona. Jewelry produced in this same tradition is still being made at places such as Santo Domingo Pueblo and Zuni Pueblo.
Other regional jewelry traditions are derived from materials and techniques that appeared after contact with Europeans. Silverwork is said to have become a part of the Navajo decorative vocabulary after 1850, when Navajo artists learned the craft from Hispanic silversmiths in the Rio Grande Valley. Within twenty years, Navajo artists had taught Zuni people to make their own silver jewelry. By 1900, silver production had spread from Zuni to the Hopi mesas. With these shared traditions, the earliest work by the artists in all of these communities combined hammered and cast metal with large turquoise and other stones.
The earliest known textiles from the American Southwest were made from fur, feathers, and wild plant fibers. Museum examples of this work date to 200â600 C.E. Before 500 C.E., cotton was introduced into southern Arizona and it reappeared in Ancestral Puebloan loom-woven fabrics a century or two later. When Spanish explorers first entered the Southwest during the sixteenth century, they found cotton being cultivated throughout the Rio Grande Valley and Pueblo houses, which were filled with cotton cloth. The Pueblo people they encountered were then wearing a sophisticated array of woven-cotton clothing and accessories that included painted and embroidered shirts, kilts, shawls, and sashes.
Navajo people moved into this same region only a few centuries before the Spanish arrived. Through warfare and trade, the Navajo acquired sheep and weaving technology. Their weaving tradition is thought to date to shortly before 1700. Written records from the eighteenth century describe Navajo cotton textiles, but that tradition was only short-lived and woven-wool blanket-dresses and wearing blankets were soon more commonly made. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Navajos had replaced handmade woolen wearing blankets with Pendleton-style commercial trade blankets.
Traders and trading posts across the Navajo reservation were by then encouraging the production of rugs for sale to consumers in distant metropolitan areas. Many of the trading posts became hubs of surrounding style centers. Local styles and regional pattern preferences were influenced by the personal taste of the non-Indian traders who also served as textile brokers.
Before outsiders arrived in North America, Indian people routinely adorned their clothing and accessories with bird and porcupine quill embroidery, shell beads, pieces of bone, copper, stone, and other organic items. After contact with Europeans, glass beads became very popular trade items. These beads were made in a variety of locations, but most of them came from Venice, Bohemia, and China. Tiny glass seed beads are now popularly associated with many American Indian groups. These first appeared on the continent in great numbers during the middle of the nineteenth century. They were easily integrated into existing decorative traditions, and distinct regional styles soon developed. During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, reservations isolated Indian communities and limited access to their usual and accustomed hunting and food-gathering lands. Despite this disruption of traditional economies and the resulting change of lifestyle, Indian women remained industrious and labored over their handiwork. Beadwork production flourished and the overall amount of ornament that was applied to diverse surfaces increased.
American Indian artists have worked with glass since glass beads first arrived in North America. And since the 1970s, a growing number of Indian artists have been crafting traditional forms and motifs in glass. Although historic bead embroidery and contemporary glasswork share a similar medium, they employ different techniques. New work with molten glass continues a centuries-old tradition in Indian country. In March 1805, Lewis and Clark recorded that Arikara (North Dakota) women were pulverizing trade beads, creating a glass paste, and shaping it into new bead and pendant forms, which they fired on copper plates. The process was one that was reportedly learned from the more western Shoshone. Other tribes in the interior of the continent may also have been practitioners of the technique.
PATRONAGE AND PUEBLO POTTERY
As is true with every culturally vital tradition, American Indian artists have always been eager to embrace new mediums. Introduced materials encouraged, expanded, and modified prehistoric and historic artistic activities. Then evolving economies and the patronage of non-Indian collectors significantly impacted American Indian craft production during the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Scientific interest in the Native peoples of the American Southwest grew dramatically after about 1880. The popular belief was that Indian people would either be assimilated into the mainstream or that they were doomed to extinction. As a result, many archaeologists and anthropologistsâsome in the employ of the U.S. government, others on the payroll of large eastern and European museums and universitiesâflooded the region. Their goal was to acquire as many objects as possible and to preserve them for future study.
Thomas Keam established in 1875 the first trading post among the Hopi, who were then being slowly forced away from their traditional economy and were entering a world where cash was necessary. Keam promoted the production and sale of Hopi-made items to aid them in their transition. The trader also encouraged local potters to make ceramics that bore the designs appearing on pottery recovered from nearby protohistoric (c. 1400â1600 C.E.) sites. That pottery production was the beginning of what became known as the Sikyatki Revival style. The Hopi-Tewa potter Nampeyo was the earliest and most celebrated practitioner of this style.
Nampeyo first began producing Sikyatki Revival wares in about 1880. It is often said, however, that she first became conscious of historic Hopi designs when her husband was working for Jesse Walter Fewkes during the 1895 excavation of Sikyatki. The story is apocryphal but it is similar to another relevant, and factual, narrative. In 1908 and 1909, archaeological excavations on northern New Mexicoâs Pajarito Plateau employed men from nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo. Julian Martinez, the husband of a young potter named Maria, was among the laborers. The scientific recovery of prehistoric pots and the discovery of kiva murals inspired Julian to incorporate ancient designs into his watercolor paintings and onto the pots that he decorated for his wife.
Among the archaeologists who were locally active was Edgar Lee Hewett, the director of the Museum of New Mexico. He asked Maria, who had a reputation as being a skilled potter, to reproduce some of the black ceramics that had been unearthed by his excavations, which she did in 1910. Maria and Julianâs other contemporary works were, however, generally polychrome wares. The couple continued experimenting, and by 1918 they were producing the pottery for which they are now famous: shiny black ceramics bearing matte black designs.
Maria and Julian were among the first Pueblo artists to sign their works. Through their close association with Hewett, the Museum of New Mexico, and the Santa Fe arts community, they became key figures in the production, promotion, and sale of fine twentieth century American Indian crafts. The demand for their work was also heightened by the fact that their black-on-black pottery had visual appeal for the Art Deco enthusiasts of the 1920s and 1930s.
EXPANDING MARKETS, NEW HORIZONS
When railroads were crossing the American Southwest during the 1880s, Indian artists gained new access to outside markets. The founding of informal artist colonies in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, and elsewhere encouraged the acquisition of Indian-made crafts, as did the establishment and expansion of anthropology and art museums and the Arts and Crafts movementâs demand for handmade household furnishings. The Fred Harvey Company stores and its Indian Detours promoted Southwest Indian art to a national audience. The Harvey Company also hired first-rank academics to help them amass Indian material from throughout the West, and they marketed items to major museums and exhibited pieces at period expositions and worldâs fairs.
After 1921, the Santa Fe Indian Market provided a major venue for the sale of American Indian traditional arts. The founding of the Santa Fe Indian Schoolâs art program a decade later marked a watershed in governmental policy relative to Indian culture. Previously, the national educational emphasis had sought to assimilate the American Indian population. Afterward, art was among the skills taught at the nationâs Indian vocational schools. The Institute of American Indian Arts, also in Santa Fe, was established during the early 1960s and continues to offer formal instruction in the diverse arts of Native North America.
For the last five hundred years, American Indian crafts have provided physical and visual benefits to Indian and non-Indian people alike. They have inspired artists living within and outside of Native communities. They have also embraced and incorporated new mediums, techniques, and foreign ideas.
Contemporary American Indian artists remain conscious of their ethnicity, cultural identity, and tribal traditions. Many continue to work with traditional materials and forms and they still make objects for traditional use. Although their crafts may no longer be solely about community and group survival, they maintain conceptual, technical, and stylistic links to the past. Indian craftspeople continue to produce works containing historic or symbolic links to a given cultural heritage, indigenous worldview, or traditional ceremonial structure. Some create objects containing commentary on American Indian history, the politics of Indian identity and survival, or events that impact the world at large.
American Indian communities remain vital and alive, and as a consequence Indian crafts continue to expand and evolve. Some observers may therefore fail to see the continuity that ties contemporary American Indian craftwork to the past, but Indian artists remain mindful of the cultural traditions that create the context for their work. They are aware of the body of material produced by their predecessors and of inherited traditions of technical knowledge and innovation. Many modern artists, especially those working in historic mediums, maintain a special relationship with the materials with which they work. They recognize these materialsâwhether clay, fiber, wood, metal, or stoneâas being a living part of the world that they inhabit just as their ancestors did. To many contemporary Indian artists, the personalities of their chosen mediums remain living and active elements of their work.
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WHERE THE BASKETS GOT THEIR DESIGNS: A KLIKITAT LEGEND
A long time ago in the animal world, before the Lataxat (Klikitat) people came, a young girl lived along the White Salmon River. She was Sinmi, the brown squirrel. Sinmi was slow and her fingers were clumsy. She did not know how to do things right. No one wanted to be near her or to help her. She lived all by herself.
Because she had nothing else to do, Sinmi would sit and dream in the shade of a huge cedar tree, Nank. The tree felt sorry for her, and one day he said, âMy little sister, I cannot allow you to grow up like this. You must learn to do something to help yourself. I will teach you.
âFirst, go to the mountains and find a special grass. It is called yaii, bear grass. Pick it by pulling it out at the roots. Dry it in the sun and bundle it up neatly. Pick plants for coloring. Then come back here and dig up my straightest roots. Split them into long thin pieces. Do as I say and someday you will be known for your basket work.â
When Sinmi reached the mountains, she pulled up the grass and tied it into neat bundles. She searched for the plants for color. When she was finished, she returned to Nank. âI did as you asked,â she told him.
Nank told her to dig his tender cedar roots, split them into long strips, and tie them into neat bundles by size. Then Nank showed her how to weave a basket with the materials she had gathered. She worked all day and far into the night. She was very tired but she kept on working until she finished one basket.
âI did this all by myself!â she told Nank, showing the basket to him.
âDonât brag,â Nank said. âYou still have to pass a test. Dip this basket in the river. If it does not leak, you have made a fine basket.â
Sinmi dipped the basket into the river. The water ran right through it and onto the ground. She was very discouraged and she cried. Nank told her that she must make many baskets until she made a perfect one. âSoon you will be very talented,â he said.
âNow you must find some designs to make your baskets beautiful,â he told her. âGo out into the woods. Look at things of nature. Bring them back in your mind.â
Sinmi set out again. She walked for many days, looking at everything. One day, Waxpush, the rattlesnake, crossed her path. He spoke to her. âSee the designs on my back? Use them on your basket.â
âOh yes,â she said, âthose designs will be beautiful on my basket.â Sinmi put the diamonds in her mind and was grateful to Waxpush.
She walked down the trail again until she saw Patu, the mountain. Patu spoke to her. âLook at me closely. I am like a design.â
She thought, Yes, the peaks do look like designs. They would be beautiful on my basket. Sinmi put the mountains in her mind and she was grateful to Patu.
Farther down the trail, Pti the grouse ran across her path. Sinmi stopped and Pti spoke to her. âSee my tracks? You may copy my footprints for your basket.â
Sinmi said, âYes, indeed, those tracks will look fine on my basket.â And she put the tracks in her mind, grateful to Pti.
Several days later, as it was getting dark, Sinmi knelt down by Xowush, the brook, for a drink of water. The brook said, âLook at me. See the reflections.â
âYes,â Sinmi said, âXaslu, the evening star, reflected in the water, will be beautiful on my basket.â So she put Xaslu in her mind, and was grateful to Xowush.
Sinmi was now ready to return to Nank and put the designs on her basket. She put the rattlesnake design around the edge. She put grouse tracks on the basket, then the mountain peaks, and she finished it with the evening star.
Nank reminded her of the test. Sinmi took the beautiful basket and dipped it in the Columbia River. It held water.
Nank was very proud of her. He told her to take away the basket and use it as a sacrificial offering, to teach her to be thankful that she had accepted the gift of basket making. âNext, you must make five small baskets to give to the Watuyma tmama, the oldest women, among your people.â
But Sinmi wanted to keep her beautiful baskets. Nank told her she would never be a skilled basket weaver if she did not give away the first ones, and so she did. Sinmi made many more baskets, all of them beautiful and all with designs on them from the beautiful land around her.
It happened that Spilyay, the legendary coyote, was coming down the Columbia River. He learned about Sinmi and he inspected her baskets. Spilyay said, âSoon there will be people coming to this part of the land. From today on this land called Lataxat will be known for cedar baskets.â
And so it was. People came from all over to trade with the Klikitat people for their beautiful baskets that Nank taught Sinmi to make.
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SANTA FE INDIAN MARKET
Each year in mid-August, Santa Fe, New Mexico, is home to Indian Market, the most important event on the American Indian art calendar. The event is the nationâs oldest and largest juried Indian art show and it annually attracts as many as a hundred thousand visitors. During the two weeks preceding Indian Market weekend, the city also hosts dozens of gallery openings, auctions, sales of antique American Indian material, and related events.
Indian Market provides a forum for premier artists working in diverse mediums. A nonprofit organization, the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), sponsors the event and scrutinizes exhibitors to see that standards of quality are maintained. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States, and SWAIA also reviews background information to see that all participants are enrolled members of federally recognized American Indian communities.
The modern Indian Market has its roots in a variety of Indian arts events in Santa Fe. Between 1922 and 1962, Indian art sales were held in conjunction with the local Fiesta celebration. During the 1920s the Museum of New Mexico promoted an Indian art show as a way to preserve and encourage the production of distinct traditional crafts and provide a market and fair prices for Indian artists.
Between 1936 and 1939, the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs sponsored a summerlong series of Saturday markets on the north side of Santa Feâs plaza. The association was also responsible for the Fiesta market and in 1959 changed its name to the Southwestern Association on Indian Affairs (it assumed its current moniker in 1993). Three years later the date of the Fiesta market was moved ahead one week and Indian Market became an independent event. Participation grew from 200 artists in 1970 to 330 a decade later. It now fills the streets surrounding Santa Feâs central plaza with 600 booths belonging to 1,200 artists representing 100 Native North American communities.
Artists covet the awards that are given at Indian Market because they boost an individualâs reputation and career tremendously. Numerous distinguished judges review entries made in diverse categories. Recognition is given to those with skill in traditional materials and techniques as well as to those experimenting with new mediums and art forms.
Apart from Santa Fe, major Indian art sales are held annually at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona; at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff; at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis; at the Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial in Gallup, New Mexico; and elsewhere. An important Spanish Market also occurs on the Santa Fe Plaza each summer. The event gathers together the finest Hispanic traditional artists from New Mexico and southern Colorado.
COMMUNITIES OF HERITAGE – SOUTHERN CONTRIBUTIONS
The diverse peoples of the South have contributed much to American culture. Oral traditions, stories, music, crafts, and cooking styles were brought over from Europe and Africa and often combined with Native American traditions. Crafts provide the most tangible evidence of early cultural exchanges and borrowings among these groups. For example, spread throughout the South are the coiled sea-grass baskets of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, from Africa; Native American and European split-oak baskets in the Appalachians; and the alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition of Edgefield, South Carolina, from Asia.
The story of craft in the South begins with the physical landscape and the materials it provided to create utilitarian goods. The South encompasses the Appalachian mountain range, the fall-line regions with rich clay deposits and flowing streams, the wetlands and sea islands along the coast, and the cotton belt and rural communities in the Deep South. The forests provided a variety of woods for building houses, furniture, and musical instruments, along with wood for firing the pottery kiln. The hills provided kaolin and iron-rich clay and feldspar for pottery production. Oak, pine needles, river cane, willow bark, honeysuckle vine, rush, and sweet grasses were used for basket making. Also, the land could be used to raise sheep for food and for wool and to grow crops such as cotton, flax, sorghum, corn, and other produce.
These resources were turned to good use. Food and syrups were preserved in stoneware vessels. Eggs were collected in handmade split-oak baskets. Rice was âfannedâ (to separate the hull from the rice) in coiled sea-grass baskets. Coverlets and blankets were woven out of locally spun wool, cotton, and linen. Quilts were often made using strips and pieces of leftover store-bought or homespun cloth or worn-out clothes. Mothers taught daughters, and fathers taught sons these useful skills, with each adding his or her own individual style to the craft produced.
Many of these traditional crafts declined in use after the Civil War, with the change from an agrarian economy to an industrial one and the increased availability of mass-produced goods. In the early twentieth century, some crafts were revived as a source of income for the poor of Appalachia and the Sea Islands, who made woven coverlets and small handcrafted goods, some of which were sold locally while new markets began to develop in New York City and later across the nation, and catalogs were started for those interested in handcrafted items. For the first time, forces outside of the families and small communitiesâmost of them religious missionaries or educatorsâbegan to have an important influence on the preservation not only of existing artifacts but also of the skills needed to make them. After World War II, interest in handmade arts and crafts declined again, but by the late 1960s, it was on the rise and it has been sustained ever since.
SOUTHERN TRADITIONAL POTTERY
Earthenware and stoneware forms dominate traditional southern pottery. The earliest examples are earthenware vessels produced by Native Americans using the coiling method to make utilitarian and ceremonial pots, pipes, and figures. These pieces were fired in a pit and then burnished to a high gloss, a tradition the Catawba and Cherokee Indians have continued into the twenty-first century. The Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual was established in 1949 on the Cherokee Indian Reservation as a retail outlet for their arts and crafts. The tourist trade also helped to support both the Cherokee tradition based around Asheville, North Carolina, and the Catawba group in York, South Carolina, on the border near Charlotte, North Carolina. The Catawba potters have a thriving tradition that has expanded to include male potters, many trained by the older matriarchs, who produce pots that are most stylized and individualized.
North of the Catawba reservation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a settlement established by the Moravians, a religious sect that fled persecution in Europe in the eighteenth century. Their European-style potteries, producing lead-glazed earthenware pieces, are also found in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and in Montgomery and Moore Counties in North Carolina. Because the Moravian earthenware was glazed with lead, which is both poisonous and expensive, its usefulness was restricted.
The southern market for pottery was more or less cornered by potteries located around Edgefield, South Carolina, home to one of the most significant American ceramic traditions. Before the Edgefield potteries were established, utilitarian wares had to be purchased from the northern states and from England or Europe. Edgefield Pottery refers to alkaline-glazed stoneware that was produced in the Edgefield district of South Carolina during the nineteenth century. This fall-line region along the Georgia border and the Savannah River is rich in clay deposits, hardwoods and pines, and rivers and streams.
Edgefieldâs alkaline-glazed stoneware is a unique blend of the ceramic traditions of England, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Many of the potters were English, Irish, and Germans who contributed forms and techniques from their homelands, while enslaved Africans and African-Americans performed most of the labor-intensive tasks of digging and refining the clay, chopping wood, bringing water, loading and unloading the kiln, and taking the wares by wagon to market. According to census and mortgage records, some slaves worked as turners before the Civil War, and after, several freed African-Americans operated their own potteries.
At its peak in the 1850s, Edgefieldâs five pottery factories made more than 50,000 gallons of pottery a year measured by the amount of food the vessels contained. Ovoid storage jars and jugs, straight-walled churns, pitchers, plates, and cups were produced in great quantities right through the Civil War. Transported by wagon and train, they were sold in South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina.
The Lewis Miles factory was the most lucrative of the Edgefield potteries in the 1850s. Miles married into the Landrum family and operated his pottery at several sites between 1840 and his death in 1867. Among the fifty enslaved African-American men and women who worked for Miles was a potter named Dave Drake, who made enormous jarsâsome large enough to hold 40 gallons. A literate slave who signed and dated many of his works and occasionally wrote a poem on the side, Drake was one of the best and most prolific turners.
Men who worked in the Edgefield potteries, both enslaved and free, took the alkaline-glaze tradition with them as they followed the clay veins and migrated north into Buncombe County, North Carolina, and westward into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana and as far as Texas. Many were related to the extended Landrum family, and new family-operated potteries emerged in other places.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the pottery factories in Edgefield had closed due to increasing competition from manufactured goods. However, traditional potters often became itinerant craftsmen in the early-twentieth century, traveling throughout the Southeast to practice their trade.
In Cleveland, Georgia, Cheever Meaders and his children made utilitarian pots and jugs for the local community and a few for tourists traveling through the mountains. They were recognized in Allen Eatonâs seminal work, Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, first published in 1937. One of the Meaders children, Lanier, became one of the best-known folk potters in America. Lanier produced straight-sided churns and kraut jars, syrup jugs that tapered gently at the bottom, and pitchers with a sharply defined shoulder and a loop or strap handle. He was best known for his face jugs with eyes made of rock and teeth made of broken crockery. All his pottery had the âShanghaiâ glaze, an alkaline glaze with high wood ash content that has a drippy look and texture.
Until Lanier Meadersâs death in 1998, he continued the traditional way of making pots: digging the clay himself, using a mule-driven pug mill to grind it up, turning the pots on a treadle wheel, using an alkaline glaze, and firing the pots in a wood-burning groundhog kiln. Lanier and his relatives, along with Burlon Craig in Vale, North Carolina, did much to sustain and then revitalize the alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition in the South. They influenced and inspired hundreds of contemporary potters, whose work shows reverence to the time-honored techniques of the traditional potters while adding their own style. Both Lanier Meaders and Burlon Craig were given the distinction of National Heritage Award winner by the National Endowment of the Arts, the equivalent of a national treasure designation for their work as traditional potters.
Today, the pottery capital of North Carolina is located in Moore County between Charlotte and Raleigh, a region rich in clay deposits and hardwoods. The landlocked community of Seagrove boasts about a hundred operating potteries. A variety of styles can be found, from utilitarian, salt-glazed stoneware that recalls the areaâs nineteenth century pottery production to contemporary vessels with experimental glazes.
Jugtown Pottery is one of the oldest shops, established in 1921 by Jacques and Juliana Busbee to produce high-quality, handmade pottery similar to the wares made in North Carolina in the late-nineteenth century. Among the original ten to fifteen people who operated the pottery were Henry Chrisco, Rufus Owen, James H. Owen, and J. W. Teagueâpotters whose forefathers were also potters. The Busbees also hired Ben Owen and Charlie Teague as teenagers, then cultivated their artistic talents by sending them to visit museums throughout the United States. Influenced by Chinese and Japanese ceramics, the potters at Jugtown developed new forms such as the Persian Jarâa wide-mouthed jar that tapers to the shoulder and then flares again, with a rope decoration at the shoulder. They also used glazes such as Chinese Blue and Mirror Black that were patterned after the Asian ceramics. However, they respected the traditional forms of bean pots and teapots and continued to produce them. Ben Owen became the main potter at Jugtown, working there until 1952, when he opened his own shop. His grandson, Ben Owen III, has become a master potter, too, and continues the family tradition to this day.
Vernon Owens began working at Jugtown in 1959 under John Mare, then under Nancy Sweezy, director of Country Roads, finally becoming the owner of Jugtown in 1983. Vernonâs wife, Pam, is an accomplished potter herself, and their two children, Travis and Bayle, âraised in clay,â are also skilled potters.
Jugtown was not the only pottery operating during the second half of the twentieth century. The Cole families operated numerous shops, producing earthenware pitchers, bowls, Rebecca pitchers (cruses with elongated handles), and flowerpots, everything sold both locally and regionally. People on their way to Florida would stop in and purchase pieces as souvenirs. Other members of the Owen family operated potteries such as North State Pottery and Rainbow Pottery, producing pieces for other markets. Numerous Cole, Teague, Owen, and Owens potteries currently operate in the Seagrove area. By nurturing and honoring its ceramic heritage, this community has become an epicenter for potters in the United States and has attracted potters from all over the world. It is interesting to note that in many southern states, numerous potteries are owned and/or operated by multiple generations, similar to traditional potteries in England and Europe.
SOUTHERN TEXTILES: WEAVING AND QUILTING
During the late-nineteenth century, hand weaving was revived in the Appalachians as a source of income for the greatly impoverished mountain people. The tradition of creating wool, cotton, and linsey-woolsey (made with linen and wool) coverlets was brought over from Ireland, Scotland, and England. Many patterns had been passed down from generation to generation on rolled-up drafts, often in enigmatic codes or series of numbers to signify the repetition. Without the handcraft revival, the South might have lost this type of hand weaving.
Berea College, Kentucky, has one of the longest-operating weaving programs. When its âFireside Industriesâ were established in 1883, the purpose was to have the local people make coverlets and blankets, along with other crafts such as furniture and brooms, which would then be sold to benefit the weavers and improve the depressed economic situation. Looms were built for local women to reproduce kiverlets based on weaving drafts that had been passed down for several generations. All materials were produced locally, from sheep to shawl. Later, other crafts were added to the curriculum at Berea, where students are required to learn practical skills as part of their formal education. Today, visitors can still purchase finely woven products there, along with handmade brooms and other small pieces of furniture.
While other crafts waxed and waned, quilting never faltered. For centuries, women have quilted or made other bed coverings out of necessity and a desire to create something beautiful. Quilts covered family beds, made wedding presents as sons and daughters left home to start their own households, and marked the arrival of babies. Patterns have varied among cultural groups and during different centuries. During the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, appliquĂŠ quilts and friendship quilts were fashionable, along with clearly defined patterns such as Whigs Defeat and Rose of Sharon. Crazy quilts emerged in popularity in the mid- to late-nineteenth century and were often sentimental, made by groups of women at quilting bees. Pieced quilts gained a stronger position in the quiltersâ domain as the economic situation changed. While some used high-quality store-bought fabrics, others made do with what they had on hand.
During the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, many community-based quilting groups have sold their works as a source of income. Quilting bees or circles are a way for women to work together for a common goal while enjoying a social outlet. These groups and the resulting quilts are a source of community pride.
In the 1970s the hoopla surrounding the bicentennial marked increased awareness of quilting traditions and the benefits of sewing skills. Hundreds of elementary school children were taught to sew and created individual quilt squares that formed school quilts, an activity that is still practiced today. By 1978, numerous quilt survey projects were undertaken throughout the country, particularly in the southern states. The American Folklife Center at the Smithsonian undertook surveys in North Carolina and West Virginia. In Mississippi the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads was started with a two-pronged purpose: to raise young peopleâs awareness about their diverse cultural heritage and to involve them with documenting their traditions, or âfolkâ culture, such as quilting. Local quilters went into the schools and taught the young people. At the same time, these quiltersâboth black and whiteâwere encouraged to share their knowledge outside the classroom at community centers. These women were not dissimilar from their contemporaries in Geeâs Bend, Alabama and Johns and James Islands, South Carolina.
As their involvement in the community increased, Mississippi quilters such as Hystercine Rankin and Gustina Atlas in Claiborne County, Mississippi, were individually and collectively recognized by the Mississippi Arts Commission. Hystercine Rankin was given a National Heritage Award, an initiative of the National Endowment of the Arts, in 1997.
Many of the quilts made by the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads group reflect the technique favored by African-American quiltersâthat of the strip quiltâas opposed to the symmetrical, patterned block quilts that come out of the European tradition. The strip technique allows a quilt to be made more quickly, not requiring the same level of fastidious and exacting measuring, cutting, and piecing of many shapes. Some relate the visual patterning of strip quilts to improvisation and the jazz aesthetic. Historically, the majority of African-American quilters in the South did not have the money to purchase fancy fabrics but used the materials they had on hand to make quilts used by their family to stay warm. Many of these quilts incorporate older quilts as the backing. Another quilt type that has emerged within the African-American quilting tradition is the story quilt, which has roots in the antebellum South and which is not too dissimilar from the album quilt.
Two historic examples of the story quilt were made in the 1880s by Harriet Powers, a woman who survived slavery in Georgia. One of her appliquĂŠd quilts depicts fifteen individual scenes from the Bible, each block joined or bordered with a strip. Hystercine Rankin also made her own Memory quilts depicting past events in her life and those of her family members.
BASKETRY
The coiled sea-grass baskets made along the South Carolina coast are an outcome of the transatlantic slave trade. Thousands of enslaved Africans from the rice-growing coast of Senegal, Congo, and Angola were brought into South Carolina as early as 1708 to work the rice plantations, bringing with them their skills in sewing coiled baskets.
Fanner baskets, large circular baskets with 2- to 3-inch sides, are used to sort the rice from hulls and chaff. Baskets were also needed to hold sewing tools, food, and other goods. The type of baskets people created changed along with the economy. By the late-nineteenth century, for example, fanner baskets were no longer needed as rice cultivation in South Carolina diminished with the end of the plantation system after the Civil War.
During the early-twentieth century, the Penn Normal, Industrial and Agricultural School (originally the Penn School) was established in Beaufort County, South Carolina, to teach the local African-American community skills such as basket making, iron working, and net making. These crafts were still economically useful, but they were no longer being handed down from person to person as they were during the days of slavery.
During the 1920s, markets for coiled baskets were found in Charleston and nearby Mount Pleasant as Charleston experienced a renaissance that made it a tourist destination. Stands selling baskets were set up along Highway 17, the major route linking Charleston to all points north and south. Baskets and flowers were also sold at the old market and at the âfour corners of law,â or Court House Square at Broad and Meeting Streets in downtown Charleston.
Essentially, tourists to the Charleston area who buy baskets have sustained the sewers who keep the tradition alive, although basket materials have fluctuated over the centuries. Bulrush, which was durable and good for fanning rice, has been largely replaced with sweetgrass, which is more aesthetically pleasing for decorative baskets. Pine needles, used in conjunction with the rush and sweetgrass, are sewn using palmetto fronds. Recently, many sewers have been using rush again as condominiums and houses encroach on the marshlands where sweetgrass grows, reducing the supply. Along with their materials, the forms of baskets have evolved from utilitarian fanner and sewing baskets to highly stylized baskets made for decoration and adornment.
The craft of basketry is also prominent among Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee, who use local materials such as honeysuckle, river cane, and split oak. Different colors and textures are achieved through the use of natural dyes and physical manipulation of the materials. Thin splits are tightly woven to create beautiful and useful baskets of varying sizes and shapes.
The basketâs end purpose influences the tightness of the weaving and the form. An egg basket has thinner and smoother splits than a large fish trap or cotton hamper, for example. The Cherokee tradition was buoyed when the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual was established in 1946 within the Qualla Boundary, the proper name of the Cherokee Indian Reservation and principal home of the Eastern Cherokee. Its goal was to promote the culture and sell the arts and crafts, including beadwork, pottery, and carving, produced by the tribe.
In the South, European settlers and enslaved Africans adapted Native American basket-making techniques. Baskets crafted today reflect the richness of these myriad traditions, as seen in the work of Billie Ruth Sudduthâa basket maker from the South renowned for her Fibonacci baskets, named after a thirteenth century mathematician who was a proponent of the golden mean. In her baskets, classical mathematics proportions are combined with Native American and Appalachian materials such as split oak and reeds dyed with henna, madder, and iron oxides.
FURNITURE
Plain-style furniture produced in the South, including the iconic ladderback chair from the Appalachians, was created for everyday use and with an eye for form and function. The beauty was often found in the aging of the wood, the weaving of the seat, and the graceful lines of the legs and rails. Much like Shaker furniture, this furniture was simplistic in form, and the maker or a family member was involved in all parts of the process: chopping down the tree, hewing away the bark, and splitting, planing, and shaving the wood to the appropriate size. Rather than fancy nails or glue blocks, chair construction depended on simple mortise-and-tendon joints, capitalizing on the different shrinking characteristics of the wood. The seats were often woven by the chair maker or someone local using split oak or rush. Other furniture pieces such as sideboards and cellarets (a kind of chest) were less fancy than their high-style counterparts made in Charleston or New York, and the wood was solid cherry, poplar, heart pine, or walnutâsometimes paintedâinstead of highly finished mahogany and satinwood veneers. Furniture was made in small quantities, not in the vast numbers required by retail shops in the cities.
By the turn of the twentieth century, mass-produced furniture was available in most southern communities through mail-order catalogs and traveling salesmen. However, many people in the South were poor, particularly in the Appalachians and remote areas such as the Sea Islands, and so they were not consumers of mass-produced furniture, relying instead on the woodworking skills of those in their community. By the middle of the twentieth century, just a few traditional furniture makers were working. By studying and writing about communityâand culture-based traditionsâfolklorists and scholars fostered early interest in southern handcrafted furniture. At the same time, the artists themselves joined together in the Southern Highland Craft Guild to promote the sale of their handmade goods.
SUSTAINABILITY OF CRAFT
While the making of pottery, textiles, baskets, and furniture met the everyday needs of southern communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the twentieth century saw the arrival of social and missionary efforts to sustain these crafts in a world of machine-made goods. First, after the Civil War, poverty motivated some to recall the old crafts so they could make items to sell for extra income for the family. Then, schools and cooperative groups were established to teach and cultivate these skills and to provide a venue for the sale of crafts.
About the same time, proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement, along with others interested in cultural traditions among ordinary people, began to have an impact on the American South, particularly on those who lived in the Appalachian Mountains. Educators and missionaries took an interest in the people of these remote areas, surveying the land, collecting stories and songs and other aspects of the local culture. Inevitably, several schools were established throughout the South to cultivate these traditions.
These include Berea College (Kentucky), Crossnore School (North Carolina), John C. Campbell Folk School (North Carolina), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Tennessee), and Penland School (North Carolina).
Starting out as a weaving center, the Penland School of Crafts later expanded to include pottery. Today, it is a world-renowned center for craft art, where ten different disciplines are taught in a beautiful area of western North Carolina. Penland has embraced creative expression while fostering traditional values and provides a haven for teachers and students to immerse themselves in their art.
In addition, many traditional arts are brought to the national stage through the Smithsonianâs Folklife Festival and documented through the national and statewide folklore and folklife programs created in the 1970s and 1980s. Continuing into the twenty-first century, these programs conduct research into past and present traditions while cultivating new and emerging ones. The National Endowment for the Arts has a Folk Arts component, and many state art agencies have similar programs designated to promote and preserve traditional arts and crafts museum exhibitions. Commercial outlets have also added to the awareness of our rich heritage.
Nurtured and sustained now by these institutions, the craft forms that took root in the South, blending the cultures of three continents, have an assured future. Their history will be preserved, and new generations will not only come to appreciate the arts of their ancestors but will also learn to employ the same techniques for their own pleasure. A dynamic new era is under way.
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THE POETIC POTTER, DAVID DRAKE
During his lifetime and afterward, David Drake was recognized for his magical skills as a potter and for an ability that was rare among slaves: He could read and write, allowing him to inscribe original poems, as well as his own name, on leather-hard clay before it was fired. As a result, the pottery he made must be viewed in terms of its artistic merits and its literary contribution.
Dave was born into slavery in 1800, most likely in the Edgefield district of South Carolina, where he spent more than seventy years of his life. All that is known about Dave is derived from his writing on the pots he made and from documents relating to those who owned him. For example, his name appears as collateral on a mortgage obtained in 1817 by Harvey Drake and his uncles, Amos and Abner Landrum. During this time, the Landrum family was establishing stoneware factories at Pottersville, a mile north of the Edgefield town square, and elsewhere in the area. By 1821, Dave was an established potter working for Drake.
Exactly how Dave learned to read and write is not known (it was illegal to teach slaves); he could have been taught by one of his owners or learned on his own by interacting with young white children or by teaching himself. In 1836, he wrote about other forms of chattel in the verse âHorses, mules and hogs, all our cows are in the bogs, there they shall ever stay, till the buzzards take them away.â
By 1840, Dave was owned by and worked for Lewis Miles, a man ten years his junior who had married into the Landrum family and pottery dynasty. Many of the existing vessels attributed to Dave were made at the Lewis Miles factory, some bearing the initials Lm. One jar bears the verse âDave belongs to Mr. Miles, where the oven bakes and the pots bile.â This jar, dated 31 July 1840, is now in the collection of the Charleston Museum.
Of the thousands of jugs and jars that Dave made in the 1840s, several that survive bear poems he inscribed, including this one: âGive me silver or either gold, though they are dangerous to our soul.â The pots indicate that Dave produced pottery during every month of the year, and he may have worked every day. The peak months of production were August and October.
By the 1850s, Dave was turning jars that could hold more than twenty gallons of foodstuff, a feat not accomplished by many American potters. Several of these enormous vessels had four handles, as two people would be required to lift the pot when it was filled. The largest jars made by Dave and his assistant, Baddler, have a capacity of forty gallons and have four handles. They stand over 2 feet tall and are more than 60 inches in circumference. When wet, they weighed between 200 and 300 pounds. Glaze was poured over the sides of the jars, because they were too heavy to dip into the glaze vat. After firing, they were significantly lighter but still required two people to move. These pots would have been used on a large plantation, as most farmers would not need to store that much meat, nor could they afford to purchase a pot that cost $4.
Edgefield pottery was distributed throughout the state via wagons and railroads, sold in small stores in Columbia and Charleston, and often ordered directly by the end user.
Dave worked through the Civil War producing jars as late as 1864. The last of his known poems is from 1862: âIâmade this jar all of cross, if you donât repent you will be lost.â The lack of signed works after Emancipation and the warâs end in 1865 suggests that Dave was no longer producing pottery at the same volume, or perhaps at all. The 1870 federal census bears the listing: âDavid Drakeâage 70âturner.â The 1880 census contains no listing for David or Dave Drake, so it is surmised that he had died by that time, leaving behind a direct line of communication via his vessels to those who bought and used themâfree or slave, white or black, past or present.
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MAKING FACES: FACE JUGS IN THE SOUTH
For centuries, potters have been making usable ceramic vessels with anthropomorphic features. Besides expressing their creativity and emotion, the potters were often producing something they needed for everyday use, for ritual or ceremonial purposes, or just for the fun of creating. Among the ritual ceramics, for example, were Egyptian canopic jars, Nayarit figural vessels, and the German bellermine jugs. In other instances, such as Moche (Peru) and Mangbetu (Zaire) portrait vessels, the products were presented to the nobility and ruling classes. English Toby jugs were made as caricatures of the fictional town drunk, Toby Philpot. In the United States, the tradition of making jugs or pitchers with faces began around 1810 in the North with potters who were competing for a market that included English and European goods. The Remmeys of New York and Philadelphia made a small number of pitchers and jugs with applied faces for a short period of time between 1810 and 1858. After the Civil War, âface vesselsâ came out of Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. Many of these were related to the temperance movement and the evils of alcohol or âdemon rum.â
However, nowhere else in the world have potters been as prolific in making face vessels as in the American South. Since the 1840s, southern potters have produced thousands of âface jugsâ of all sizes, shapes, and designs. Southern face vessels, along with the alkaline glaze that covers their surface, were born in Edgefield, South Carolina. The purpose of the earliest face jugs, aside from holding liquids, is still a mysteryâwere they made as protests or for ritual or for holding liquor? No one has been able to explain why this tradition became so popular.
Among its practitioners was Thomas Chandler, who made harvest or âmonkeyâ jugsâso-called because of an African tradition associating thirst with monkeysâthat had sculpted features and double spouts for keeping water cool. A surviving example, stamped âChandler Maker,â has carefully applied eyes and sophisticated African features, which leads us to believe that this was not the first time Chandler produced such a vessel. Some southern face vessels are bottles that could hold whiskey, syrup, or water while others are cups for drinking. It is thought that one particularly large vessel was used as an umbrella stand.
Edwin Atlee Barber, a ceramic historian from Philadelphia, wrote that many of these face vesselsâor grotesque jugs, as he called themâwere made by the slaves at Col. Thomas Daviesâs factory during the Civil War period, and some speculate that the work represents an African cultural contribution. The many surviving vessels are typically smaller than one gallon and bear crude, unrealistic features such as rolled kaolin eyes and rock teeth. One face jug is documented as decorating an African-American grave.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Brown family of potters, which began in Georgia, was making these jugs, occasionally inscribing them with advertising messages. One member of the Brown family recalls that his father made a face jug as a joke for an Atlanta dentist in the 1940s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the popularity of face jugs among pottery collectors grew, due partly to North Georgia potter Lanier Meadersâs artistry and his participation in the Smithsonianâs Folklife Festival. Meaders continued to work in the old-time ways and was joined by other family members over the years. Today hundreds of southern potters create face jugs, popular as a traditional form.
COMMUNITIES OF CRAFT TEACHING
Lacking the European craft guilds and apprenticeships, modern America places the main responsibility of teaching and interpreting traditions on our established schools of craft, which supplement ethnic groups and societies in passing on skills and traditions. Ever since Alfred University opened the doors of its New York State School of Clay-working and Ceramics a century ago, craft schoolsâand craft departments within universitiesâhave been the petri dishes of creativity, providing and sustaining an environment where method and imagination intersect and nurture each other.
Todayâs schools provide a craft continuum fostering an intrinsic knowledge, sense of aesthetics, and appreciation of the natural resources and materials integral to the creation of craft objects.
The curriculum of craft schools is a complex and deliberate blend of academic teaching and practical application. As the great academies of the Renaissance proved, applying thought to materials demands a thorough grounding in the science of the craft, learning and perfecting the ability to work in a chosen medium. Another element is obvious: the artistâs ability to translate his or her creativity into objects that are beautiful, meaningful, and function in the real world.
Todayâs trained and talented craft artist is part scientist, part mathematicianâas well as a creative person. Laws of physics, mathematical formulae, and chemical reactions must be considered, mastered, and applied. In the challenge to achieve his or her creative vision, the craft artist is often an inventor of processâa modern-day alchemist who transforms raw materials and imagination into tangible, spirited objects that sustain our culture, assuring its vitality and aesthetic edge.
Education should also be accessible to anyone. So, the best of these craft educational programs have a tradition of involving their communities in the appreciation of craft and the creative process as important parts in everyoneâs life. Further, they offer educational outreach programs and workshops to all who wish to discover their creative spark.
Focused exclusively on the teaching of crafts, these programs offer experienced and novice artists alike the opportunities to build on their skill sets or to immerse themselves in learning new ones. They range from the small, personalized places of learning that teach basket weaving and chair caning to larger centers that offer a more extensive experience, with one-, two-, and eight-week workshops in books and papermaking, clay, glass, blacksmithing, metals, printmaking, textiles, and wood. Schools like Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine; Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee; and Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado, are among notable schools whose mission is to make craft education accessible to all seeking to make crafts an important and integral part of their lives.
These places, and hundreds more like them, afford the opportunityâwhether for four years, six weeks, or an intensive weekendâto learn from teachers who share their wealth of expertise, assuring that American craft traditions are alive, exciting, and progressive.
RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN (RISD)
Considered among the first rank of American art schools, the Rhode Island School of Design is respected for producing talented graduates with strong visual and technical skills along with an independent spirit. The school was created in 1877 by the Centennial Women of Rhode Island, whose members had funded the stateâs exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Inspired by the exhibits on design and decoration that they saw at the fair, the women, from leading Providence families, established a school in their own city for this purpose, using $1,675 in excess funds remaining from their exhibit.
From the beginning, RISD was known as both school and museum. By 1893, one floor of the school was devoted to a range of objects that included paintings, bronzes, pottery, embroidery, hollowware, and plaster casts. Today, the museum is nationally recognized for its collection of more than eighty thousand pieces that encompass Western and non-Western art. The curatorial staff works closely with faculty to ensure that students become familiar with the collection. In this manner, students learn to assess materials, design, manipulate, process, and resolve to a degree that few other schools can provide, and these experiences provide them with a competitive edge in visualizing and executing new work.
The schoolâs alliance with industry was also apparent from the very beginning. C. B. Farnsworth, head of the schoolâs Committee of Management, expressed the hope that graduates would âmake their manufactures and handicraft productions more satisfactory to [specific] markets.â The âcultivation of the arts of designâ was the schoolâs primary goal according to its articles of incorporation (1877), and its first objective was to create designers, or as originally written, to instruct âartisans in drawing, painting, modeling, and designing, that they may successfully apply the principles of Art to the requirements of trade and manufacture.â
Such goals naturally led to the development of craft-specific classes in textiles (1882) and jewelry (1904), with ceramics (1947), furniture (1969), and glass (1972) developing over time. The school was also committed to the education of artists and teachers in the fine arts, a goal that was largely carried out through classes in painting (1878) and sculpture (1901). In time, these classes evolved into distinct departments with a dedicated faculty, along with many other departments, including architecture, graphic arts, illustration, and photography.
TEXTILES
Textiles was the first of the craft-based courses, perhaps due to the prominence of New Englandâs textile mills. A focus on technology and chemistry in the textiles department during the mid-twentieth century has given way to a more broad-based education in fabric, fiber, and pattern, with a detailed approach to the design process, structure, materials, and techniques of the medium. Costume classes first offered in 1933 are now part of the department of apparel design. Like all RISD programs, textiles and apparel design have successfully joined technical and design education, and they emphasize the holistic approach to teaching, where students are expected to learn and apply aesthetic theory. RISD believes that all these facets are essential in the education of successful artists such as Randall Darwall and John Eric Riis.
METALSMITHING
One of the first influential metalsmithing teachers at RISD was Augustus Rose. An 1896 graduate of the Massachusetts Normal Art School, Rose taught drawing and manual arts at the Providence Manual Training High School and joined RISD in 1900. He traveled to London in 1902 to study metalsmithing, enameling, and pottery and, within a few years of his return, published Copper Work (1906), a classic text of the period that features an Arts and Crafts aesthetic. By 1910, Rose had become head of the Department of Normal Art (art education) and of the Department of Jewelry and Silversmithing at RISD. Rose was also involved in the rehabilitation of returning World War I veterans, an early example of adapting jewelry work for therapeutic purposes. In 1925, Rose became full-time director of the manual arts programs in the Providence public school system, which provided practical training in the crafts to high school students.
With the arrival in 1963 of John (Jack) Prip, the Department of Jewelry and Silversmithing took a turn toward Scandinavian design; Prip had been rigorously trained in Denmark. He had previously taught at the School for American Craftsmen at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), New York (now called the School for American Crafts), and had worked as a designer-craftsman for silversmithing manufacturer Reed & Barton, designing prototypes for application in new product lines. Thus, when he came to RISD, Prip had already begun to explore silver and pewter for their expressive possibilities and led his students and the field into new territory.
Louis Mueller, Pripâs student at RIT, followed him as department head at RISD, and his own playful experimentation with scale, perception, and language continued the exploratory trend. Mueller brought a number of foreign metalsmiths to the school as visiting professors, creating a new awareness of European aesthetic and technical developments among students. Current head of the renamed Jewelry + Metalsmithing Department, Robin Quigley pares down forms in nature and culture to iconic shapes that she ornaments with slate, wood, paint, and pearl.
Another key contributor in silversmithing was William Brigham, who graduated from RISD and quickly took up a teaching role there, later becoming head of the Department of Decorative Design. Brigham often included aged pieces of jade, glass, or other antiquities around which he created his own work of art. Brigham was ahead of the curve, experimenting with historical materials between the First and Second World Wars, when the country was adrift stylistically between the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Deco. During this period, furniture design briefly reverted to colonial and European antecedents. Other notable artists working in the metal arts, including Marie Zimmermann and Josephine Hartwell Shaw, also employed small antiquities to great effect, demonstrating that this aesthetic approach, made visible through the works of Brigham at RISD, was beginning to define the next wave in metalwork.
OTHER PROGRAMS
Danish-born woodworker Tage Frid arrived at RISD in 1962 and established the furniture program within the schoolâs Department of Industrial Design (see figure on page 185). An influential teacher and writer, he wrote Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking (1979) and was both founder and editor of Fine Woodworking Magazine, which began publication in 1975. Fridâs students John Dunnigan (MFA 1980) and Rosanne Somerson (BFA 1976,) teach at the school today in the Department of Furniture Design, established in 1996. Dunnigan is presently head of the department and works in a classical mode with elegant and often unexpected details. Somersonâs rigorously executed furniture has an animated quality that she imbues with color and texture.
The ceramics department was begun in 1947 under Lyle Perkins, who served as head from 1947 to 1963, and his wife, Dorothy Wilson Perkins. Both were graduates of Alfred University, and their strong technical education provided a sound foundation for RISDâs fledgling department. During Norman Schulmanâs tenure from 1965 to 1977, students were exposed to an emphasis on sculptural aspects of clay that reflected nationwide developments. With the arrival of Jacqueline Rice in 1977, a shift toward pattern emerged, as the notion of decoration began to achieve a new respect among ceramic artists. Rice hired Christina Bertoni and Jan Holcomb as faculty, and each artist brought a different perspective to students: Bertoni in her use of clay to invoke memory in domestic installations, and Holcomb in his narrative compositions, executed with figurative forms in the round and as bas reliefs. Lawrence Bush, now head of the program, continues to explore surface decoration, both painted and carved, of utilitarian objects.
The Department of Glass, historically the last of the craft media to develop, was founded in 1969 by Dale Chihuly, who earned an MFA in ceramics at RISD in 1968. He then studied in Murano, an island off the coast of Venice where the once-secret art of glassmaking has been practiced since the thirteenth centuryâand for which it is internationally famous today. Upon his return in 1969, he established the glass program at RISD. Chihuly, arguably the best-known glass artist of our time, made his greatest contribution by creating assemblages of blown-glass elements that could embody such disparate concepts as seashells and chandeliers. The pieces have been used en masse to create landscape and museum installations.
As a cutting-edge art school, RISDâs place in the educational community today is secure. Its unique mix of teaching in the studio and classroom and museum instruction through object assessment provides students with an excellent grasp of the complex interrelationship between craft, design, and culture that equips them for a successful career in the arts.
CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
Founded in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake by the broadly educated immigrant furniture maker Frederick Meyer, the California College of the Arts has been committed to education and innovation from its very beginning. While most art schools of the time taught students simply to imitate earlier works and styles, CCA showed them how to improve upon the materials of the past and develop their own artistic expression. By the end of the twentieth century, its cutting-edge faculty and alumni included such luminous figures as Bauhaus-trained weaver Trude Guermonprez; Marvin Lipofsky, who led the Bay Areaâs studio glass movement; and Peter Voulkos, a founder of the California art ceramics movement.
Meyerâs founding philosophy was to teach crafts as a defined discipline, of equal importance to the fine arts. He also structured the college as an institution that would attract the best craft artists not so much to train as to teach them to be innovators. CCA, like California itself, has always been a place where anything goes. And it is this absence of self-consciousness plus the serious commitment to educate that made the college a place where creativity and innovationâhowever out thereâwere legitimized. It was the first college on the West Coast to truly join the contemporary, international community of arts educators, and to truly acknowledge the crafts as a formal discipline.
A PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES
When the earthquake struck on April 18, 1906, Frederick Meyer lost his home and studio, Craftsmanâs Shop, to the ensuing fires that swept through the city, destroying everything the trembling did not. Shortly afterward, at a Guild of Arts and Crafts dinner, he expressed his desire to build a âpractical art schoolâ that would train students in the fine arts of painting, drawing, and sculpture as well as crafts and the mechanical arts, and a school that would also train a new breed of arts teachersâteachers who would encourage individuality and self-expression in young artists, rather than train them to reproduce historical styles. Meyer, not knowing what those words would inspire, returned to Europe to see new Scandinavian designs and to buy studio materials for Arthur and Lucia Mathews, with whom he had begun working after the earthquake. When he returned to San Francisco in 1907, he found to his surprise that his remark had been incorrectly published in the San Francisco Call newspaper as a formalized plan.1 The âplansâ had caused considerable excitement among San Francisco citizens, eager to recover and redefine their city in a modern wayâwith new architecture, new materials, new designs, and new thought. Completely rebuilding a major city offered an unparalleled potential and the cityâs need for architects, artists, and craftspeople of all media inspired not only a tremendous influx of those anxious to contribute to the cityâs rebirth, but it also placed a definite spotlight on the arts and their critical relevance to everyday life. The city was ready for an arts school.
With students at the ready and the support of the guild, Meyer founded the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in 1907.2 Opening in a small studio in Berkeley with three classrooms, forty-three students, and four faculty, the school offered precisely what Meyer had dreamed of: courses in traditional crafts, the mechanic arts, and the fine arts, as well as a teacher-training program to prepare new arts educators.3 In his new âpractical art school,â Meyer provided young artists not only with technical training but also with a framework in which to succeed as professional artists.
FROM DESIGN TO REFORM
Displays of poorly designed and executed products at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition in England and the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 caused reevaluations of teaching practices on both sides of the Atlantic and led to a wide-ranging reformation of arts schools curricula, paralleling the Arts and Crafts movementâs call for design reform. Meyerâs plan to open an arts school that gave crafts the same level of value as the fine arts was part of an international push by educators and manufacturers to establish industrial arts schools.4 A better-trained craftsman produced a better, more desirable (i.e., saleable) object and whichever country produced the best goods cornered the market. It was a simple case of economics.
This new style of training prepared American designers, artists, and craftsmen to compete on an international scale by producing goods of a higher quality than those items being imported from Europe. Meyerâs students were offered an international stage by San Franciscoâs 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.5 That their furniture designs were displayed in the Palace of Education rather than the Palaces of Fine or Liberal Arts makes an interesting study. It was Meyerâs college and students that were on display; they were exhibited as much as a model of educational reform as they were artisans creating new and important designs.
FROM REFORM TO AVANT-GARDE
One of the earliest and most influential ceramics instructors on staff was Marguerite Wildenhain. Born in France but raised in Germany, she was forced to flee Nazi Europe and immigrated to the United States in 1940, where she landed at the college almost immediately. Her tenure was a brief but critical step in her careerâand in the history of ceramics in Americaâbecause it led to the creation of the Pond Farm community and its distinctive philosophy and style.
Her two-year teaching experience provided her the momentum to establish the Pond Farm pottery studio and workshops in Guerneville, a rural community in northern Californiaâs Russian River Valley. While she brought additional faculty to the community in its early years, she was the only permanent faculty member, and she established a loyal following. Her Pond Farm âdisciples,â as they were called, learned the discipline of hand and mind required to achieve mastery of their craft, and they were inspired to seek perfection and attain consummate professionalism in their fieldâthe same principles Wildenhain had been taught during her formative years at the Bauhaus. By the 1950s, her methods and techniques of working with clay had become the model associated with California. Through the 1970s, she taught students not simply about the medium but about the integration of life and art, about her philosophies on nature and its reflection in simple, honest, wheelthrown forms.
Wildenhainâs contributions occurred in a more roundabout way as well. She had invited friend and fellow ĂŠmigrĂŠ Trude Guermonprez to teach weaving workshops at Pond Farm and while doing so Guermonprez, from 1952 to 1954, taught additional summer-session weaving workshops. Although they were masters of different media, Wildenhain and Guermonprez bore a remarkable similarity in terms of their lifetime experiences: Both studied at the Bauhaus and the Halle-Saale School of Fine and Applied Arts in Germany, both had fled Nazi persecution via the Netherlands, and both had taught at Black Mountain College. From the late 1930s, the refugee population of artisteducators changed and enhanced the American educational systemâmost notably in the artsânot only by introducing modern European thought but by supporting each other in the way that Wildenhain did Guermonprez. Throughout the American arts colleges are stories of this overlapping, this interconnection, of lives and experiences, which broaden the notion of schools as communities of teaching to schools as communities of tolerance.
Guermonprez officially joined the faculty in 1954. She remained on staff until 1976, first in the Department of Crafts, later in the Department of Weaving. Already highly regarded for her textiles, which were exhibited nationally, she became equally known for her work as an educator and as a speaker. According to the Oakland Museumâs 1982 exhibition catalog, The Tapestries of Trude Guermonprez, her legacy is the âreturn to the loomâ by fiber artists and renewed interest in âcombining graphic with woven construction.â She is further credited with imparting âthe ability to produce expressive workâwhich went beyond meticulous craftsmanship, mastery of means, and even personal imageryâto communicate to others, a wealth of human experience.â It is an idea that encapsulates the very meaning of craft: that by making something with oneâs own hands, it is intrinsically imbued with all that those hands have touched. A personal experience can be expressed in three-dimensional form.
Viola Frey was a prolific and influential ceramist who graduated from the college in 1956 with a bachelor of fine arts and joined the teaching staff in 1965 and oversaw the establishment of the ceramic arts center. Her monumentally proportioned, largely figurative, painted sculptures were âbrilliantly colored, gestural, animated . . . formed not only out of clay but of color, light and a lifetime of experiences.â6 Freyâs work often dealt with political and gender issues, but also included irony, humor, and experiences with the mundane. Bold and groundbreaking monumental ceramic sculptures gained her international acclaim as an artist and teacher, and her growing fame attracted serious students, who enrolled to study with her. This, in turn, further enhanced the collegeâs reputation as a prestigious center of craft learning that not only valued the teaching of time-honored techniques but also encouraged risk taking and the application of conceptual modes of thought and practice.
Glass, too, became a major component of CCACâs programming. The department was founded in 1967 and directed for twenty years by artist-teacher Marvin Lipofsky, a former student of studio glass legend Harvey K. Littleton. Lipofskyâs work from the 1960s and 1970s has come to represent the Bay Areaâs studio glass movement. From glass hamburger plays on pop culture, to his California Loop Series, sweeping curvatures of flocked and plated glass, Lipofsky turned a traditionally functional medium into a purely sculptural one, and placed the emphasis on unexpected forms and materials.
CONTEMPORARY FACULTY: CONTINUING THE UNTRADITIONAL
The collegeâs history of hiring avant-garde, artist-teacher faculty continues today with instructors such as internationally recognized fiber artist Lia Cook, who has taught at the college for more than thirty years. Cookâs interest in photography, painting, weaving, and technology led her to the computerized Jacquard loom. In her 2002 work Traces: Intent, she constructed a woven interpretation of a photograph of herself as a child.7 Her innovative technique exchanges fibers for pixels. The resulting tapestry is a hybrid of handcraft and technology: The digital loom weaves an image that is embedded in the very structure of cloth, which is constructed of thousands of threads in varying colors and textures. The large-format images at once reference contemporary photographic and looming techniques and the pointillist paintings of Neo-Impressionists like Georges Seurat.
Another member of the fiber faculty, Jean Williams Cacicedo, is a pioneer in the field of wearable art. Cacicedo is widely known for her elaborate âstory coats.â She was one of the first fiber artists to interpret clothing as more than functional adornment and simple fashion statement. Instead, she created imagery on her cloaks or coats to reveal the many inner and often intimate layers of emotion, memory, and personal stories. She wrote, âCombined with symbol and pattern, dyeing and piecing of fabrics, the garment becomes a narrative whose images embrace the wearer. I see the garmentâs shape, absent of body, as a canvas to color and sculpture to form.â8
ALUMNI: STUDENTS AS INNOVATORS
The collegeâs history of iconic faculty is most directly reflected in the success of its students. Its broad range of programs has produced many groundbreaking artists.
Ceramist Peter Voulkos graduated with an MFA in 1952 and is credited with bringing the studio ceramics movement to Southern Californiaâwhich had a long history of ceramicsâin a commercial vein, as California was home to many commercial patteries such as Bauer Pottery Co. and Gladding, McBean & Co. Voulkos, who began teaching at Otis in 1954, pushed beyond function and created abstract, deconstructed vessels that were earthy and sensual and charged. His sculptures were vastly different from traditional wheel-thrown vessels and they revolutionized ceramics in the Los Angeles area. He was dynamic and young, and students were drawn to him.
Robert Arneson, who also attended CCAC in the early 1950s, became a leader of the Funk movement that developed out of the 1960s Bay Area counterculture. Arneson created large ceramic sculptures that confronted the New York gallery scene with their unexpected, arrogant, and often ugly nature. From vulgar representations of toilets to violently contorted self-portraits, his was âart that shoutedâabout politics, about sex, about everything not acceptable to polite society.â9
More recent crafts alumni who have forged new territory and become innovators in their respective media include sculptor Robert Brady, known for his raw and powerful triballike figures and artifacts in clay and wood; fiber artist Candace Kling, who makes whimsical confections constructed of ribbon; and textile artist Joy Stocksdale (daughter of famed wood turner Robert Stocksdale and fabric artist Kay Sekimachi), who dyes, cuts, and pieces silk into gossamerlike wall murals of color and light.
A CENTENARY FOR THE âPRACTICAL ART SCHOOLâ
Throughout the twentieth century, the college has continued to grow, adding new buildings, classrooms, research facilities, exhibition spaces, and studios, as well as new undergraduate and graduate-degree programs. The mid-1990s also saw the addition of a San Francisco campus. In 1998, the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was founded, establishing an international forum for arts discussion and incorporating the collegeâs existing artists-in-residence program, the Capp Street Project. Two years later, the Center for Art and Public Life was created, using cross-disciplinary arts to address community issues via events, partnerships, academic programs, and grants.
With a broadening of its curriculum and outreach programs, the school that had been the California College of Arts and Crafts adopted a new all-encompassing name in 2003, California College of the Arts. By evolving constantly to maintain Frederick Meyerâs mission of a âpractical art school,â it has remained one of the nationâs finest for a century. No matter the media, its students create a kind of work that is independent of anyplace else. The pioneering, exploratory, and fearless spirit of their teachers, mixed with the relaxed, âlaid-backâ lifestyle that has come to define West Coast culture in the media, continues to be an important influence in the progressive arts produced at the college.
THE CRANBROOK VISION
As the American Arts and Crafts movement burgeoned in the last years of the nineteenth century, the Detroit newspaper publisher George Gough Booth emerged as one of its most devoted followers. Born in Toronto in 1864 into a family of master craftsmen and designers, Booth had a natural personal affinity for the arts, especially the applied arts and architecture. As a child he heard stories about his fatherâs ancestors, who had worked for generations as coppersmiths in the small village of Cranbrook, England, and he had the distinct pleasure of seeing his father, uncle, and grandfatherânatives of Cranbrook and metalworkers allâplying their craft in the family shop in Toronto.
In the mid-1880s Booth purchased a half-interest in an ornamental ironworks in Windsor, Ontario, and began a lucrative business selling and manufacturing products of his own design. By the age of twenty-four, Booth was well established as the proprietor of one of Canadaâs foremost wrought-iron firms. His work graced many significant buildings in Quebec and Ontario, including the Bank of Montreal in Toronto, today housing the Hockey Hall of Fame.
THE INFLUENCE OF JAMES EDMUND SCRIPPS
Boothâs fortunes improved considerably in 1887 when he wed Ellen Scripps, a daughter of James Edmund Scripps, publisher of the Detroit Evening News and a principal of the Scripps League, the nationâs largest group of newspapers. At his father-in-lawâs urging, Booth sold his firm and embarked on a career as the business manager of the Evening News. Entrusted with ever increasing responsibility, Booth steadily rose through the company ranks and eventually succeeded Scripps as publisher in 1906. He oversaw the paper as it blossomed into a great metropolitan daily, following Detroitâs unprecedented growth as Americaâs largest center of manufacturing.
Boothâs association with James Scripps, however, paid more than financial dividends. Booth learned about philanthropy as he helped his father-in-law, one of Detroitâs towering cultural benefactors, plan and implement several initiatives, including the establishment of the Detroit Museum of Art (the precursor to the Detroit Institute of Arts), the building of Trinity Episcopal Church, and the beautification of Detroitâs Belle Isle Park, one of Frederick Law Olmstedâs largest commissions. Booth also benefited enormously from Scrippsâs connoisseurship, artistic connections, friendly collecting advice, and expansive collections of art and rare books as he began to develop his own collecting and patronage interests. For instance, an encounter with one of William Morrisâs Kelmscott Press books in the Scripps library inspired Booth to create his own Cranbrook Press, which between 1900 and 1902 produced a series of beautifully crafted hand-pressed books of Boothâs own design.
EMBRACING THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
By the turn of the century, Booth was wholly engaged in the Arts and Crafts movement as a craftsman member of several societies, a patron, collector, exhibitor, and passionate advocate. Clearly, he felt driven to support the movement for personal reasons, for he always considered himself to be an artist and architect at heart, but he also believed strongly in the broader social, moral, educational, and aesthetic aims of the movement, especially in the regenerating or uplifting effects brought by aligning art with life. He corresponded with most of the major figures in the movement and was especially interested in the activities of individuals who sought to create model Arts and Crafts communities, for example, Elbert Hubbard of the Roycrofters.
Hence, though burdened by the demands of running his many businesses, Booth labored tirelessly in the first decades of the twentieth century to advance the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States. He served on the board of the American Federation of Arts, created training programs for industrial designers, underwrote a traveling fellowship for architectural students at the University of Michigan, and eloquently promoted the ideals of the movement through articles and speeches. Gathering support from Detroitâs architectural and artistic communities, he helped to organize the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts in 1906 and served as its principal patron for several decades. With his backing, the society became one of the most active craft organizations in the country, serving up exhibitions, lectures, public theatrical performances, sales of crafted objects, studios for artistic production, and eventually a school.
BOOTH EXTENDS HIS ART PATRONAGE
Believing that museums had a responsibility to keep the public abreast of developments in the decorative arts fields, Booth donated a remarkable array of about one hundred American and European sculptures, applied art, and decorative works to the Detroit Institute of Arts, forming one of the most significant collections of its kind in the country. Among its prized treasures was a wroughtiron gate designed by Thomas Hastings (of the prominent architectural firm Carrère and Hastings) and executed by the famed Edward F. Caldwell and Company of New York under Caldwellâs personal direction. Depicting birds playing amid wisteria vines growing through a gate, the delicately wrought, polychromed copper-and-brass work required nearly a yearâs constant attention by half a dozen of Caldwellâs most skilled metalworkers to produce.
While amassing his collection at the museum, Booth also worked closely with Michiganâs architectural and educational communities to enhance opportunities for architects, students, and artists involved in the building trades. âBuilder Boothâ was admired for his eagerness to build well and always appropriately, with expectations that his buildings would harmoniously blend art, craft, architecture, and landscape architecture and significantly contribute to the cultural foundations of their towns and cities.
CRANBROOK: A PATRONâS CANVAS
As remarkable as these measures were, the crowning achievement of George Boothâs life was the creation of Cranbrook, the renowned educational community that he and his wife developed in Bloomfield Hills, an outlying rural area near Detroit. Their venture began in 1904, when Booth purchased a rundown farm on gentle, rolling terrain and immediately began improving the property as a family retreat and working farm. From the outset, Booth anticipated that the land would eventually be given over to a higher, public purpose, and so he took extraordinary measures to ensure that he built well, with posterity in mind. He called the property Cranbrook, after his familyâs hometown in Cranbrook, England, which is a place of noted beauty filled with buildings inspired by Arts and Crafts ideals.
Boothâs dreams for Cranbrook accelerated in the years after 1908, when he and his family took up residence at âCranbrook House,â which became a showcase for Boothâs ever-growing collections of art, especially decorative objects. Booth surrounded the manor with formal gardens, statuary, and picturesque attendant buildings, including a Greek theater built for performances by the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. He frequently opened the house to visitors and arts organizations and encouraged the public to enjoy his estateâs attractions.
As Booth approached his sixties, he gave increasing thought to the ultimate purpose of Cranbrook. Having no desire to squander his retirement in idle luxury, Booth felt compelled to use his wealth and talents to transform Cranbrook into an educational and cultural center unlike any other, a place where the beauty of the setting would express the virtues of art in life and foster the creative growth of all who enrolled in its programs or visited its grounds. In doing so, he was fully prepared to divest himself of his lifeâs fortune.
ESTABLISHING THE CRANBROOK COMMUNITY
The first major institution to be established was Christ Church Cranbrook, an Episcopalian parish intended to serve as the moral center of the new Cranbrook community and a symbol of the melding of the spiritual and aesthetic impulses. Designed by Bertram Goodhue Associates and consecrated in 1928, the church incorporated hundreds of rare and commissioned works, many from prominent craft firms that were destined to be closed by the Great Depression within the decade. By virtue of its total embrace of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic, Christ Church Cranbrook stands as a monumental testament to the arts that flourished before the onset of modernism. Henry Booth, the founderâs son and a graduate of the University of Michigan architectural program, designed a childrenâs school, Brookside, which opened in 1929 in a fanciful but altogether charming building that trailed along a stretch of the Rouge River flowing through campus. For the remaining institutions, Booth turned to Eliel Saarinen, the great Finnish master whose artistic roots lay in National Romanticism, the Finnish iteration of the international movement. Working closely with Booth, Saarinen executed four major building programs at Cranbrook: Cranbrook School for Boys, which opened in 1927; Kingswood School for Girls, 1931; Cranbrook Institute of Science, 1938; and Cranbrook Academy of Art, completed in 1942.
BOOTHâS AIMS FOR CRANBROOK
Although each Cranbrook institution assumed a different architectural style, all reflected Boothâs desire that they integrate interior and exterior elements in a pleasing composition that stressed craft and good design. All were set off by attractive landscapes and enhanced with statuary and water features, including reflecting pools and fountains. Knowing that Cranbrook was to be a community of artists, educators, students, and caretakers, Booth also constructed scores of homes, apartments, and dormitory rooms for their use. Such was the depth of his vision that Booth personally guided the development of Cranbrookâs architecture and landscape, formulated the missions of the institutions, assembled their presiding boards, and commissioned or purchased much of the art that filled the buildings and grounds. In a fitting endgame, Booth donated the remainder of his lifeâs riches to establish an endowment for Cranbrook. He would die in 1949 a âpoor man,â as he had hoped.
To nurture the creative abilities of younger Cranbrook students, Booth incorporated arts training into each of the schoolsâ curricula and outfitted them with well-equipped facilities for craft and art production. Booth furnished Kingswood School, for instance, with the largest weaving studio in the United States. He also hoped that students would gain a greater appreciation of art by examining the holdings of the Academyâs Art Museum and experiencing the many treasures that dotted the campus, from Samuel Yellin ironware and Carl Milles sculptures to Pewabic Pottery installations by Mary Chase Perry Stratton and tapestries from Merton Abbey. To influence Cranbrook students to become informed, engaged, and caring citizens, Booth and other community leaders stressed public service careers as highly as those in the professions and commerce. Cranbrook itself became a prime example of the model communities that students were expected to help build wherever they settled in life.
ART EDUCATION AT THE CENTER OF THE COMMUNITY
Booth envisioned the Cranbrook Academy of Art as the communityâs educational centerpiece, a place that would actively influence the creative aspirations of Cranbrook while assuming a major role within the nationâs artistic life. Inspired by the American Academy in Rome, Booth sought to create a comparable institution at Cranbrook, a place where accomplished artists, well along in their professional careers, could pass a period of time working and living among peers in an atmosphere of creativity, interplay, and inward reflection. In the late 1920s, Booth took tentative steps toward realizing this dream by opening craft workshops, joining masters and students, to aid in the embellishment of the Cranbrook institutions and to promote artistic handwork to the general public. Among the craftsmen who came to Cranbrook under these auspices were Tor Berglund, formerly a cabinetmaker to the Swedish royal family; John C. Burnett, a talented Scottish blacksmith; Jean Eschmann, a Swiss bookbinder; and Loja Saarinen, Elielâs wife, who established a fine handweaving firm, known as Studio Loja Saarinen, on the grounds in 1928.
Another early craftsman was Arthur Nevill Kirk, a superb English silversmith whom Booth recruited in London to craft crucifixes and altar plates for Christ Church Cranbrook. Kirk was a consummate designer-craftsman. He was a master of cloisonnĂŠ enameling and preferred working with traditional forms, but he always imbued his work with personalized twists that underscored his own contemporary impulses, as evidenced in his Triptych of about 1940. Whereas the beading and floral elements in the casing evoke Kirkâs strong Arts and Crafts sensibilities, his treatment of the figures, support, and base indicates his willingness to extend his work with newer vocabularies.
Eliel Saarinen, heading a team of architects and draftsmen in the Cranbrook Architectural Office, made liberal use of the academyâs workshops, churning out designs for textiles, andirons, gates, furniture, silver work, and more for Cranbrookâs grounds. Most of the craftsmen willingly accepted these commissions, for it provided steady work under Boothâs patronage.
THE CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART AND CONTEMPORARY DESIGN
In 1933, as the Great Depression deepened and the building pace slowed at Cranbrook, Booth was forced to close the workshops, realizing that they could no longer be economically justified. However, unshaken in his belief that America still needed well-trained artists, designers, architects, and urban planners to give form to the towns and cities of the future as well as the product goods that would fill them, Booth seized the opportunity to reinvent the academy aong its current lines. He and Saarinen set the institution on a radically different path, one that emphasized contemporary design and a view toward machine production. This by no means signaled an end of handcraft at the academy, however. Rather, Booth and Saarinen hoped that the new approach would free artists to explore a range of materials, processes, and media that heretofore had been overlooked. The men hoped that the academy would remain small, affording continuing opportunities for faculty and students to live and interact in an intimate, creative setting. To ensure a high level of creativity, Saarinen decreed that the Academy be kept free of academic regimen, that it offer no formal classes or set curriculum. Students were expected to receive instruction in a variety of disciplines, to expand their understanding of materials and production techniques in order to be as inventive as possible. The Academy maintained ties with a number of manufacturers to permit students to professionally design for industry during their Cranbrook stay. Saarinen also encouraged students to enter competitions either collectively or individually and to accept private commissions as a means of furthering their professional careers.
At first, the Academy conferred no formal degrees. This changed during the Second World War, when the academy was formally spun off as a separate Cranbrook entity in order to take advantage of educational funding programs for veterans authorized under the GI Bill. From 1943 onward, the Academy has offered both undergraduate and graduate degrees, though its focus has been entirely at the graduate level in recent decades.
LIFE AND WORK AT THE ACADEMY
In spirit, the Cranbrook Academy of Art had much in common with the Staatliche Bauhaus, to which it has often been compared. Both institutions sought at a fundamental level to unify art, craft, and technology, but the Bauhausâ larger scale and adherence to established educational standards set it apart from the academy, where students were given much freer reign to develop their artistic temperament. Naturally, the Academyâs forward-looking ethos at the time attracted individuals who were interested in modernism and mass production, as is evidenced by the careers of such Cranbrook luminaries as Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Florence Knoll Bassett, Harry Bertoia, Ben Baldwin, and Jack Lenor Larsen, among others. Nonetheless, many Academy students eschewed thoughts of designing for industry, preferring instead to concentrate on producing handcrafted or unique items, such as ceramic pieces, paintings, metal objects, and woven textiles.
Saarinen and other faculty members led the way in the Academyâs creative environment. In addition to monitoring and guiding studentsâ professional growth, each was expected to sustain an active studio practice and maintain high visibility in his respective field. And many faculty members often invited students to help them out professionally on private commissions and competition entries. Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, for instance, relied upon the skills of several students for assistance on their winning bentplywood designs for the famous 1940 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Saarinen suggested the forms, but it took Eames, Harry Bertoia, Ray Kaiser, and others to work out fabricating techniques.
Eliel Saarinenâs thriving private architectural practice, exhibition work, and designs for industry afforded him ample opportunity to apply his talents as one of the countryâs most eminent architects and designers. Paralleling his architectural work, which became increasingly spare and geometric as he grew older, Saarinenâs designs for industry also assumed an increasingly unadorned elegance as the 1930s unfoldedâhis imposing Tea Service, for instance, designed as an accoutrement to his Room for a Lady at the 1934 Contemporary Industrial Art exhibition at New York Cityâs Metropolitan Museum of Art, demonstrated Saarinenâs mastery of form and proportion at any scale. The silverplated service, manufactured by International Silver Company, was never publicly marketed, but at least three variations of it were put into regular use at Cranbrook. One wonders whether academy ceramist Maija Grotell had Saarinenâs spherical urn in mind when she produced a series of globular vessels featuring linked decorative surface elements in the 1940s, one of which, a stoneware vase from about 1943, is particularly striking for the way in which she raised check motifs in relief with slip above an otherwise unglazed striated surface.
Among the most innovative of all Cranbrook artists was Marianne Strengell, a family friend of the Saarinens who arrived as a weaving instructor in 1937. She pioneered the use of metallic and synthetic fibers in her handweavings and employed a power loom to teach her students how to design for industry. Throughout her twenty-five-year tenure, she produced fabrics for a wide range of industrial and commercial clients, including her old Cranbrook friends Eero Saarinen and Florence Knoll Bassett, and helped to create a cottage industry for handweavers in the Philippines to produce âtransportation clothâ or automotive upholstery fabric.
SUSTAINING THE CREATIVE EDGE
Academy students, of course, have always responded well in this artistic milieu, often in ways that outpaced their teachersâ efforts. Harry Bertoia, perhaps the most consummate of all Cranbrook artists because he excelled at several media, demonstrated such overwhelming talent that he was tapped to reopen the metalshop while still a student at the academy. The popular Bertoia designed and executed several notable items in the six years he spent at Cranbrook, including amusing jewelry pieces, a small plated tea service based on Elielâs famous urn, and other tea and coffee silver services that utilized forward-leaning forms with parabolic curves. Several of Strengellâs protĂŠgĂŠs, including Jack Lenor Larsen and Robert Sailors, went on to influential careers in the fabrics industry. Similarly, Maija Grotellâs three decades of teaching generated many prominent ceramists, including Toshiko Takaezu, Richard DeVore, and Harvey Littleton, one of the founders of the American art glass movement.
Most students look upon their Cranbrook years as the defining periods of their lives, and, true to form, most have continued to grow by delving into new media after they leave. Charles (Ed) Rossbach, for instance, who concentrated in ceramics and weaving at the academy, went on to establish himself as a top textile designer before experimenting with nontraditional material such as foil, twine, plastics, and twigs in his pieces. His Ceremonial Vessel with Shells, a late work from 1991, refers also to his fascination with basketry, the subject of two of his books. A few, like DeVore, returned to teach at the academy. Convinced that âpotsâ could convey ideas as powerful as any work of art, DeVore turned out enigmatic pieces with undulating surfaces, folds, lacerations, and recesses that challenged viewers to ponder the artistâs intent and the meaning of the work. His ideas paved the way for later generations of Academy craft artists, who never questioned that they aimed for expression and not necessarily functionalism in their work. This freedom has led to an astonishing range of production. Myra Mimlitsch-Grayâs Candelabrum, Seven Fragments, for example, a whimsical depiction of a melted candelabrum, actually calls into question more serious issues of materiality, impermanence, and artistic objective. Such a technically demanding piece would never have been created in the Saarinen era, for it boldly functions in the conceptual realms of aesthetics and theory, without concern for utility.
AN ENVIABLE HERITAGE
By emphasizing the educational aims of the movement rather than the production of hand goods, George Booth set Cranbrook on a course that was to make it one of the few sustainable Arts and Crafts communities in the United States. In conception and realization, however, Booth ensured that Cranbrook would remain the most rarefied of all. No other crafts community offers as broad a range of educational programming or approaches its scale, which encompasses scores of architectural treasures on a 320-acre site. Perhaps most important, none matches its integration of art, design, craftsmanship, and natural beauty. All are found in abundance at Cranbrook, the last full flowering of the Arts and Crafts movement in America.
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WEAVING A HISTORY OF EXCELLENCE
Cranbrook has been a center for fiber-arts production and education since the late 1920s, when Loja Saarinen established a commercial weaving studio on the grounds, Studio Loja Saarinen, and founded the Weaving and Textile Design Departmentâthe forerunner of todayâs Fiber Departmentâat the Academy. In 1933, a high school weaving program was established at Kingswood School under the direction of Lillian Holm, one of Loja Saarinenâs most talented employees.
With seventy looms in operation, the Kingswood weaving studio is today the largest in the country. Given such a heritage, it is not surprising that Cranbrook has turned out some of the most influential fiber artists of the past century.
What is surprising is that Loja Saarinen opted to open her studio in the first place, because she had actually spent little time exploring the fiber arts in her native Finland. The outstanding quality of Studio Loja Saarinen textiles quickly won the studio several significant commissions, from clients as diverse as George Booth, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Chrysler Corporation, and Richard Hudnut, the New York cosmetics magnate. Saarinen and her weavers, largely women of Swedish extraction, employed the Scandinavian ryijy technique in their rugs, which produced a deep nap formed by hand-knotting tufts of yarn onto the warp. The Cranbrook Loom, designed by Saarinen for her studio, is still widely used by weavers today.
Lojaâs successor, Marianne Strengell, revolutionized textile production at Cranbrook through her experimentation with synthetic, metallic, and natural materials on both hand and power looms. Her superbly crafted woven goods, popular designed fabrics, and industrial textiles secured her reputation as one of the most talented textile artists of the twentieth century. Strengellâs success paved the way for those who studied under her.
Jack Lenor Larsen, her most famous student, emerged as Americaâs leading fabric designer and fabricator in the late 1950s through his innovative use of technology, color, materials, and weaves. Larsenâs products became strongly identified with modernist interiors. He was the first to create fabrics for jet aircraft, to print on velvet (in America), and to create stretch upholstery fabric. Yet another Strengell student, Charles (Ed) Rossbach, was a pioneer in the movement to create nonfunctional textiles and to employ fiber as a sculptural material.
As generations of teachers have left their mark on students, the torch is passed yet again, to Hiromi Oda, who studied under Jack Lenor Larsen. Trained in Japan in traditional weaving techniques, under Larsenâs influence her work expanded to include more experimental approaches, such as off-the-loom weaving.
The Cranbrook Academy of Artâs current director, Gerhardt Knodel, headed the Fiber Department for many years. Knodel specializes in producing monumental fiber installations for architectural interiors. In Guardians of the New Day, Knodel blends photographic and weaving processes to create a four-panel woven wall hanging that unfolds the ecologically themed story of manâs responsibility to nature: Each panel portrays a âguardianâ protecting the elements of land, water, air, and light. Introducing figurative elements into contemporary weaving and âbuilding lightâ into the textile through the use of layered transparent materials are the hallmarks of Knodelâs innovative work, innovations for which he was honored in 1993 when elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Crafts Council.
SCHOOL FOR AMERICAN CRAFTS, ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
The School for American Crafts is a leader in producing artists, designers, and teachers in craft media. Merged with the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1950, the school today is a division of RITâs College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, which offers additional programs in art, design, photography, film, and print media. As such, it is at the center of a dynamic and lively environment for all of the arts.
But the school has an earlier, distinguished origin as the brainchild of Aileen Osborne Webb (Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb), who was responsible for organizing several national craft organizations during the late 1930s and early 1940s (see page 32). As a leader in the American Craftsmanâs Educational Council, Mrs. Webb wanted to offer a solid academic foundation for those who aspired to make a living as craftsmen. In 1944, she found a receptive base for her program, called the School for American Craftsmen, under the joint sponsorship of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and the collegeâs Student Workshop (founded in 1941). The training and rehabilitation of returning veterans was an early and integral part of the program since it was created during wartime, but within a few years, a diverse student body was in place.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCHOOL AND ACADEMIC CURRICULUM
A two-year program in the fields of textiles, ceramics, wood, and metal was planned, and the first classes took place in November of 1944. According to the school prospectus, training in specific craft disciplines and a practical education in the marketing and sale of goods would enable graduates to establish their own workshops, join others who were engaged in limited production, or execute specialized tasks for industry. Products made by individuals or workshops could be sold through America House, a retail shop on New Yorkâs Madison Avenue, created by the American Craftsmanâs Cooperative Council, and an excellent proving ground for an objectâs commercial appeal.1 The writers of the prospectus also anticipated the potential for graduates to create new occupational fields, for in the postwar era, a new breed of designer-craftsmen emerged who worked with industry, created prototypes for production, and raised the level of design in manufactured goods. This development took place in the silversmithing industry, as Towle, Reed & Barton, and other manufacturers in the 1950s hired young, talented metalsmiths including John (Jack) Prip, Robert King, Ron Pearson, and Earl Pardon to develop prototypes for production.
The faculty was composed of experienced craftspeople, most of whom had previously operated their own shops or taught. Morning classes were devoted to design and the technical aspects of each discipline, while afternoons were focused on production. During the afternoon sessions, designs from various sources were considered on the basis of design, functionality, and marketability. Students then worked on approved examples, keeping track of their time, materials, and methods to determine the likely cost of the work.
Power and hand tools were available to students, who were encouraged to use the most efficient means to achieve their goals. The artistic nature of this work, however, was downplayed, unlike the approach taken during the Arts and Crafts period. The Dartmouth program was a practical one that had much in common with earlier manual training and later vocational schools. The use of power machinery did not mean, however, that hand tools gathered dust. The director of training, Virgil Poling, believed that handcraftsmanship was a creative activity that contributed to the quality of life in American culture:
An educated person must understand at least the basic mechanical processes used in our industrialized society; that work with our hands is part of our tradition and thus a dignified procedure; that the ability and desire to invent or create are necessary and important steps toward the development of a national culture and the discovery and maintenance of human dignity.
In 1946, the School for American Craftsmen moved from Dartmouth College to Alfred University, in Alfred, New York, where students worked eleven months per year and forty hours per week, in emulation of the working world. Metalsmithing went forward at Alfred under Philip Morton, who had little formal education or apprenticeship experience but was open to explorations in design. His most important pupil was studio craftsman Ronald Hayes Pearson, who gave his mentor credit for focusing his attention on form and function. Morton later produced an influential book entitled Contemporary Jewelry (1970). The school was relocated for a second and final time in 1950 to its home at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), in Rochester, New York. At RIT, the school settled into a larger cultural community that had the funding to support programming and could provide more space for classes.
DISTINGUISHED FACULTY IS DRAWN TO SAC
Key faculty members in the early years at Rochester were Danish furniture maker Tage Frid, German ceramist Frans Wildenhain, and American-born silversmith John (Jack) Prip, who had been raised in Denmark, followed by Danish-born Hans Christensen. In 1954, Frid, Prip, and Christensen provided a Scandinavian design aesthetic for which the school was known in its early years. Wildenhain, a talented painter and sculptor, was a free-spirited artist and graduate of the Bauhaus School, and he helped the school gradually move its focus from production to the pursuit of artistic achievement as a valid goal.
In 1952, Frid, Prip, and Wildenhain, along with former student Ronald Hayes Pearson, opened Shop 1, which was one of the first privately run galleries to sell mid-century crafts. Because of its close ties to the School for American Crafts (SAC), the gallery became an extension of the school, where students, customers, faculty, and other craftspeople could meet, exchange ideas, and see one anotherâs work; it closed in 1977.
In the woodworking department, early graduates included William Keyser, Dan Jackson, and Jere Osgood. Keyser returned to teach in 1962, worked in a sculptural idiom, and during his thirty-five-year tenure emphasized for students the woodworking techniques he had learned with Frid. Wendell Castle taught with Keyser in the 1960s, and his experimentation with stack-laminated sculptural furniture had a significant impact on the field. Following his graduation, Osgood spent a year in Denmark, and briefly taught at the Philadelphia College of Art before returning to RIT in 1972. In 1975, he moved to Boston to teach at Boston Universityâs Program in Artisanry. Modest and approachable, Osgood was able to impart his considerable skills to a number of students at several schools before returning to studio work around 1985. An impressive roster of RIT furniture graduates includes Jon Brooks, Richard Scott Newman, and Wendy Maruyama, who take inspiration from natural, historic, and pop culture motifs. Leaders in the studio furniture field, professors Rich Tannen and Andy Buck continue a rigorous technical program and the exploration of style, content, and sculptural form.
Christensen had apprenticed with Georg Jensen Silversmithy before teaching for SAC. During his long tenure as silversmithing professor, from 1954 to his untimely death in a 1983 car accident, he carried the banner for Scandinavian design in his creation of elegant and inventive forms. However, with the arrival of Albert Paley in 1969 and Gary Griffin in 1972, it became clear that there were many avenues for personal expression, and these were explored by a new generation of students that included Claire Sanford, Sharon Church, and Susan Hamlet. Paleyâs fascination with the whiplash curve of art nouveau has been translated into delicate jewelry and monumental sculptural creations in wrought iron. He is artist-in-residence at RIT while continuing many public and private commissions. Sculptural work in metal has received a new emphasis under Leonard Urso and Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez.
Frans Wildenhainâs student Richard Hirsch has been teaching at RIT since 1988. His tripod vessels and similar containers evoke the aura of ancient rituals with smoky raku firings. Since 1999, Julia Galloway has revived interest in functional vessels with her handsomely articulated forms and openly sensuous decoration.
Today, as a division of the College of Imaging Arts and Science, the school includes glass among its craft disciplines under the direction of glass sculptor Michael Rogers, and students can work toward associate, bachelor, and master degree programs. Its graduates are equipped to work in their fields using traditional techniques and are conversant with the digital, aesthetic, and intellectual issues that are relevant to the twenty-first century practice of their medium.
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
Black Mountain College was a small, isolated, but international experiment in American education that attracted some of the greatest arts figures of the twentieth century. European ĂŠmigrĂŠ faculty brought a modernist spirit to the burgeoning progressive-education movement that took place during the 1930s. The result was to kick-start a wildly creative and deeply intellectual program, nestled quietly in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
The founder of Black Mountain College, John Andrew Rice, was dismissed from his position as a professor of classics at Rollins College, a small liberal arts school in Winter Park, Florida, in the spring of 1933. The cause was a dispute involving how studentsâ days should be structured. Rollins College was known for its innovative approach to education and its eight-hour-day format of instruction (four two-hour blocks of conferences, as they were called). The administration, which was conservative despite the progressive temperament of the college, was moving toward a more flexible program, one that put more emphasis on the individual student and independent study. Taking students out of the group environment was precisely the opposite of what Rice believed to be the truest way of learning.
A committee was brought in to resolve the conflict, and it came down against Rice. He refused to resign and was forced out. That he had also offended colleagues and challenged the schoolâs tradition of Greek societies and mandatory church attendance didnât help his case.1
By creating Black Mountain College the following fallâwith the help of several fellow former Rollins professors who had been dismissed for not fitting the moldâhe hoped to realize a kind of institution that did not yet exist in the country: an experimental liberal arts college that fully integrated life and education. For Rice, the best way to learn was by living.
A SAFE HARBOR IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE
Riceâs first challenge was to find a location for the school. The solution came in the Blue Ridge Assembly buildings in the small town of Black Mountain, about twenty miles east of Asheville, North Carolina. The buildings were used by the YMCA only during the summer months, so Rice was able to rent them during the school year.2 With the location secured, the next issue was hiringâor findingâa faculty.
With little funding in place, a remote location, an uncertain future, and a communal environment, attracting established professors was difficult. Rice did recruit several young, forward-thinking Guggenheim fellows, Rhodes scholars, and others who had previously taught at experimental colleges, but for most professional educators, Black Mountain was not a particularly appealing opportunity.3 For ĂŠmigrĂŠs fleeing Nazi Europe, however, taking a position there meant getting a visa and a guaranteed two-year position. Hitler had been appointed chancellor of Germany, and his persecution of Jews, intellectuals, and artistsâthose who would eventually be labeled âdegenerateââwas growing ever more threatening. They needed a safe harbor in which to land, and Black Mountain College welcomed them.
Many of the ĂŠmigrĂŠs who came to America were distinguished and experienced professionalsâartists, scholars, theorists, doctors, scientistsâsome of the greatest minds of their time. That Rice was able to bring many of them to Black Mountain greatly enhanced and enriched the collegeâs curricula, as well as its reputation. Moreover, Rice added to the faculty of ĂŠmigrĂŠ artists acclaimed linguists, poets, mathematicians, performers, and historians, all chosen for their progressive ideologies and willingness to become wholly invested in the educational experiment. This faculty mix of European and American master artists and scholars created a dynamic, receptive environment, setting the stage for cross-pollination of ideas and a vanguard assault on conventional academia. Other âmountainâ institutions that offered an arts curriculum, such as the Penland School of Handicrafts and the Highlander Folk School, taught the traditional methods of various craft disciplines to local people and focused on preserving the indigenous culture.4 Black Mountain, on the other hand, encouraged across-the-board newness in thought, approach, material, and process.
The hiring of highly acclaimed German artist and teacher Joseph Albers, negotiated by New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art curator Philip Johnson, who was the Bauhausâs American representative, was a major coup for the school.5 Moreover, the museum cleverly handled the publicity surrounding Albersâs arrival in New York with wife Anniâan event that was covered by national papers. A prominent figure at the Bauhaus, which was forced to close over Hitlerâs demands, Albers was sought by the finest academic institutions in the United States. The potential and freedom offered at Black Mountain College, however, was more alluring; he and Anni became faculty in the schoolâs founding year. Anni translated Josef âs words to the reporters upon their arrival in New York (he spoke very little English): âHe says that in this country at last he will find a free atmosphere . . . that art must have freedom in which to grow, and that is no longer possible in Germany.â6
Albers came to Black Mountain with the hope of making it a major center for the arts, and he taught his students to âinvolve both intuition and the intellect in the search for form.â7 His classes brought not only modernist ideas but also Bauhaus-style teaching (the integration of âtheoretical form teaching with practical workshop trainingâ)8. The visual arts curriculum he established, with a focus on design and color, would become a standard component of art education in America. Albers believed that one learned by doing; Rice believed that one learned by living. Their ideas meshed, at least initially.
Black Mountain College was a different kind of college from the others that existed at that time. It was owned and run by faculty members and was governed in a very liberal manner. Everyone played a role in the day-to-day operation of the campus, from kitchen duties to working the farms, and work was shared equally between the men and women. Mornings and evenings were devoted to classes and the afternoons to work. Classes were kept small, and there was a great deal of one-on-one time with tutors. Students and faculty lived together, worked together, and shared meals together, and students often said they learned as much at dinner as they did in class. The campus code was informal, but all were expected to dress for dinner, formally on Saturdays.
The college was a secluded place and virtually self-sufficient. There were few rules, no required courses, no grades, and no regular tests, but studying at Black Mountain was an absolutely demanding experience. Students were continually challenged by the high expectations of their teachers, and they were expected to offer original thought, to be vocal, and to be open-minded. A student could not advance from the lower division to the upper division without passing intense written and oral exams, and an even more rigorous set of examinations was required to graduate. That was something few students actually did.9
After about eight years, Black Mountain entered a phase of reevaluation and reconsideration of its mission and its faculty. Rice had felt an increasing loss of control and disenchantment with everything from the programs to the artists teaching them. There were tensions between him and Albers and tensions between him and faculty who felt the school was too much his own one-man show; his marriage, too, was falling apart. Several leaves of absence could not remedy the situation, and in the spring of 1940, Rice resigned, bringing to a close the first phase of Black Mountainâs history.
WAR, WORKSHOPS, AND WEAVING
In 1941, the perpetually unstable lease of the Blue Ridge Assembly buildings finally gave way and forced the college to relocate to a nearby property at Lake Eden, a former summer resort. The coming years were difficult as the Second World War took its toll. Plans for a new complex of buildings designed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer were scrapped, and students were left to the task of renovatingâand winterizingâthe existing structures. In addition, most of the male students were drafted.
Despite the setbacks, progress continued, and by 1944, the college organized a summer program that offered classes with young, cutting-edge artists such as Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell. These leaders and their contemporaries in painting and craft were trying to change the definition of âgood artâ by breaking away from the overwhelming idealization of classical art, which was long regarded as having some sort of authoritative excellence. Their fearlessness and experimental drive was contagious, not to mention well timed.
The GI Bill of Rights provided funds that enabled the college to hire additional faculty members, and many returning soldiers sought the antithesis of military structure and authority that was found in creative environments like Black Mountain College. By the late 1940s, the school had its largest student populationânearly one hundredâ including artists Ruth Asawa, Kenneth Noland, and Robert Rauschenberg.10
The curriculum at Black Mountain included drama, psychology, languages, the visual arts, dance, writing, and music, as well as the lessons of physical labor, taught via constructing campus buildings and farming the land. Regular class work was supplemented over the years by the addition of workshops that provided a more in-depth study of a variety of subjects, from theater to art. With the collegeâs applications for grants continually turned down, money was scarce; Josef Albers looked to the craft workshops with the hope that they would not only train students but bring in an income. At the least, he hoped they would be self-supporting and provide the college with necessary materials like furniture, tableware, fabrics, and printed items.
Albers wanted to establish a workshop system similar to that of the Bauhaus, which taught stone, wood, metal, clay, glass, color, and textiles. The Bauhaus saw craft as a preliminary study that would lead to designing for mass production and ultimately preparing a student to study architecture, which the school deemed the highest form of human expression. Craft served âsolely to train the hand and to ensure technical proficiency,â and workshops were essentially laboratories for industrial design.11 Bauhaus students progressed from apprentice to journeyman to master over the course of their studies. It may seem incongruous to strive to become a master of a craft in an institution that heralded architecture as the supreme, but at the Bauhaus, crafts were such a critical component of the larger whole that they were not seen as less worthy. One did not exist without the other, and every medium, every form, was relevant. Preliminary did not mean secondary.
But the workshops that began at the Bauhaus in the early 1920s were not problem-free. It was hard to find enough qualified masters to lead the programs, money was limited, and equipment had been destroyed during the First World War. Workshops at Black Mountain proved equally challenging, as there was too little money to purchase equipment, and equipment made all the difference in production, the only means of a sure income.
The weaving workshop, headed by Anni Albers, was the only one that produced salable items and funded itself, though only on a small scale. It was also the most theory-based of the workshops, due to her Bauhaus training. Anni, like Josef, was firmly attached to the Bauhaus concept of using the crafts to establish a vocabulary of forms that could be translated into a design fit for production. She was keenly interested in the craft of hand weaving, but mainly as it related to design for public use.
To illustrate the history of production, she returned from a trip to Mexico with backstrap looms, which demonstrated how early cultures constructed highly advanced textiles as a precursor to mechanical production. She was also keenly aware of an industrial designerâs role in society and accorded the designs of industrial products a high social and artistic responsibility because a single object reproduced many times would enter thousands of homes.12
Structure and tactile qualities guided Albersâs designs, and she often incorporated unexpected materials, like plastics or metals. Albersâs fascination for materials and the relevance of the mundane also manifested itself in her hardware jewelry, made of everyday items like pins and paper clips. In a groundbreaking achievement, she was the first weaver to be granted a solo exhibition at New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art, a show that would travel to an unprecedented twenty-six venues across North America.13 There were weaving programs at Cranbrook and the Art Institute of Chicago, but the program at Black Mountain differed in that it so strongly followed Albersâs very defined aesthetic and her belief that textiles were âserving objects that should be modest in appearance and blend into the background.â14 Her and her studentsâ textiles were exhibited throughout the United States, exporting the Albers style emphasizing thread rather than color or texture.
With her student Trude Guermonprez, a future Black Mountain weaving instructor, Anni established a small production-weaving program. Their intention was to make commercial textiles as well as custom designs. They received orders from New York, but the program could not sustain itself. Guermonprez later explained that the program was probably destined to fail, as the repetitive process of production was far too confining for Black Mountain students.15 There didnât seem a way to focus their free-thinking, hypercreative spirits into making someone elseâs work.
A FINAL FLOURISH
Despite Josef Albersâs apprehension about clay (he believed it was too easily manipulated and would be âabused by the beginning craftsmanâ), students wanted a ceramics program.16 Albers acquiesced, and in 1949, the year he would resign from Black Mountain and take a teaching position in Yaleâs design department, he hired Robert Turner, a painter-turned-potter newly graduated from Alfred Universityâs College of Ceramics, to build a studio and establish the program. Turnerâs forms have been likened to the gestural paintings of abstract expressionists: âthe thickness of the stoneware and its coarse, rough-hewn qualities communicate a sense of the gravity and physical presence of a de Kooning brushstroke.â17 Turner left Black Mountain after just two years and returned to New York to teach at Alfred. The pottery program was then taken up by fellow Alfred ceramics alumni Karen Karnes and David Weinrib, from 1952 to 1954. They produced mainly functional items that can be seen in context with the 1950s resurgence of the handcrafts in all media. Along with Turner, they were âamong the first generation of postwar American craftsmen whose task it was to reassert and redefine the role of the unique or handmade object in industrial society, to establish high standards of craftsmanship, and to create a market for handcrafted products.â18
During the 1952â53 academic year, the college organized a series of institutes, a final exhale of the Black Mountain spirit, as the coming years brought only increased struggle. The Crafts Institute, held in the fall, featured a special ceramics seminar organized by Karnes and Weinrib and led by former Bauhaus master potter Marguerite Wildenhain, whose studio at Pond Farm in northern California was widely known and respected. The seminar included major figures in the field: potters Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, and Soetsu Yanagi, the founder of Japanâs folk art movement and director of the National Folk Museum in Tokyo. Although it was intended for Black Mountain students, the daily programs of wheel demonstrations, films, and lectures on the history of ceramics in America brought back former students, as well as those from neighboring institutions, and attracted the local community. The schoolâs ceramics program benefited from the success of the seminar and lured new faculty members including Warren Mackenzie and Peter Voulkos. For Voulkos, Black Mountain was a turning point in his artistic career as it provided âhis first contact with a creative communityâ and one where âhe first realized that skill could be the basis for invention as well as for a highly finished form.â19
That the seminar featured Leach, Hamada, and Yanagi, as well as Wildenhain, signals the turning of American ceramics from West to East. Leach, who was raised in the Far East, brought Japanese pottery traditions to the United States, âawakening the Western potter to a Zen aesthetic that grew out of life and not out of design.â20 His first visit to the United States came in 1950; his second, two years later, was for the Black Mountain seminar. Leach offered an approach that was quite different from that of the Bauhaustrained teachers whom students had come to know. His ideas and teaching methodsâa blending of philosophical discussions with hands-on demonstrationsâwere fresh, challenging, and inspiring. Rather than craft as a means of study for something larger, he allowed craft to be . . . craft, and introduced the Japanese respect for and celebration of the potter. The Asian aesthetic âis that beauty derives not from the victory of science or art but from the sensitivity of every element of the process by which an object has been made. A pot is therefore a diary of a journey, and this is the root of its aesthetic worth, not the conscious striving for intellectually held visual principles.â21 The idea was revolutionary, and clay became one of the most aggressive champions of the studio art movement, especially on the West Coast. Peter Voulkos was a founder of the art ceramics movement that began in the mid-1950sâsurely a spark that was ignited at the Black Mountain seminar.
THE LAMP EXTINGUISHED, GLOWS STILL
In the 1993 catalog for Londonâs Royal Academy exhibition American Art in the Twentieth Century, Mary Emma Harris, the premier researcher of Black Mountainâs history, wrote that the college was âa unique combination of liberal arts school, summer camp, farm school, pioneer village, refugee centre and religious retreat . . . a catalyst for the emergence of the American avant-garde after the Second World War.â Bucolic by outward appearances, the college was plagued with internal turmoil: financial troubles, disagreements, disappointments, and resignations from very early in its existence. It was never intended to be a utopia, but it simply proved too difficult to maintain a commune in which a dominant ego could force the redirection of the group, and in which artists were expected to be administrators and farmhands. It took them too far astray from their natural tendencies.
Yet despite its constant struggle, Black Mountainâs history is of vital importance to the story of twentieth century American education, art, and craft. In that small North Carolina town, Buckminster Fuller experimented with his first geodesic domes, and Robert Rauschenberg learned to look for found objects, producing reverberations that are still felt today. The collegeâs contribution is all the more monumental considering that the campus closed in 1957, ending an astonishingly brief history of just twenty-four years.
Black Mountain is widely considered the âspiritual heir to the Bauhausâ and perhaps the truest representation of its ideas in America.22 When Hitler handed the Bauhaus its new criteria in order to remain open, the remaining faculty faced the decision to accept it or to close the school. In a show of amazing fortitude, they chose the latter, a final expression of free will and artistic independence. The decision behind Black Mountain Collegeâs closure was not dissimilar. GI funds had all but gone, and raising money for an experimental art school during the political and social conservatism of the 1950s was near impossible. Faced with the decision to become a conventional college or close, the school chose closure over conformity, in a final expression of freedom of choice.
CRAFT SCHOOLS AND RESIDENCY PROGRAMS
PENLAND SCHOOL OF CRAFTS
If an areaâs economy was equal to the beauty of its environs, the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina would be wealthy beyond belief. The reality, though, is that lacking a strong industry or service sector like other parts of the country, rural mountain life has always been a challenge. In the years following the First World War, jobs were hard to come by, money was scarce, and the standard of living was marginal.
It was to this life that the Rev. Rufus Morgan, a native North Carolinian and seminary graduate, returned. In the small town of Penland, about an hour northeast of Asheville, he established in 1913, with the help and support of the Episcopal Church, the Appalachian Industrial Schoolâintending to revive the nearly moribund craft of hand weaving and to provide a boost to the local economy. In 1920, fascinated by crafts, his sister Lucy visited and took a nine-week weaving class. Dismayed that there were only a handful of women still practicing the craft, she took as her mission her brotherâs plans for a cottage industry built on the weaving arts.
Something of a visionary, by 1924 Lucy Morgan had convinced forty or so local women to take up the craft. With local men building looms, women were weaving at home and the items were sold at fairs and mountain resorts.
It became clear that for her efforts to grow beyond a small scale, a central location had to be established that would allow for an easy exchange of ideas, patterns, and techniques among the women weavers. In a fateful decision, in 1926, Morgan added to the few structures already on the school property (still in use today) by building the Weaving Cabin, with summer programs that involved more and more local residents.
In 1928, the school was renamed the Penland School of Handicrafts (later, Penland School of Crafts), and took a bold step in inviting a renowned weaving expert from Chicago, Edward Worst, to work with the Penland Weavers.
Worst didnât come alone. He was accompanied by a journalist who wrote an article in a craft magazine about his having been here. Morgan then started to get inquiries from hobby weavers in other parts of the country who knew of Worst; could they come to Penland for his class. In 1929, the forty or fifty local women were joined by seven students from out of state. And with them, Penland School was born.
A natural marketer, Morgan immediately started to publicize the Summer Weaving Institute. Enrollment grew steadily each year. In the following decades, jewelry making, pottery, copper and pewterwork, bookbinding, and leather craft were added to a thriving summer session lasting several months.
By the time Lucy Morgan retired in 1962, Penland had acquired an impressive international reputation and had grown into a full-blown center for craft education.
A UNIQUE APPROACH BRINGS UNCOMMON RESULTS
Although Penland was not alone in reviving mountain crafts (the Southern Highland Handcrafts Guild, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and Grove Wood Industries were just a few of the other schools), Penland was always distinctly different.
Lucy Morganâs brilliance was in inculcating an ethos of community derived from Arts and Crafts principles that determined Penlandâs purpose: that the effect on the maker was equal to what was being produced. Everything had a human value equal to a practical or economic value.
Her belief in the spiritual and therapeutic benefits of craft was manifest in the leadership of Bill Brown, her handpicked successor. With Brown, Morgan found someone who would contemporize Penland and bring in a new energy. As a working sculptor and Cranbrook graduate, Brownâs network included many craft artists who had come through the university system, had apprenticed with great European craftspeople, or were themselves great European craftspeople who had come to America during and after the Second World War.
Todayâs atmosphere at Penland reflects Brownâs belief that education should, simply stated, be the most exciting thing in the world. The school prides itself on selecting instructors particularly eager to engage with their students and to happily share everything they know. And students come with the expectation that they will completely immerse themselves in their chosen subject over two-month sessions in the spring and fall.
Another significant difference is todayâs resident-artist program. Instead of the usual semester, or year, Penlandâs residency is for three years. Brownâs rationale was that craft needed to be approached the same way people enter other professions, much like a medical residency or legal apprenticeship.
Brown also theorized that if he got people developing a career in craft to come and live there for a while and do their work, some would like the area enough to stick around.
And itâs worked. There are currently about fifty working craft studios in the area, run by people who have been resident artists at the school, and dozens more studios with craft artists drawn to the area because of them. With a greater sense of community and continuity of craftspeople around the school, the students benefit as well. For those who appreciate discovering new work, it is an exceptional area for exploring.
As a center of craft learning, Penland has drawn tens of thousands of people to its campus by providing a thorough introduction to their chosen craft, regardless of previous experience. A place that welcomes discovery and self-examination, it has taken the essence of studio craft to heart in its respect for the individual and his or her relationship to the handmade.
In reflecting on Penlandâs place in the craft universe, Lucy Morgan wrote, âThese are the Penland intangibles, the wondrous handicrafts of the spirit, things impossible to feel in your fingers or examine under a magnifying glass but real nevertheless and tremendously important and of value inestimable.â
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ARCHIE BRAY FOUNDATION FOR THE CERAMIC ARTS
One institution that has maintained a particular influence is the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts near Helena, Montana. Established in 1951 by brickmaker and arts patron Archie Bray, its mission was modest: âTo make available for all who are seriously and sincerely interested in any of the branches of the ceramic arts, a fine place to work.â That it has succeeded beyond its expectations is due in large part to its stimulating environment as a gathering place for more than two hundred emerging and established ceramic artists at a time. It was at âthe Brayâ that such seminal artists as Rudy Autio and Peter Voulkos reimagined clay as a medium, setting the standard for innovation.
THE PLACE OF CRAFT IN AMERICA
Craft today is complex and idiosyncratic. Studio-based, tradition-based, ethnic-based, and home-based artists are all engaged in making things with their hands. Just as the objects fro our past are all that remain in our present, today’s objects will someday be the guideposts of the future. They continue to be the source of inspiration for all forms of art and design.
âThe New Studio Crafts Movementâ is truly a book unto itself: the story of a vibrant and relatively recent chapter of the craft continuum. The term âstudio craftâ refers to the work that was born after World War II when the very world was embarking on a new beginning, and individuality became a keyword for so many aspects of life. As represented by the work of contemporary artists, it continues to evolve and to produce the most conceptual and forward-thinking work being made today. The artists referenced are a sampling of the finest from the vast population of artists working in craft materials.
âShaping Craft in an American Frameworkâ is a discussion by Jonathan Fairbanks of craftâs importance to us in this country, in this culture. As the Katharine Lane Weems Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, his is a unique perspective of the importance of the handmade in our American history. He has spent a lifetime learning about and presenting handmade objects from every American tradition, including American Indian, early American Colonial, production, and studio craft. His scholarly consideration of craft across cultures and centuries gives him a singular ability to place craft in a context that increases our understanding.
Perhaps the most important aspect of craft is its constant presence at the heart of human creativity. It lives in us today. It will remain after we are gone. As eminent art historian Jules Prown has said, âobjects are the only true events from history,â and we tell our story through them. To bring the appreciation of craft into the twenty-first century, the epilogue helps us make sense of all that has been presented, considered, and discussed in this book and makes a case for the place of craft in the digital and virtual age. American craft is a vibrant, essential practice: It is encompassing and inclusive and stays current with technological advances while maintaining a focus on the handmade. Indeed, American craft is a âstate of the artâ member in good standing in the global craft community. In the words of artist and critic Bruce Metcalf, âa craftspersonâs life is not a career, itâs a calling.â Every day, every week, their perpetuating commitment gives us a reflection of beauty previously unimagined.
THE NEW STUDIO CRAFTS MOVEMENT
In the 1960s, craft witnessed nothing less than a perfect storm of creativity, technology, and process. The result was studio craft or studio art, one-of-a-kind pieces made by the artist from his or her original designs and expressing a strong idea or concept.
For craft artists the advent of studio craft meant they had the luxury and the liberty of controlling all aspects of their creativity and their product. It was a chance to have it all by doing it all.
Quality tools no longer had to be huge, commercial, and expensive. Technology could be embraced as a beneficial aid that could make a difference in a craft artistâs output, without the fear of dehumanization. Miniaturization could make any space a craft studio, from garage or workshop to a table in the living room. And the precision of the new tools could make the process a pleasure.
More was at stake than just how objects were made. There was the underlying ethos of why. Just as with painters and other artists, a craft artistâs vision didnât have to be subject to interpretation or compromise.
Virtually every craft medium found a place in the new ideals of the studio craft movement. As a result, more and more people who had wanted to pursue a craft experience, could. The number of Americans actively pursuing craft, either for fun or profit, increased dramatically.
Out of this new approach to craft came many who would make their mark on their medium. Youâll find some of their names and stories in the pages that follow. Our sampling is limited by space, not by talent; there are so many who have made a difference.
Notably, craft and its practitioners arenât the only beneficiaries of the thinking behind, and implementation of, these innovations. As much as technology helped establish a new class of artists, studio craft has more than returned the favor. Its exponential growth has changed the face of publishing, broadcasting, retailing, and literally scores of other industries.
Glossy magazines like American Craft, Ornament, Metalsmith, Fiberarts, Studio Potter, and Fine Woodworking give inspiration, instruction, or affirmation to serious artists and do-it-yourselfers alike. Entering the word âcraftâ at amazon.com will bring up several hundred thousand titles, bolstering the work of publishing houses, their writers, designers, editors, and marketing specialists.
Whole cable networks exist to show craft-related programming. E-commerce outlets and retail stores offer professional-level craft supplies and tools, deliverable to studio door (or home workshop) by FedEx services. There are workshops to attend, videos to watch, websites to visit, galleries to exhibit in and buy from, and boutiques that feature work available nowhere else. Studio craft contributes mightily to our nationâs commerce, as well as to our social discourse and spiritual well-being, making it much bigger, much more significant than just something people make in their spare time.
How far studio craft can advance is an unanswerable question. The same confluence that gave birth to the movement will continue to spark new ideas from the artists in the following pages. It is a world of promiseâtheir worldâwhich we can all look forward to with anticipation and confidence.
GLASS: GODâS OWN BRILLIANCE
For centuries, the making of art glass involved factories with hundreds of workers adhering to the typical industrial specialization of tasks. As a rule, each employeeâdesigners, glass batchers, glassblowers, cutters, polishers, and othersâplayed one part in a multistage process. Now, for the first time in more than 3,500 years, new techniques let artists make glass in nonfactory settings, either alone or aided with a âteamâ assembled to help with the process. They can merge art and craft in a room as small as a shed or garage, creating objects from concept through completion, from design through signature. The glass artist can finally look at a piece with a sense of total, personal accomplishment.
Studio glassâs first advocate was Frederick C. Carder, in the 1930s through the 1950s. Founder of the Steuben Glass Works with Thomas J. Hawkes in 1903, Carder became de facto creative director of this division of Corning Glass Works in 1932 and experimented with a small kiln on the side. Edris Eckhardt was another early noted proponent of smallscale studio production. She was a sculptor who modified factory techniques involving very high temperatures so she could work in her basement, forming freestanding sculpture during the 1950s and 1960s. By 1953, she had mastered the lost methods of an ancient art form called gold glass, using it to make translucent shapes that she later combined with bronze.
The most influential catalyst came in 1962 with Harvey K. Littleton, a ceramics professor at the University of Wisconsin. Some might say that Littleton was predestined to succeed. His father, Jesse Talbot Littleton, was the glass industryâs first physicist, working at Corning Glass Works, and he had the idea of using glass as ovenware. To prove its feasibility, he sawed off the top of a glass battery jar and had his wife bake a cake in its bottom. The kitchen experiment changed the fortunes of Corning and the way twentieth century families cooked. The scientists there call it low-expansion borosilicate glass.
We know it simply as Pyrex.
Littleton believed glass would become an accessible art medium if artists in small studios could perform the hot-glass technique of blowing. He and Dominick Labino, an industrial glass wizard and director of research at the Johns-Manville Fiberglass Corporation, presented glass workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art that involved building a small glass furnace and annealing oven and melting glass at a temperature suitable for blowing. The studio glass movementâs floweringâand how it reached an apogee of extraordinary technical skill and high aesthetic qualityâcan be traced to these Toledo workshops and demonstrations. Littleton went on to create free-form, âslumpedâ (melted) art glass that, like all good executions, make us think differently. He later set up a pioneering program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which produced such artists as the prolific showman Dale Chihuly.
Chihulyâs glass-making career has been and continues to be meteoric and phenomenal. It has touched everyone in the field of studio glass. In 1971, with the help and patronage of Anne Gould Hauberg and her husband, John, Chihuly cofounded the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, an hour north of Seattle. Modeled after the prestigious Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine, Pilchuckâs core curriculum concentrated on technical competence in glass, leaving artistic expression to the students. The Pilchuck school is so active that the glow of its furnacesâ fires can be seen from orbiting spacecraft.
Littletonâs influence continues to this day in the sheer number of university glass programs that provide a strong technical and artistic grounding. Within a decade of the Littleton/Labino workshops, more than fifty American colleges and universities had glass programs, often founded by Littletonâs students. Marvin Lipofsky, whose work is sensuous and fluid, is credited with being the father of California studio glass, and he started the glass program at California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of Arts). Sam Herman extended Littletonâs sphere of influence to London, becoming head of the glass department at the Royal Academy of Art. And the same tradition that influenced Chihuly, who studied at the renowned Venini glass factory in Murano near Venice, is also interpreted by artists like Dante Marioni and Caleb Siemon, whose works pay homage to Italian glass techniques and the multicolored Murano swirls. It doesnât stopâor even startâthere.
At secondary schools, notably Punahou High School in Honolulu, glass programs have given youngsters a head start, much as music schools work to further their prodigiesâ talents. Glass centers such as Urban Glass in Brooklyn, New York, provide a place for artists, new or established, to rent space, blow glass, take lessons, or produce and sell lampwork beads. Urban Glassâs Bead Project is a scholarship program for low-income women interested in acquiring a new skill to help provide supplementary income. Participants learn the art of glass-bead making and jewelry making as well as business skills needed to successfully market their work. In this way, the center perpetuates the cottage industry tradition of Appalachia, with craft as a vehicle for achieving a better life.
Will these artists ever reach the highest level of sophistication, like Paul J. Stankard and his amazing botanical paperweights? Thatâs unknown, but itâs not the point. The true legacy is in the number of artists and their extraordinary works, which have changed the way we look at glass.
Today, even the humble tumbler, because it touches thousands of lives, offers us a new appreciation for a material that, centuries ago, was seen as nothing less than a metaphor for Godâs own brilliance.
POTTERY AND CERAMICS: THE LANGUAGE OF MOTHER EARTH
For American Indians, clay is substance taken from the body of Mother Earth. All matter contains spirit; hence all matter is sacred. On their earthenware potteryâwhich is coiled, raised, smoothed, and polished, slip-painted and/or carved, then fired under dried dungâ are patterns that reference sky, rain, the river serpent, parrots, deer, and birds as well as flowers, seedpods, and other emblems of life and regeneration. Spirit resides in their pots.
In Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person Mary Caroline Richards relates a story from ancient China about a noble who sees a potter at work. The noble admires the potterâs work and asks how he is able to form vessels of such beauty. âOh,â answers the potter, âyou are looking at the mere outward shape. What I am forming lies within. I am interested only in what remains after the pot has been broken.â Richards goes on to say, âIt is not the pots we are forming, but ourselves.â She further recalls Robert Turner, who, as he turned clay on the wheel at Black Mountain College, didnât look at the clay as the cylinder was drawn up on the spinning wheel. Rather, his ear was to the clay. âHe was listening. âIt is breathing,â he said; and then he filled it with air.â
This sense of the spirituality of pots and the creativity involved in their making is well suited to the new attitudes that developed in the 1960s.
The potter Toshiko Takaezu, a Hawaiian of Japanese descent who had studied at Cranbrook with Maija Grotell, began to close the tops of her vessels. This made them useless as containers. Thus altered, their purpose became that of contemplation. Before closing their tops, she also inserted ceramic pebbles within her vessels in order to create sound when the pottery was moved.
While Turner was making quiet, contemplative, and abstract ceramics, Peter Voulkos was revolutionizing the American ceramic movement with brashly abstract expressionistic stoneware of monumental and heroic vigor. Voulkos had worked at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, between 1952 and 1954. And, like Turner, he was part of the Black Mountain College Community in Asheville, North Carolina. This school was a flashpoint in the history of ceramics because of the confluence of artists and free spirits who shared the belief that everything was open to rethinking.
A ceramic artist who worked with Voulkos at the Bray was Rudy Autio, who beginning in the 1960s made spontaneous large-scale sculptural forms from slabs of clay. Autioâs works are abstract in form but incised with gestural lines and colorful glazes, frequently depicting nude figures and horses floating on the surface. Viewing the drawings on Autioâs vessels is similar to the dreamlike experience of a Chagall painting.
In California, the ceramic artist Robert Arneson dismissed any thought that he was a âpotter,â even though he was highly accomplished at the potterâs wheel. In the 1960s, Arneson made a clay typewriter with fingers protruding instead of keys. He also combined pottery with ceramic images of human body parts in ways so witty, and often rude, that California critics were prompted to coin a new style, funk art. This was a short-lived term that Arneson dismissedâand soon outgrew. Yet in the 1960s, Arneson understood that the artist was expected to shock his or her audience. For the Craftsman-Designer-Artist exhibition at the Upton Gallery, State University College, Buffalo, in 1966, he provided a fullscale colorful toilet on ceramic floor tilesâall hand craftedâcalled Polychromed Ceramic John. A decade later he made a series of monumental self-portraits and other ceramic heads reflecting the irony, wit, pain, pathos, and horrors of war.
Viola Frey, another major figural artist from the San Francisco Bay area, was a pioneer in the development of monumental ceramic sculpture in America. Her larger-than-life human figures became increasingly abstract over the years. She also incorporated in her works discarded debris from a nearby flea market, sensing in them special messages akin to the magic sensed by a shaman or poet.
On a parallel track with these sculptural worksâliberating pottery from the need to be usefulâwas an expansion of ideas about functional ware.
In the 1950s, Midwesterners Byron Temple and Warren Mackenzie were among early disciples of the English potter Bernard Leach. Along with the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada, Leach was known for work of simplicity, directness, and humility, extracted from the value of Asian folk art. These artists combined personal expressions of their rural environment with a Bauhaus-Japanese emphasis on honest, warm, and inviting form.
Representing the next generation, Jeff Oestreich took inspiration from ordinary farm equipment in his native Minnesota, incorporating and exaggerating the form of a watering can for his pitchers. Milk buckets, oil cans, and the ubiquitous silos and grain bins have offered ideas for others exploring the vessel form.
This aesthetic vision soon expanded beyond the Midwest to potters elsewhere in America who felt a kinship with the history of functional pottery traditions from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Gertrud and Otto Natzler, who emigrated from Vienna to America in 1938, carried with them their craft skills in pottery as well as their memories of the sleek, elegant shapes of European ceramics and the richness and sophistication of the glazes. They collaborated on their vessels: Gertrud threw superb, delicate, and elegant thin-walled forms, and Otto made and applied new and amazing glazes, most resulting in astonishing surface effects. Soon after settling in Southern California, they established a studio and began to create a prodigious output of vessels.
Similarly, the potter Laura Andreson was entranced by the glazes of Asia. A leader in reviving the art of pottery making in America after it nearly disappeared during the Industrial Revolution, she established in the mid-1930s one of the first academic ceramic programs at UCLA. During a long career, she developed new firing techniques and new clay compositions that resulted in forms and glazes to rival the perfection of the Chinese Song Dynasty. With thousands of students attending her classes over a half century, Andreson shared her historical and technical knowledge, assuring that the next generation would have an appreciation and understanding of ceramic traditions and processes.
Functional potter James Makins has a gestural, more expressive approach to clay than those who fell under the spell of European and Chinese pottery, becoming disciples of its formalism and deep-rooted traditions. Finger ridges, dimples, and a loose attitude toward balance in his vessels give them energy and a sense of movement. Like the vessels of George Ohr more than a hundred years earlier, these are forms that push functional ceramics, testing its very definition. Yet they do deliver on their promise of utility, and moreover add dynamism to the hands-on experience of everyday use.
Speaking to the senses of vision and touch, to the patterns and arrangements in nature, to the use of clay whose origins are the earth, all have contributed to a wider aesthetic for an edgier expression within contemporary ware.
A TISKET, A TASKET: ORIGINS OF BASKET MAKING
The cycle of changing seasons prompts all who make baskets to seek out and gather raw materials of reeds, rushes, stalks, horse hair, feathers, grass, or bark. Vine and wood splint, hammered and peeled from green logs, are stripped, shaped, bundled, soaked, and set aside in preparation for long winter hours spent shaping and ornamenting baskets. These are the rhythms that basket makers have followed for centuries.
Making containers to hold things or assist in a work process is but one aspect of basket making. Another is the sheer joy of exploring possibilities open to those who understand how fiber, color, and structure matter. As in all the arts, creative basket makers seek elegance and eloquence in their works. American Indians of the Micmac nation have made porcupine quillwork baskets of dazzling patterns and complexity woven onto birch bark foundations. None of this is actually âusefulâ in a functional sense of the word. The âuseâ is a search for refinement or satisfaction like that which the Navajo calls âthe beauty way.â Members of the Cherokee Nation are masters of the wooden splint baskets that, by their shapes, are instantly recognizable. And even the most utilitarian splint baskets made by Algonquins are brightly patterned with checkerboard colors and potato-printed images where the splints intersect. Pomo Indian seed baskets are so tightly twined that no seeds slip through. For ornament, feathers and shells add to an extraordinary sense of design.
Billie Ruth Sudduth is a first-generation basket maker living in the mountains of North Carolina who came to the craft after a âfirst lifeâ dealing with testing, measurements, and statistics as a school psychologist. That was how she came across the thirteenth century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, who discovered common proportions in spirals throughout nature, whether in seashells like the nautilus, flower petals, or pine cones. (For those not familiar with the sequence, Fibonacci numbers work like this: After two starting values, for example 0 and 1, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1,597, 2,584, 4,181, 6,765, 10,946, 17,711. . . .)
Drawn to the perfect proportions of Fibonacci numbers, Billie Ruth started creating baskets possessing a rhythmic, naturally flowing design, and released the creativity present in her all along.
Craft artists, like all creative people, typically call on a database of latent experiences, no matter how varied or seemingly insignificant they might be, to be drawn on at some later date. Billie Ruth is currently incorporating chaos theory and fractals into her weaving.
Grand ideas blossom. The stars align in some kind of harmonic convergence. Proof again that we need to be awake to hear opportunity knocking, recognize it for what it is, and to not only cope with the change that creativity brings but make the most of its vicissitudes.
Now, in the twenty-first century, basket makers explore the use of an infinite variety of flexible materials from around the worldâsome natural, some synthetic, and some never before considered in the search to make more expressive structures and capture expressive meanings.
FROM BURL TO BOWL: THE ART OF TURNED WOOD
Turners often say that ancient Egyptians invented the lathe, but there is no evidence to confirm it. The lathe more likely was invented by the ancient Greeks, whose civilization valued human time and energy. A labor- and time-saving tool, it allows material to be quickly shaped into circular forms on a rotating spindle with a sharp cutting blade rather than being rasped round like a stick held by hand. Whoever invented it, turning was a craft long known to those who came to the New World. Some of the first chairs preserved from the Plymouth settlement era are elaborately turned.
The lathe emerged as the creative tool of choice for the studio artists at mid-twentieth century who chose wood as their medium of expression. Paralleling the developments that occurred in ceramics after World War II, wood turning was advanced by a core group who explored the visual vocabularies of the vessel form and forged new ground in the medium.
Both Bob Stocksdale of Berkeley, California, and Rude Osolnik of Berea, Kentucky, were turning wood well before the new studio movement hit its stride in the 1960s. During World War II, Stocksdale was incarcerated as a conscientious objector. With both time and access to a lathe at the internment camp, he made bowls, sharpening his technique and becoming increasingly enamored of the art. In 1946, he moved to Berkeley, where he and his wife, fiber artist Kay Sekimachi (see pages 255 and 258), set up studios in their home.
Stocksdale quickly garnered recognition for the purity and clarity of his designs, and for his use of exotic and richly figured woods that he expertly turned to emphasize the natural beauty of its graining pattern.
Osolnik acquired his wood-turning skills while majoring in industrial arts at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois. Unlike many of the first-generation turners whose quest was to select the most beautiful piece of wood, Osolnik searched out flawed wood, embracing its natural defects. By using found or scrap woodârejected by other turners due to its imperfectionsâOsolnik could exploit their inherent organic qualities, such as cracks, voids, and bark inclusions, creating intriguing, biomorphic, and abstract forms previously unseen. Possessing the mastery skills of a production turner, Osolnik also produced a line of highly refined utilitarian pieces, of which his candlesticks are the best known.
Ed Moulthrop, like Stocksdale, was a master of discovering what each tree had embedded in its trunk. Moulthrop turned his wood bowls in simple shapes with complex patterns, believing that it was the craftsmanâs task to reveal the natural beauty of the grain hidden in the wood. Moulthrop kept secret a special stand of maple trees, the wood of which were spalted or stained a brilliant red with growth of fungi. He harvested this distinctive wood for special large-scale turnings, âpaintingâ his monumental vessels with abstract patterns. His son, Philip, being a key figure in the ânew waveâ in turning, has been instrumental in charting different courses. His innovative âmosaicâ techniqueâsuspending wood segments in a resin baseâproduces highly patterned surfaces never before possible. Such innovations have advanced the wood-turning field by adding complexity and extending the visual vocabulary.
Mark Lindquist is the son of an established wood turnerâMel Lindquistâand his works are much admired for their classicism. In the early 1970s, Lindquist made a quantum leap, through the study of Japanese art, particularly ceramic forms, in the art of turning. The younger Lindquistâs use of a chain saw and lathe together for shaping wood ruptured the quiet sensuousness of traditional turning, producing roughly marked and abstracted shapes that were daringly direct and bold. This marked a stunning departure in the discipline, liberating wood turners from the tyranny of the lathe and the smoothly turned and symmetrical works it produced.
David Ellsworth also revolutionized the craft by creating a series of âbentâ tools that make it possible to produce thin-walled hollow forms, like those thrown on the potterâs wheel. Trained as a sculptor, Ellsworthâs previous experience with clay led him to âconsider the intimate power of the vessel form,â and started him on a search for the essential mysteries to be discovered on interiors unseen, a process he refers to as âblind turning.â1 Such investigations and innovations of technique, of material, and of conceptâthe channeling of ideas through the mediumâhave laid the foundation of the studio woodturning movement on which future craftspeople will build and broaden.
FEEDING THE FIRE: BLACKSMITHING AND FORGED METAL
Watching the great physical effort of the blacksmith at the forge and bellows is a memorable experience of rhythms and sounds. With anvil, hammer, and tongs the blacksmith is emblematic of strength and communal usefulness.
C. Carl Jennings was the senior member of the blacksmithing/forged-metal arts community. He lived in Sonoma, California, having moved there from the Midwest with his blacksmith father and grandfather. While he continued a generational craft tradition, he was in the first graduating class at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. His 1971 forged metal Gate consists of lively asymmetrical rectangles hovering in space like the fantasy-constellation compositions of the Spanish painter Joan MirĂł.
Albert Paley was an MFA jewelry major from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. There he learned to forge metals, at first on a small scale, for jewelry. He also produced skilled, sensitive, preparatory drawings for his work, and has continued this process throughout his career. In 1972, Paley won a competition to make iron gates for the newly renovated Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Portal Gates features sensuous, curving lines that depict stylized scrolling vines, a prime example of how Paley uses organic design. Paley has become an accomplished master in curvilinear metalworking with designs that are scaled for both domestic and grand architectural environments. His many designs for furniture and lamps demonstrate his agility in coaxing metal into fluid, functional forms suitable for the home. And his more than fifty site-specific works completed over the last thirty years, some of which are monumental, prove him to be an artist of unparalleled range, skill, and visionâthe perfect alchemical formula for transforming base metal into masterworks.
In 2003, at age forty-six, blacksmith/craftsman/artist Tom Joyce was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of his achievements and to encourage future work. Joyce learned blacksmithing through an apprenticeship in his teens with Peter Wells in El Rito, New Mexico. By age sixteen, he was discovering the magic of reforming found and salvaged metals with fire, anvil, and hammer. He established his own shop in Santa Fe in 1977. His works range widely from functional architectural ironwork, lighting, and vessels to cast and forged iron sculptures that use residual materials left over from industrial manufacturing processes. Throughout his work, Joyce illuminates meaningful inherited history found in materials that have had a prior use. His 1997 Rio Grande Gates, installed at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, involved community members by having them gather discarded iron refuse from a particularly polluted section of the cityâs river. The collected materials included oil drums, metal signs, car bodies, fencing, box springs, newspaper dispensers, shopping carts, bicycle parts, and other iron remnants. These objects were heated, folded, and forged into plate-sized billets and fixed onto seventy panels. The panels were riveted together into a patchwork, quiltlike matrix reflecting a selective history of material culture.
JEWELRY, THE ART OF PERSONAL ADORNMENT
The human body is the gallery or canvas on which jewelry is best displayed and experienced.
Personal adornment can be witnessed on images of humans from prehistoric times, expressed in amazingly diverse ways throughout all cultures across the world.
In the continental United States, there is ample evidence from archaeological sites that well before contact with Europeans, early natives of this country adorned themselves with articulated shells, stones, feathers, headdresses, armbands, breastplates, masks, and bracelets. Other ways of transforming appearance sometimes also included body alterations such as head binding, tooth shaping, or tattooing to âimproveâ looks or to signal status.
All ornamentâwhether necklaces, earrings, chin labrets, nose rings, or paintâwas part of a personal ensemble that usually included highly articulated clothing of skin and hide, wraps, leggings, foot gear, sashes, belts, hair displays, collars, and hats or head coverings. The modern sense of âcostume jewelryâ or âcommercial jewelryâ was unknown to this culture.
Contact with Europeans brought beads, trade cloth, and iron and other metals, as well as forming techniques. Natives were quick to adapt and adopt, and soon became some of the best gunsmiths in the New World. To enhance personal ornamentation, they quickly added on glass trade beads, silver jingles, and cast-and-hammered silver, demonstrating excellent workmanship. To this day skilled American Indian masters from the Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, and Santo Domingo settlements in the Southwest practice jewelry making at an expressively high level.
The use of jewelry among Colonial settlers can be documented as well, in early portraits showing young children with necklaces of coral beads. Among adult women, more elaborate versions set with garnets, strands of pearl and pearl earrings, and paste or precious gemstones were worn. Miniature portrait paintings, worn as necklaces and bracelets, were highly favored. And both men and women received funeral rings to remember and mourn the deceased from the first settlements in the seventeenth century through the Victorian period.
Such rings and other personal ornamentsâstick pins, cuff links, shoe buckles, snuff boxes, chains and fobs, and earringsâwere most often made by Colonial silversmiths as part of their normal work. This changed in the nineteenth century with a proliferation of specialized products and labor among manufacturers both in America and abroad.
With it also came the elimination of the traditional dialogue between customer and craftsman. Now, the customer was no longer participatory but merely dependent upon availability of jewelry through commercial manufacturers, catalogs, and sales shops. Indeed, for most Americans today, this is their only connection with jewelry.
Craft-jewelry artists follow a serious pursuit of original aesthetic expression, employing new materials and techniques to press forward expressive horizons in the art of human body adornment. Sometimes that involves precious materials and stones; sometimes, not. Sometimes the jewelry is comfortable; sometimes it is barely wearableâor is so challenging to wear that, like medieval armor, the work usually remains unworn and is used as a display object. But this is no shortcoming. Some of the most extraordinary objects ever made and worn by mankind are, by nature, ceremonial, symbolic, or sacredâseen on the body only at special occasions.
The year 1946 marks the beginning of a new era of jewelry making. Starting with an exhibition at New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art, Modern Jewelry Design featured artists from the crafts community including Adda Husted-Anderson, Paul Lobel, and Margaret De Patta. Lobel had a studio-shop in Greenwich Village where he sold works constructed of flat sterling sheets without stones. Margaret De Patta produced brooches that drew inspiration from patterns of abstract painters and sculptorsânot unlike that found in works by Alexander Calder. Calderâs own imaginative jewelry was also featured in this exhibition, as was the work of the American sculptor Jacques Lipschitz. The exhibition set a new course for defining jewelry making. The weaver Anni Albers, together with her student Alex Reed, exceeded all convention with a necklace constructed of paper clips and a sink drain.2
Even while the exhibit transformed definitions for new jewelry, there were many important jewelry innovators working in California, unencumbered by rules. These included Merry Renk, Irena Brynner, Peter Macchiarini, Milton Cavagnaro, and Margaret De Pattaâall members of the Metal Arts Guild of Northern California, founded in 1951.
In 1968, several important jewelers in the studio craft movement met in Chicago and formed an American guild of contemporary jewelers and metalsmiths, later called the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG). Two years later, this organization mounted the first international conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, featuring an exhibition called Goldsmith â70. The organization has been a strong advocate for the field ever since.
One of todayâs most innovative artists is Stanley Lechtzin. After studying advanced studio work at Cranbrook Academy of Art, he developed an interest in ferrous metals and stainless steel and accepted a teaching position at Philadelphiaâs Tyler School of Art. Within five years he began its graduate program in metals, a program that continues to encourage daring and experimentation. Lechtzin himself is a restless explorer who combines magnificent natural and mineral materials with industrial plastics to make lightweight and highly wearable jewelry. Since the late 1980s, Lechtzin has become a frontrunner in using digital CAD/CAM technology (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacture) for designing his jewelry. The computer has opened channels of design for Lechtzin as well as enabled him to develop and execute ideas rapidly, quickening his pace to pursue and consider the yet unknown.
Across the country, born on an Arizona ranch, Kit Carson accrued his knowledge by attending various workshops with master engravers and jewelers while studying drawing and sculpture. His Arizona studio is known as the Cactus Camp, so itâs not surprising to find the cactus motif as a recurring theme. The power of the accelerating curve that produces, as Carson says, âa mellifluous journey of excitement for the viewerâs eyeâ informs Carsonâs work. Many of his pieces are richly colored, displaying textured surface inlaid with gorgeous stones. With a name like his, itâs a given that his elegant jewelry would be drenched with western imagery, like bronco-riding cowboys, covered wagons, and cattle skulls.
While the western landscape inspires the works of Kit Carson, another western master, Nancy Worden, draws upon reflections on social justice and events from her life. Her 1998 necklace, Armed and Dangerous, made of silver, gold, semiprecious stones, bullet casings, acrylic, and money, is her personal response to a horrible ordeal involving cult brainwashing, kidnapping, and victimization of a child. The necklace is Wordenâs âcommentary on how the Christian church has frequently been used as a cover for an agenda of hate and greed.â
Such a message is not exactly an expected inspiration for jewelry. Yet social commentary has long been a part of personal adornment. Personal statements in jewelry are often more important than dazzling ornament. This necklace explores how jewelry can function as a highly individualistic record of memories charged with emotions.
Images of a softer, more delicate kind are found in the jewelry made by the husbandand-wife team of David and Roberta Williamson. Working together in Berea, Ohio, Victorian-era illustrations of birds, butterflies, and portraits, set in silver, gold, and bronze, become contemporary cameos that would have looked just as appropriate a century ago.
What makes their work so real (not faux âauthenticâ or merely ânostalgicâ) is that a little of their own lives goes into every one of these talismans, combinations of found objects and ephemera, much of which has been passed down in their own families.
Few things give David and Roberta such inordinate pleasure as hearing their customersâ own stories about how the pieces remind them of âthose special things we remember about our parents, our families, and our friends that we carry with usâsafe and secure until that moment the memory comes aliveâ through them.
The âfound objectâ so characteristic of the Williamsonsâ work also plays a large part in the jewelry of the Pacific Northwest, where an entire culture promotes the use of alternative materials, incorporating organic and inorganic materials into their work. Two of the Northwestâs most recognizable artists are Ramona Solberg and Kiff Slemmons.
Carolyn K. E. Benesh, coeditor of Ornament, has likened Solbergâs work to a wearable Joseph Cornell box. With Rube Goldbergâlike combinations, she had an uncanny eye for taking the offbeat and unusualâbuttons, slide rules, beads, pebbles, and her signature dominoesâand transforming them into bold works of fun, wearable art.
Kiff Slemmons draws on historical, cultural, and literary references while redefining decorative and historical traditions. She frequently approaches her works with the spirit of an assemblage painter, throwing into the mix various elementsâhandcrafted components combined with manipulated found objectsâthat illustrate private and oftentimes enigmatic narratives.
Usually seen and appraised in terms of the worth of its materials, their jewelry features objects that have no inherent value, thus challenging the way we view the whole idea of what society has traditionally viewed as both personal adornment and portable wealth.
TEXTILE ARTS: THE WEAVERâS TALE
The textile arts predate written or historic records. Weaving evolved, on all continents, along with animal domestication and agriculture, by shearing sheep and the like and utilizing the strands of fiber-rich plants such as flax and cotton, and in Asia, silk. Gathering and processing these fibers by traditional means was labor intensive and time consuming, as was, and is, weaving. The back-and-forth action of the shuttleâs throw encourages contemplation and an enhanced design. Life and thoughts are physically embedded in the works of the fiber artist. No wonder that the loom and its weavers explore and express human mysteries in parables and metaphors about life.
From the earliest times of settlement in America, trade clothâa roughly woven woolen fabric, sometimes brightly colored and made in Englandâwas imported to the New World and traded for beaver skins with American Indians who had not known such wondrous stuff as this flexible and comfortable fabric.
Because of the time and effort required in colonial days to process fiber and weave cloth, products of the loom were among the most expensive goods listed in early American-estate inventories.
Considering the high production costs, entrepreneurs soon looked for ways to make textiles in mills and factories using giant mechanized looms. The old arts of weaving never died out, however, and during the studio crafts period of the late-twentieth century, they were taken to a new level of artistry by a group of key figures who made a conscious attempt to add to the visual language of the field.
Lenore Tawney traveled to Mexico and then returned to Chicago to study with the sculptor Alexander Archipenko. After some years in Paris, other parts of Europe, and Africa, she returned to the U.S. and began tapestry weaving at Penland. Her 1963 Fountain of Word and Water has the solemn appearance of a ritual object with an imposing height of 162 inches. On close inspection several features reference a vertical loom that holds a weaving. The opening split in the center reveals weft fibers hanging, braided and knotted on bars, as if the weaver had left her work to return later in order to add something more. The weaving is left openâeven like that of contemporary art and life.3
Contrasted to the totemic appearance of Tawneyâs weaving, the work of Claire Zeisler stands free of any wall attachment, as is evident in Private Affair II (1986). An imposing sculptural composition, it consists of an impressive spill of red cotton and rayon, braided, knotted, and wrapped in varied dimensions and techniques to enhance the dynamics of the fabric. Zeisler celebrated the opulence of the fiber, and the sheer beauty of the material dominates the smaller, finely wrought elements of the fall. Like Tawney, Zeisler studied with Archipenko, as well as LĂĄzlĂł Moholy-Nagy, one of the most adventurous sculptors/ painters of the period. Her fiber works are informed by African and early Peruvian tribal art, American Indian baskets, and the painters Joan MirĂł and Pablo Picasso. There are no ambiguities here; like the âmovementâ of fiber from wall and loom to free-wheeling, freely woven sculpture, it is assertive, confident, and commands (and rewards) attention.4
Arline M. Fischâs works, like her Pink and Silver Circles (2005), are made for human ornamentâas sculptured jewelry, or often as a body covering or piece of clothing, which is, after all, the natural domain of fiber. Fisch incorporates different materials and textile processes: knitting, plaiting, and weaving. The artist manipulates silver wire and other unusual materials like fiber shaping itself to the human body, like a modern-day chainmail: tactile and animated with the bodyâs movement. Drawing from ancient civilizations such as Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Pre-Columbian, she weaves the ideas extracted from past cultures with contemporary concerns to create layers of visual meaning.
Kay Sekimachi of Berkeley, California, pioneered hybrid formsâpart structured material, part fluid abstraction. The artistâs free-standing Amiyose V(1968), woven of monofilament (think fishing line), was a breakthrough work joining existing traditions while simultaneously challenging and overthrowing them. We find netlike structures that remind Sekimachi of jellyfish, and in which others perceive a womanâs form. These weavings enclose and define space with quiet grace, leaving ambiguous interior/exterior relationships in ways that recall theater scrims, revealing and obscuring, reflecting and reshaping.
As with many media, todayâs weavers seek out materials previously unheard of, or considered impossible to work with.
ART TO WEAR VS. READY-TO-WEAR
In discussing the role of the unsung craft artist in European high fashion, Harold Koda, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Artâs costume collection, uses the phrase les petits mainsâliterally, little hands:
the fleets of anonymous seamstresses, appliquĂŠ experts, and embroiderers whose (now vanished?) skills in applying individual sequins, or ostrich feathers, silk flowers, handknotting, or other tiny gew-gaws, enabled celebrated fashion designers such as Chanel, Balenciaga, and Dior to achieve the lavish detail and swoon-inducing effects of their haute couture garments.
As Janet Abrams, director of the University of Minnesota Design Institute, notes, here craft was âassociated with the cumulative efforts of many nameless individualsâ craftspeople whose skills buttress hallowed reputations.â
Whether it be high fashion or street fashion, craft artists have played an important role. With 1967âs Summer of Love in San Franciscoâs Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, the hippie movement was in full bloom, a counterculture that was at once political, social, and artistic. Thousands of so-called flower children returned home from that particular summer vacation bringing new styles, ideas, attitudes, and behaviors.
Many of todayâs finest craft practitioners trace their genesis as craft artists to this era. Alumni of communes and cooperatives in remote parts of America, they can often still be found there, experiencing the land a half century later.
As part of the movement, artwear became an important vehicle for craft artists. MacramĂŠ, knitting, weaving, and crocheting all came of age. The first incarnation of this movement was the streetwear particularly prevalent in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. Clothing styles ranged from mod miniskirts to psychedelia-adorned vintage and ethnic garments. K. Lee Manuel painted leather and suede garments and wove together feather collars that were almost ceremonial in feeling.
Gaza Bowenâs shoes featured vibrant colors and unusual patterns using the cultural symbolism of the shoe as a platform from which to lampoon both fashion and issues of feminism, sexuality, and greed. Faith Porter employed 12,700 vintage mother-of-pearl buttons to make a four-piece movable kinetic sculpture that purports to âhold the universal pearl of wisdom, creating order out of chaos.â And Janet Lipkin combined a cornucopia of colors, materials, and textures in her apparel in a way that would influence a generation of clothing designers.
Each designer, in her own way, reflected the colorful flamboyance that marked the Bay Areaâs style. Their common thread: What mattered was the expression of oneâs inner self, explicitly and honestly. Their fashion was the anticouture, a counter to the clothes glamorized by the photographs of Richard Avedon and worn by fashion models in Vogue (and by Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House).
As the hippie scene faded, Japanese arashi shibori, a more sophisticated cousin of Woodstock-era tie-dyeing, changed the face of wearable art forever. By crinkling, twisting, and knotting fabrics before dyeing (also known as resist-dyeing), shibori (âstormâ in Japanese, because its patterns look so much like driving rain) expanded artistic possibilities. One of its leading practitioners in America is Anna Lisa Hedstrom. On a visit to Japan in 1983, she met that countryâs last master dyer, Reicchi Suzuki, and collected samples from him. With Suzukiâs death in 1989, the production of these textilesâand the formulas he usedâ died with him. As a result, Hedstrom had to continue the shibori tradition by reconstructing the process without any documentationâjust her samples. The atmosphere of experimentation and discovery integral to the entire textile arts explosion suited her well, and she started using silks, instead of the traditional kimono cotton, and employed stitching techniques generally used only in shaping and trimming garments. This was followed by other inventive techniques, including laminating and airbrushing her materials.
As an example of craftâs spirit of renewal, Hedstrom relishes the fact that shibori, given up for dead in Japan, was appropriated and reinvented by American artists, giving it an imaginative future.
Even though a reaction to couture, artwear, despite its own studied look and feel, at first still smelled of fashion. What was missing was a vibrant independenceâsomething that would finally take hold in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, a unity of art, design, and craft are invested in a single garment. One article of clothing may take weeks or even months to complete. The best pieces crackle with an unbridled energy, excitement, and passion that make the observer stopâand even gasp. The head, the heart, the hand, and the eye are overwhelmed by the visual and tactile.
Contributing to this is the fact that a vast majority of todayâs craft artists are university trained and have added theory and conceptualization to their work. As a result, artwear created today carries with it not only a sense of beauty and style, but more often than not, a sense of purpose. It is art coupled with ideas. And the work succeeds on so many levels because of it.
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
The author and artist Nancy Aiken explains what is a basic truth about studio craft, and the doors it has opened to everybody who wishes to avail themselves of its possibilities. Recognizing its underlying egalitarianism, she tells us that,
Art can be made by any of us. It need not result in museum-quality work; it can be only an elaboration of an ordinary object: . . . fashion rather than a simple covering to keep warm, decorating rather than a room with furniture. We can all dance, sing, and doodle; some just do these better than others.5
PITCHER PERFECT: A SURVEY OF SERVING PIECES
Although mass-produced ceramics for practical use are abundantly available and affordable today, many contemporary potters still believe in handcrafting these functional forms. For them, it is a noble endeavor to make authentic, beautiful, and useful objects that can give meaning to the dinner table, the domestic environment, and their rituals.
Through this act of creation, potters bring together usefulness, beauty, and relevance. In the making of a pitcher, cup, plate, or serving bowl, these potters transfer a personal imprint to the object; the product of their imagination, skill, and passion often bears a recognizable signature technique or decorative style. When this functional object leaves the potterâs studio to spend its life in service to someoneâs household, it brings along the memories, ideas, and individual marks of its maker, as well as a ceramic history that is rich in traditions.
These serving and display piecesâpitchers, teapots, ewers, and cupsârange from functional to fantastical, a visual outpouring of ideas honed by artistsâ skills. Each seduces the eye as well as the hand. It beckons interaction, through its ergonomic construction, surface detailing and embellishment, tactility, and sensuous volumetric form.
Made to suit a purposeâa pitcher holds and pours liquid, and a cup receives and contains itâthese objects also serve as documents, as metaphors, and as cultural indicators. They are commentaries on the artistsâ lives and the times in which they live. Besides the substances they are meant to contain, these vessels pour forth the elements that went into their making: the concentrated labor, technical agility, profound
curiosity about the commonplace, and passion to connect with the user, whose hands, in the act of use, will complete the communion.
(Some of the ideas centering on the cultural meaning of âfunctionâ expressed by coauthor Jo Lauria in âPitcher Perfect: A Survey of Serving Piecesâ were first explored in an essay titled âFill It to the Rimâ commissioned by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in 2005.)
LOEBER + LOOK: BACK TO THE FUTURE
In the Wisconsin wilds, well north of the million-dollar weekend getaways of Door County, is the âNorthwoods,â home to husband-and-wife craft artists Ken Loeber and Dona Look and stands of birch, cedar, and basswood.
Which works out well, because Dona is a basket maker (as well as a jeweler with Ken) and draws on the fallen trees that appear from under snowdrifts every spring, continuing a centuries-old American Indian tradition. Her baskets arenât the kind one might use for feeding animals or carrying laundry. Theyâre as light as gossamer, referencing classic pottery and nature. Her tools couldnât be simpler: needle, thread, scissors, and a knife. âWe would make button holes on our clothing by hand, as a child,â Dona remembers. âAnd I still use that stitch today sewing pieces of bark. One of my grandmothers crocheted even when she was blind; she could feel the thread and knew exactly what she was doing by touch.â
Over the years Dona has been making baskets from bark that Ken has helped harvest. They also collaborated on fine silver and gold jewelry in geometric and organic shapes, but all that changed several years ago, when Ken suffered a stroke that left his right side paralyzed and made speech difficult. It was an event that challenged their creativity and communicationâand tested the adage âNecessity is the mother of invention.â
Before the stroke, Kenâs career as a jeweler was as accomplished and successful as Donaâs, including an NEA grant and the artistic excellence award from the American Craft Council. His jewelry evolved from his training as a sculptor; his necklaces and brooches turn sculptural forms into small, wearable objects noted for their light weight and comfort while worn.
Ken has since learned to adapt to working with one hand. Still brimming with creativity and imagination, he constructs and solders his fine metal forms using jigs and clamps heâs specially devised.
WHARTON ESHERICK, FOUNDING FATHER OF STUDIO FURNITURE
âWharton Esherickâs designs were too personal to establish a style,â notes Mansfield Bascom, curator of the Wharton Esherick Museum, âand he wouldnât have wanted that anyway.â But he pioneered the way for future generations of artists working in wood to create and market their own, original designs.
Esherick trained as a painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1908 to 1910. In 1922, he was asked to illustrate Rhymes of Early Jungle Folk, a childrenâs book on evolution, a hot topic at the time. With one hundred woodcuts, seventy of which were published, a printmaking career was launched. He began carving organic designs on antique furniture and then making furniture, primarily his unique trestle tables.
In 1940, architect George Howe created a room for the New York Worldâs Fair âAmerica at Homeâ pavilion, filling the space with works from Esherickâs studio. His Pennsylvania Hillhouse included the spiral stair, sweeping sofa, leather easy chair, and a new table with five unequal sides, sinuous hickory legs, and a black phenol top (a material intended for large electrical switchboards) with a narrow hickory border.
Esherickâs exposure should have brought him many commissions, but The World of Tomorrow, as the fair was named, turned out to be World War II, and the public faced issues other than art furniture.
Esherickâs 1951 music stand drew attention, but he was never able to find someone who could make it at a price affordable to musicians. He died with a dozen music stands in his shop. Today they fetch high prices at auctions, and an example is part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After the war he developed a growing clientele who found his work addictive, returning year after year to commission yet another piece. Several began with a chair or a stool, and ended with entire houses of custom-designed furniture and furnishings.
Through the 1960s, he was busy with commissions for dining tables and sideboards, coffee tables, sofas, desks, cabinets and curvilinear kitchens, salad bowls and servers, trays and cutting boards, and he died with a backlog of work. The most innovative piece in this period was the 1962 spiral library ladder, considered to be one of the finest American furniture designs. His work was featured at the Museum of The New Studio Crafts Movement 241 Contemporary Crafts with a forty-year retrospective in 1958. His was the only furniture included in the Brooklyn Museumâs 1961 Masters of Contemporary Craft. When the Smithsonian Institution opened its Renwick Gallery in 1971, a year after his death, Esherickâs work occupied the center of the gallery and was surrounded by work of the âsecond generationââWendell Castle, Sam Maloof, Arthur Espenet Carpenter, and George Nakashima.
Carpenterâs pieces featured fluid, sculptural profiles that curved through space. The characteristic softened edges and rounded curvaceous forms of his furniture later became known as California Roundover.
Wendell Castle began to make his furniture in 1958 and emphasized his work as sculpture expressed in wood and other materials. Castle has continually challenged convention, experimenting with new technologies and modes of construction, moving freely between stylesâfrom Art Deco to the colorful, playful, and animated forms influenced by vanguard Italian designers.
Esherick considered each commission a challenge for his imagination, working with clients, listening to their descriptions of their needs, and sharing his insights. But he made no drawings and few sketches because he frequently changed his mind as a design developed, and any sketch would involve explanations. Bascom adds, âHis customers were always delighted with what they received, although it may have been much different from what they had expected and the price a shock. His work reflected his joy of life, great sense of humor, friendly wit, warm personality, and love for wood.â
WEATHERVANES: RIDERS OF THE WIND
Weathervanes have long been a part of the American landscape, sitting atop steeples and cupolas on churches, public buildings, and private homes.
The precursors of weathervanes were the pennants that knights carried during the Middle Ages; the flags bearing their patronâs crest or coat of arms were carried into battle and flown atop their castle turrets. Soon metal banners replaced cloth ones.
Richard Miller, former curator of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, writes of them as community markers, landmarks in their own way:
Whether depicting barnyard animals in agricultural areas; fish, whales and ships in coastal communities; angels on church steeples; writing quills on libraries and schools; locomotives, automobiles or airplanes; weathervane subjects often mirrored shared values, the foundation of a local economy or acknowledged the novelty of technological developments.
In 2006, the weathervane, long a practical tool for farmers and fishermen, was recognized for its collectible as well as artistic value. In succeeding auctions seven months apart, two extraordinary examples sold for record prices. In January, a classic mid-nineteenth century Goddess of Liberty design set a new record of $1 million. In August, a 61-inch-long, three-dimensional locomotive design dating to 1882, which
had stood atop the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, train station, broke that record with a price of $1.2 million.
CROWNING GLORY: CONTEMPORARY TIARAS AND CROWNS
Befittingly, tiaras and crowns sit a âhead aboveâ all other forms of jewelry in their close association with royalty, romance, wealth, and high style. The tiara owes its majestic ancestry to ancient Persia where the word was used to describe the bejeweled head ornaments worn by Persian kings, whereas the gold crown, fashioned in the shape of a floral wreath called a diadem, claims Greek heritage. The legend, as relayed through Greek mythology, is that the diadem was conceived by Dionysus, god of wine and revelry; as such, it is an emblem of god-ness, and denotes high rank, power, and position. Perhaps it is from this ancient connotation that the current practice of crowning athletes and beauty contestants derives.
Modern cultures have adapted the diadem into a wedding crown, a foliate wreath, says Geoffrey Munn, author of Tiaras Past and Present, âmade of leaves and flowers representing the crown of loveââand it has become part of the bridal trousseau. Artist Merry Renkâs wedding crown, James Love Peacock, with its opals set in gold wire, was made and used for that very purpose.
Some of the distinguishing characteristics of art jewelry are its exploration of visual culture and its expression of personal identity. Tiaras and crowns, invested with historical and cultural significance, prove to be a perfect subject for the contemporary jeweler searching for a grand statement.
Philadelphia jeweler Jan Yager has become a specialist in tiaras that convey both beauty and meaning. American Tiara: Invasive Species was included in the exhibition Tiaras, Past and Present at Londonâs Victoria & Albert Museum in 2002. In this work, the artist fabricated non-native wildflowers and weeds from gold and silver, impressing into many of the leaves tire-tread patterns, what Yager called âa kind of
modern geometry.â
Believing in jewelryâs âunique power to speak to people,â Yager exploited the tiara format to talk about natureâs resiliency in spite of urban encroachmentâwitnessed in the survival of the invasive plants, thereby eloquently framing the struggle of man versus nature.
Today the tiaraâs royal use has faded as monarchs and consorts throughout the world opt for modern dress. Nevertheless, the tiara, diadem, and crown in their many incarnations still have a wondrous meaning, imparting to the wearer a sense of empowerment and privilege.
ARCTIC EXPRESSIONS: THE STORYTELLING JEWELRY OF DENISE WALLACE
The jewelry of Denise Wallace can be appreciated as exquisitely crafted objects of art, as a window into the culture of the Arctic people, and as visual stories with the major motif of transformation. Denise is a master storyteller who narrates with silver, gold, fossil ivory, and colored stones rather than words.
Combining their respective expertise in metalwork and lapidary, Denise, a Chugach (Eskimo) Aleut, and her non-Native husband and partner, Sam, create contemporary wearable art. Its complex designs are drawn primarily from Deniseâs northern Native traditions, symbolism, and stories as well as from their personal experiences.
As with other Native North American cultures, a larger universal order and its reflective iconography link the Eskimo and Aleut cosmos to its regalia and stories, all of the elements blending into an artistic assembly. The Arctic universe is conceived as a web of interconnections between sky and land, natural phenomena and humanity. The cosmos is divided into three layers: sky world, earth world, and underworld, each with its own pantheon of creatures, spirits, and opposing forces. Humanityâs role is to identify and mediate between the opposing forces in order to maintain harmony and the balance of life, a concept expressed in stories, ritual, daily life, and the arts.
Lois Dubin, in Arctic Transformations: The Jewelry of Denise and Samuel Wallace, points out, âContext, contained in both the physical and spiritual worlds of the Arctic peoples, is very important in the Wallacesâ work since it provides a wealth of literal and metaphorical images for their very fertile imaginations.â A view shared throughout the Arctic is that all living creatures contain a yua (âits doubleâ),
which is capable of taking on different forms. Arctic stories refer to a time when humans could transform themselves into animals, and animals into humans, while maintaining their original yuas, or spirits. Traditional Arctic clothing and adornment accentuated this ambiguity.
This possibility of transformation is also expressed in the Wallacesâ jewelry: Hinged doors open to reveal surprises, stories are contained within stories, faces peek from behind masks, humans and animals transform into one another. Furthermore, the pieces themselves transform from a belt component to a pin or pendant while a small pendant emerges from a larger pendant, and pendants become earrings.
What truly distinguishes Denise and Sam Wallaceâs art is a sense of life and animation. Their ability to combine complementarymotifs within a single object of jewelry creates a dynamism that imbues their work with movement and expression and therefore with life. Evoking the spirit of the finest traditional Arctic carvings, the Wallacesâ intimately scaled work communicates a monumental life force.
TAKE YOUR SEAT: A JOURNEY THROUGH AMERICAN FURNITURE
Welcome to this virtual gallery of chairs made in America. You are invited to rest here and contemplate the journey of American craft. Like the larger area of craft, this community of chairs includes the familiar and unfamiliar, the sometimes useful and the sometimes provocativeâall offered up for your consideration and delight.
A chair is the embodiment of the human form, with its legs, seat, arms, and back arranged to receive the body. Moreover, chairs represent the design form with which human bodies have the most intensive interaction. Integral are the practical considerations of utility, durability, and comfort; overlaid are the multiple contexts of the chairâs aesthetic content and its role as a cultural document.
THE PRE-MODERN ERA
In the early days of America, the chair was a seating unit and an index of authority. The Pilgrim Edward Winslowâs family chair, made c. 1650, was among the first pieces of American furniture to be illustrated and published, depicted here in this woodcut from the 1841 book printed in Boston Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth 1620â1625. Its sturdy and authoritarian airâevoked by solid oak construction of frame-and-panel joinery, and its imposing, throne-like designâbespeak its no-nonsense utility and importance.
One hundred years later, a chairâs authority was established not by grandness of scale but by the dictates of fashion and elite taste. Such high-style chairs as the magnificently wrought Rococo style Side Chair from Philadelphia (c. 1760â80) were intended to impress. This Side Chair commanded visual attention, delighting the eye with its curvilinear profile and intricate carving.
In the nineteenth century, chairs could be as rough-hewn as the Texas-German, splat-backed side chair from Cat Springs, Texas (c. 1860), its seat and back literally whacked from a trunk of a tree, or as gracefully refined as the Shaker side chair (c. 1840s) constructed with precision-turned legs and posts, stretchers, and slats.
As noted, these early chairs had to carry a symbolic load: Along with their practical use they functioned as emblems of status and design preferences, grand or modest, stylish or straight-forward. One could say they cast a longer shadow than their silhouette, throwing into high relief their ownerâs societal position and taste.
Adhering to Arts and Crafts guidelines, the unique, handcrafted chair in the late 1880s needed to be more than just a functioning seat and status indicator; it required to be a visual statement of principles and a repository of values.
Hall Chair (c. 1900) by the Charles Rohlfs Workshop and Armchair (c. 1910) by the Roycrofters Furniture Shop exemplify the movementâs ideals framed in this quotidian household object. Usually constructed of native white oak, quarter-sawn to expose the grain pattern, these chairs celebrate the use and beauty of natural, indigenous materials.
MODERNISM TAKES HOLD
The potency of Arts and Crafts waned as a style and movement in the 1920sâand was virtually extinguished by 1930. Two new movements were on the riseâthe studio furniture movement and Modernismâexisting on parallel temporal planes but emerging from different constructs.
Modernism was foremost a movement based on theory rather than style and process, but its philosophy of âgood designâ had direct application to architecture and the applied arts. In the field of furniture, the movement was based on the industrial designer who drew furniture on a drafting board (or created prototypes).
These chairs were structurally intended for viable mass production and were made from manufactured materials. The innovative use of new technologies developed by the defense and aerospace industry was also characteristic. The aspiration of the modernist furniture designer was the âmachine aestheticââdesigning industrial-looking, aerodynamic forms made of chromed steel, extruded aluminum, molded plastic,
and laminated plywood.
As industrial manufacturing removed the hand of the maker from the process, it caused a break in the continuity of craft traditions. Eclectic revivals were featured by manufacturers, but by the 1930s Modernism was becoming a leading-edge design cannon; and those who did not heed its call were marginalized within a decade. A few visionary artists, however, refused to embrace the machine aesthetic.
These pioneers were heir to Arts and Crafts ideals: independent craft artists working in their studios, often alone and isolated. They sustained the reverence for natural materials and the process of handcrafting. In so doing, they collectively gave birth to the studio furniture movement in the 1940s and created the bridge that allowed craftsmanship to survive in modern, industrialized American society as it evolved in the twentieth century.
THE RISE OF THE STUDIO FURNITURE MOVEMENT
The studio furniture movement was based on the individual who worked alone, or with apprentices, in his or her studio to design and handcraft unique or limited-production furniture from natural materials.
Leaders of the movement included Wharton Esherick, the first to forge the path. Esherick was quickly followed by George Nakashima and Sam Maloof, each a woodworker and furniture maker devoted to his craft, each possessing a frontier spirit that urged the pursuit of the road less traveled and an outcome that might be less highly regarded. They were committed to making each piece individually in their
workshops from nonindustrial materials according to the time-honored methods of hand workmanship. Besides setting them apart from Modernism, this commitment was part of an alternative way of living and working, one now referred to as the Craftsman Lifestyle.
The three chairs featured in this âChair Galleryâ by Esherick, Nakashima, and Maloof stand as a visual record of their uncompromising vision and resolute craftsmanship. Their handcrafted chairs are functional, fluid sculptural forms articulated in solid woodâeach an example of flawless perfection achieved through modest means and minimal production methods. Several generations of studio furniture artists have succeeded these founding figures, evidence that personal and expressive workmanship have an appreciative audience.
POSTMODERNISM SUPPLANTS MODERNISM
In the 1970s, a swing of the cultural pendulum shifted the aesthetic focus to Postmodernism, which calls for inclusion of diverse aesthetic values, reclaiming premodern history as a source of cultural inspiration, and championing pluralismâthe acceptance of other historical and cultural perspectives that had been marginalized during Modernismâs reign.
Postmodernism opened the floodgates of style, and change inundated every corner of furniture design. Suddenly craftsmen were presented with usable aesthetic alternatives: Their handcrafted furniture could now be freely expressive and metaphorical, conceptual and playful, abstract, absurd, and even minimally functional. They were liberated to create hybrid forms that conjoined natural and synthetic materials and handmade components with manufactured elements.
Many contemporary studio-furniture makers have chosen the ordinary chair as the ideal form in which to explore their ideas. As this gallery of traditional and unconventional chairs shows, the ânewâ studio craftsman has answered the call to create diverse and intriguing pieces. These provocative chairs test the relationship of form and function and exploit the intricate connections between art, architecture, craft, and design. You are invited to be the judgeâto compare and contrast. Take a seat, take a moment, contemplate, and consider.
SHAPING CRAFT IN AN AMERICAN FRAMEWORK
With their minds, hearts, and hands, the men and women who made the works displayed in this book have transformed natureâs raw substances into expressive objects that are artistically innovative, astonishing, refreshing, and vital. They stand on the shoulders of generations of craftsmen before them.
American crafts are embedded in American history, an essential part of which is the incredible story of large-scale industrialization: factory systems, mass labor, and astonishing wealth concentrated in the owners of such enterprises. The fiber arts provide a useful example.
The impulse to make increasingly refined fabric and to lower its production cost inexorably led to the development of mills and factories. Because of a shortage of labor in the New World, industrializationâwhich multiplies the output of every workerâquickly found a place here, with accelerated developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first commercially successful cottonspinning mill with a fully mechanized power system was Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Established around 1790 by Samuel Slater and Moses Brown, it exponentially increased Americaâs production of thread, yarn, and cloth. It is worth noting that the patterns of early mill machinery were usually made by woodworkers, and then converted by founders to iron or brass. Most of the parts of the textile mechanisms (Arkwright carding and spinning machines) were made of turned woodâjust as were the parts of spinning wheels and earlier weaving devices.
The Slater Mill is often cited as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. Textile industries flourished throughout much of New England, with larger mills built at falls on rivers in Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, and in Manchester, New Hampshire. In an ongoing cascade over the life of America, that revolutionâand the invention of new and better labor-saving toolsâled to the production of various kinds of goods more quickly and efficiently than the human hand alone could manage.
New industries gradually eliminated the need for small, independent craft shops to supply a quickly growing population. Unfortunately, those who gained factory employment soon discovered that they were hired as unskilled labor: human machines tending the machines of mass production. While there were economic gains for some, workers suffered loss of self-esteem, exploitation, and poverty. In a particular egregious example, children were hired at the Slater Mill for less than a dollar per day and required to produce 14 pounds of finished yarn daily or they would be sent to the âwhipping roomâ for correction.
THE BEDROCK OF AMERICAN CRAFT
Reacting to such social evils, both here and abroad, were social reforms that gave birth to the Arts and Crafts movementâthe philosophical bedrock for craft artists in England, the Continent, and America.1
The same spirit of personal expression informed a slightly earlier phase of artistic reform known as the Aesthetic Movement, illustrated in the United States by the stunning works of the artists Louis Comfort Tiffany and John LaFarge. Both drew inspiration from the arts of the Far East. Both were painters as well as innovators in stained glass and other arts of design. Tiffany was also an early advocate for creative reform of artistic production and founded Laurelton Hall on Long Island, New York, as a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople.
Ironically, two Americans who were perhaps the most vocal and public proponents of Arts and Crafts displayed a decidedly ambivalent attitude toward industrialization. Gustav Stickley used âfactoryâ steel-woven webbing for supporting cushion upholstery in his furniture rather than more craftsmanlike hand-tied linen webbing. In similar fashion, Elbert Hubbard, of the Roycrofters community, produced his numerous books on paper made of wood pulp processed on a continuous-belt, paper-manufacturing system that essentially eclipsed the craft of hand-processed papermaking. He even instituted a time clock for his employees. Stickley and Hubbard were both entrepreneurs who knew that art was also a business.
The historical trajectory of the Arts and Crafts beliefs reached out to education through vocational schools like Bostonâs North Bennet Street Industrial School, founded by Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw in 1885 for manual training in traditional crafts. In colonial times, the neighborhood had been home to craftsmen such as Paul Revere and the weathervane maker Deacon Shem Drowne. Today the educational and charitable school flourishesâand has dropped Industrial from its original name to reflect its revised mission.
The widespread engagement of institutions and craftsmen with Arts and Crafts across America, from the 1880s into the 1940s, has been well documented in several major art museum exhibitions, catalogues, and books. This record is a testament to the vigor and diversity of artists who worked in crafts media and their American patrons. Their collective beliefs about the virtue of workmanship form spiritual substrata of memory and appreciation that spread across the continent.
THE MACHINE MADE VERSUS THE HANDCRAFTED
In the first half of the twentieth century, mass industry advanced with highly mechanized and streamlined designs. The leading edge of this new era was the Paris exposition of 1925 (the Exposition Internationale des Arts DĂŠcoratifs et Industriels Modernes), from which the term Art Deco derives.
The most radical objects in this display, furniture made of industrial materials and machined surfaces, came from Germany. Such innovative ideas slowly seeped into the American imagination and provided prototypes for the modern.
The Great Depression swept away many supporters of the Arts and Crafts movement. Unemployment meant that labor for factories was cheap; further, few patrons could afford to buy handcrafted works, which took significant time to fabricate. Over the years, mass production of household goods and devices provided many Americans incredible freedom and leisure time.
At the other end of the craft spectrum of practice, a simpler but in some ways equally complex America has persisted. This âother Americaâ consists of a âNation of Nationsâ spread across the land, reflecting the popular, provincial, ethnic, vernacular, and folk traditions long established by immigrants from many lands. Even some American Indians were, in the beginning, immigrants, crossing the Aleutian land bridge from Asia into North America. People of many and various heritages and beliefsâAmish, Mennonite, Moravian, Zoar, Norwegian, Texas Germans, Mormons, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, Africans, Latino, Hawaiian, Puerto Rican, folks from Slavic and Near Eastern nations, among others, followed. They sustain vital sources of culture that continue to produce distinctive crafts. Craft artists and artisans in America are deemed important partners within the whole society, whether that society is utopian, religious, or simply small town.
Thus, in the early years of the last century, America was still blessed with abundant tradition-bound, small country shops and cottage industries, especially beyond the fringes of large urban centers, where fashion dictates taste. For example, in Pittsburgh, large-scale industrial steel may have been king, but downstream on the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, practical stoneware potters continued to turn and fire their salt-glaze kilns. Master glassblowers and engravers were making traditional stemware goblets in factories, but on off-hours were given considerable freedom to express themselves. Wives of underpaid craftsmen and factory workers saved rags to weave into rag runners to sell in weekend markets.
Rural crafts endure for many reasonsânot the least of which is that, like folk or western music, they preserve memories and recall bygone times. These objects also offer evidence of their makersâ pride in achievement. Those who acquire rural crafts for use (or collect them as art) enjoy personally knowing the artist who made them. Typically, folk or popular crafts offer both maker and user sensory pleasure associated with natural or organic materials. Also, personal pride of workmanship usually produces works of beauty and durability.
In Appalachia and in the American South, handmade crafts were particularly strong because people often could not afford to purchase products of large-scale industry. âMake-doâ became a way of life, leading to original and highly personal expressions.
THE POSTWAR YEARS: A NEW FUSION
With the war years of the 1940s, the Arts and Crafts aesthetic drifted toward a state of gentle slumber, and machine-made products dominated U.S. culture. The romance of large-scale manufacturing had captured the imagination of urban America. Consumer goods and new machines for transport (autos, trains, and planes) were encased in shapes that suggested speed and motion. Design became the mantra, manifesting the separation of those who shaped or made things from those who specialized in conceptualizing prototype models or made drawings for factory production.
Yet not everyone in these decades accepted a mechanistic view of the future that kept design in a separate intellectual silo. Many artist-craftsmen-designers who were born shortly after the turn of the century drew inspiration from the Arts and Crafts credo and pioneered new realms to become admired senior leaders of the studio crafts movement that became the hallmark of the late-twentieth centuryâand continues to this day.
Central to the new studio crafts movement is the realization that craft no longer needs to serve utilitarian ends. Studio crafts became tied to contemplation, touch, and communion. While the studio crafts movement focused on the handcrafted, it also adapted to new materials and technologies, many the outcome of industrialization. The postwar years of the late 1940s and 1950s offered abundant material supplies from war surplus. Factories manufacturing aluminum, Plexiglas, and plywood, for example, needed to find new uses or markets for their products. New tools for shaping wood and other materials for making crafted objects also evolved.
Today, those artists who make the bold commitment to work in craft media do so because of a passion for the expressive potentials of the materials they use. They also understand the risks involved. Unlike the manufacturers whose products are standardized and market tested, the craft artist often works in isolation with a field of unknown possibilities. Irregularities in materials, idea changes that take place in the process of shaping works, and uncertainty about outcome or patronage are all part of risk-taking ventures in the arts. Whether they become turners, blacksmiths, jewelry makers, potters, furniture makers, glass workers, metalsmiths, or weaversâwhateverâthey share a common bond as artists who welcome risks. They fashion personally expressive works, and thereby make art.5
An important function of crafts today is to reground us in the real and material world. This is not a mere luxuryâit is a necessity.6 Remembering that people are more than tools of mass production, society needs to rethink what it means to be human and how individuals relate to one another and to their environment. Thoughtful studio craftsmen, working within the worlds of material and spirit, offer useful and important answers to these seminal questions for the new age.
– JONATHAN LEO FAIRBANKS , Fellow AIC (Hon.)
ASILOMAR AND THE BIRTH OF STUDIO CRAFT
In many respects, the new studio crafts movement was born in 1957 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California. This seminal conference sponsored by the American Craft Council brought together studio craftsmen who had never met and in many cases were unaware of one anotherâs works. Here, for example, Californiaâs Sam Maloof met Pennsylvaniaâs Wharton Esherick, who led discussions with other wood craftsmen. The 450 attendees constituted a whoâs who of craft artists, educators, and designers, from both the old and the new traditions. Beyond its vital exchanges and bonding experiences, the conference was an affirmation of the significance of craft.
One of the participants, Jean Delius, a woodworker and educator from New York State, assembled another seminal conference in March 1966 at Niagara Falls, New York. This conference, entitled âThe Role of the Crafts in Education,â sponsored by the State University of New York College at Buffalo, also featured an exhibition of works made by many of the participants. Now, more than forty years later, the participantsâ position papers and the record of the final report remain vital.4 The ideas reflect the best thinking of leading craft artists of that era, some of whom, such as Mary Caroline Richards and Fran Merritt, are now gone, but fortunately, not forgotten.
Amazingly, many conference participants expressed the belief that contemporary crafts were irrelevant to contemporary society or, at best, were backward looking and a romantic folly in an environment largely shaped by designers working for industrial production. If the same questions were framed today, views might be substantially different. In part, this is because Americans have come to recognize the inadequacy of Modernism and its related large-scale industrialization. Practitioners of art and of craft have long predicted the negative consequences of the brave new world that modern industrialization created. The artist/craftsman represents, rather, a union of the material and the spiritual and a reassertion of the human and the creative.
EPILOGUE
If there is a name I would like to copyright, it is âcraftsman.â It is a name that places a tremendous responsibility on those who claim it. And believe me, in our world and in our time, we are deeply in need of the values which come under the head of âcraftsmanship.â
– CHARLES EAMES, American Renaissance man
Art is defined by movements, but craft defines life. Craft gives substance to who we were, what weâve done, and how weâve changed. It is how we do things. Craft is a living archive of our lifestyle and the value we put on our heritage.
Fact is, each of us, in his or her own way, has had a craft experience. Sometimes itâs an object passed down that links us to our forebears. Perhaps itâs the quilt our mothers bundled us up in on a cold winterâs night. The antique rocking horse we climbed on to ride off into the sunset. Or the subtle reminder of the basket that sits on the counter, holding house keys and letters to be answered. In these ways, and so many more, our oldest, newestâbut fondestâmemories are tied collectively, inexorably to craft.
Craft is our âstuff âârepositories of our culture. Beyond fabrics, wood, and metal, craft is composed of the values and beliefs of those who created it, purchased it, and then preserved or discarded it. It is used and collected in homes across Americaâfrom your house to the White House.
American craft is democratic. It is broad enough to accommodate anyone who makes something or appreciates the handmade. The writer and jeweler Bruce Metcalf believes âthe uniqueness of the handmade is an analogy to oneâs own individuality; the craft object stands for oneâs singularity in a world of mass production.â
A JOURNEY WITHOUT END
Is it because of Americaâs role as the melting potânot possessing a single, dominating craft styleâthat craft here is uniquely exciting, compelling, and extraordinary to the eye, the touch, and the imagination?
Without doubt, our pluralistic society has rendered the American craft tradition the most complex and rich in the world, typified by boundless designs, styles, and energy. Precisely because we have been so free to ignore the old definitions and limitations of the possible, American craft has opened so many eyes to the impossible.
Looking at a handcrafted object these days, whether itâs from the twenty-first century or much, much earlier, we are more likely to see first its art and its beauty . . . and then the intended function and use. Clearly, craft has very much evolved from the everyday to its acceptance as an important art form.
Throughout our history, sometimes against all odds, this very special artistic expression has endured, a constant in our lives. Now, in todayâs point-and-click, drag-and-drop Digital Age, as our civilization becomes more mechanized, standardized, and computerized, the handmade has taken on new meaning, becoming what we value as special and appreciate the most. As the theorist and futurist Marshall McLuhan anticipated in the mid-60s, âIn the future the role of the craftsman will be more important than ever before.â
As with much of what he predicted, this, too, resonates with us. As humble objects from our past and presentâa belt, a bowl, a basketâhave been elevated by the duality of their art and their utility, the artistâs personal creativity and intellectual curiosity have gained in respect and appreciation.
Truth is, the beauty of the former would be impossible without the strength of the latter.
LIVING A LIFE OF PERSONAL POSSIBILITY
In her introduction to Craftsman Lifestyle: The Gentle Revolution by Olivia Emery, Eudorah Moore, director of the California Design exhibition series at the former Pasadena Museum of Art, reveals nothing short of a callingâan American Manifesto for individuality, integrity, and singularity. Making craft a vocation, she argues, âis universally a conscious and considered choice. Their career commitment is unregretted. The desire for freedom is ubiquitous, even at material cost. The act of doing supersedes in importance the end result. Art and life are a single fabric.â
Unlike the image of the starving artist in his garret, suffering for his art, Moore feels the craft artist âextracts from every moment the joy it offers; whether pleasure in oneâs work, in visual perceptions, in good food, or in quiet repose.â
In short, Moore says, the craftsmanâs style is one of âparticipator, not spectator.â
PARTICIPATION BY COMMUNICATION
For some craft artists, Mooreâs âparticipationâ manifests itself in political statements, like the ones their brethren painters and sculptors routinely make.
Richard Notkin, for example, uses the ordinary teapot as a personal vehicle of protest against an unconscionable influence of Big Oil and the poisonous proliferation of nuclear weapons. The precise detail and depth of his design vocabulary enhance the beauty of his pieces.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt, for example, started in 1987 by Cleve Jones and a group of volunteers in San Francisco, is the largest ongoing community arts project in the world. In the 1980s, many people who died of AIDSrelated causes did not have funerals because funeral homes and cemeteriesâfearing contaminationârefused to handle their bodies. With no memorial service or grave site for their loved ones, the quilt was, for many survivors, the only opportunity to remember and give substance to the lives of those who died. There are more than forty thousand 3 6-foot panels, each the size of a human grave. They are extraordinarily poignant remembrances from the heart that include photos, favorite sayings, or pieces of clothing, using patchwork, appliquĂŠ, embroidery, fabric painting, collage, spray paint, and needlepoint.
Yet another example of political statement is Judy Chicagoâs feminist celebration The Dinner Party. An homage to womenâs history, created between 1974 and 1979, it takes the form of a large triangular table with symbolic ceramic plates representing thirty-nine famous feminist âguests of honor.â It is on permanent exhibit at New Yorkâs Brooklyn Museum.
âWHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU AREâ
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
Today more and more museums, in cities of all sizes, are dedicated to showcasing our substantial heritage of craft. And why not? We are enamored of objects. Blockbuster exhibits (and their accompanying gift shops) focus on the personal objects of czars and czarinas or of Egyptian child kings, for example. We are enthralled with the things they held important in their daily lives and how these crafted pieces compare and contrast to our own.
Institutions like the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania place craft at total parity with the finest works of the worldâs art, displaying them side-by-side without distinction or discrimination. Founded as a school in 1922, the buildingâs âwall ensemblesâ were intended to illustrate the visual elements and aesthetic traditions that Albert Barnes felt were present in all art forms across periods and cultures. Henri Matisse hailed the foundation as the only sane place in America to view art.
Scores of museums, from the Mint Museums of Art and Craft + Design in Charlotte, North Carolina, to the new Bellevue (Washington) Arts Museum celebrate regional artists and actively promote craftâs future through extensive schedules of workshops that are hands-on fun for adultsâand more tellingly, children.
Following the model of Renaissance arts patrons, todayâs governments and corporations (our contemporary Medicis) as well as individuals of means are commissioning objects that enrich public spaces and private homes. Their support translates into greater opportunities for craft to survive and flourish, and offers further incentive for the artists themselves to constantly experiment with new techniques and technologies.
Other groups, like the Smithsonianâs Renwick Alliance and the Womenâs Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art play an important role. Through their sponsorship of premier craft sales, they generate funds that promote collecting; in the case of the Womenâs Committee, the money raised goes directly into purchasing craft objects for the museum.
As with all art, a burgeoning community of collectors forms the backbone of support for craft artists. Some buy a few pieces. Many, after their first bowl, basket, or special piece of jewelry or handmade fashion, find collecting addictive. They seek out galleries and craft shows like those sponsored by the American Craft Council, the Smithsonian, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to see new work by established artists and discover new artists who are just beginning to make their marks.
Like a bridge that spans the river of time, craft is wide enough and strong enough to support the studied classicism of a Paul Revere, the wild abandon of a George Ohr, and the formâs very redefinition/reinvention by artists who continually stretch the limits of their materials/media. With exposure to the world, and greater global access, who can say where the next great reimagining of craft will come from?
If todayâs craft artists are any indication, it is a rich heritage that we can expect to be perpetuated as far as the eye can see and in ways the other senses can only imagine.
VENUES FOR HANDMADE OBJECTS
The mission statements of Americaâs craft organizationsâthe galleries, museums, and educational programsâvary. But together they are our keepers of the flame, living archives and repositories that inspire us, educate us, and provide enjoyment in the experience. They ensure that craft artists are able to sustain themselves and that their skills are kept alive for generations that follow.
We visit museums and attend exhibitions to see how American crafts (and American craft artists) have evolved from strictly utilitarian origins to those reflecting our ever-evolving tastes, styles, and sensibilities. They are the storehouses of our psyche and our creativity.
We see exhibitions of artists, often local or regional, with limited exposure, whose work has been surprisingly prescient, demonstrating exciting new ways of interpreting and, sometimes, reinventing familiar objects. They bear witness to creativity put to practical use. We find ourselves riding a mobius ring of ideas, seeing the beginnings of the present in the past and the richness of the past in the present.
The first recorded exhibition that focused on finely executed craft objects was held in Boston in 1897, sponsored by the Society of Arts and Crafts. It featured about one hundred artists and craftsmen and showcased objects in all the craft media. Their second show, two years later, included more than three thousand objects, reflecting rapid growth in the craft community and interest in their work. Numerous regional and national shows followed.
But in 1969 an extraordinary exhibition brought to the national (and international) stage a new movement called studio craft, in which artists went beyond the utilitarian to create works based solely on aesthetic lines. The exhibit is called, succinctly, Objects: USA.
Sponsored by S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc. (maker of Johnsonâs Wax and other household products), the exhibition gave Americans and the world the opportunity to examine a vital cross section of the works being created by artists working in craft media. Objects: USA opened at the Smithsonian Institution and traveled over five years to museums throughout the United States and Europe.
With 300 objects made by 267 craft artists, visitors to the Objects: USA exhibition could experience visual and conceptual themes. Some were made from new synthetic and plastic materials, reflecting the interaction between design, technology, and crafts. The show also shook up the definition of craft and examined the tie between craft and national identity by demonstrating that the objects made in this country resonated with the values of individualism, risk taking, and experimentation.
In his curatorial proposal for Objects: USA, Manhattan art dealer Lee Nordress stated that âcrafts represent a refinement of the objects with which we are confronted daily, [and] their appeal stretches from the most sophisticated to the most rustic of audiences.â He had âlittle doubt but that the appeal of these objects will be instantaneous and widespread . . . Everyone from the country storekeeper who whittles a toy by his potbellied stove to the Park Avenue dowager who dabbles with ceramics will be interested in seeing a new conceptâand beautifully executedâof a spoon, a chair, a necklace, a bottle, a room divider.â
Indeed, scores of institutions in towns and cities everywhere see an exhibition of our objects to be a natural extension of American art and culture.
HANDS ACROSS TIME
Craft artists are guided by their hands: complex tools of bone, sinew, and nerve endings that can rotate 270 degrees, flip up and down 150 degrees, and freely rock from side to side. With its fully opposable thumb, the hand can grasp and grip with a power and precision unknown to any other species. Craft artistsâ hands have shaped their developmentâtheir ability to know things, to feel things, to talk about things. And most importantly, to use their heads.
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Craft in America Symposium 2002
Craft in America Symposium Participants
May 18, 2002
- Jacoba Atlas: Senior Vice-President, Programming, PBS
- Jim Bassler: M.A. Professor Emeritus, Department of Design/Media Arts, Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles
- Cathleen Collins: Consultant to Craft in America; attorney; fundraiser
- Anthony Cortese: Film editor for Craft in America
- Miguel Angel Corzo: D.Sc. President, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Ph.D. Behavioral Psychologist; Professor, Claremont Graduate University
- Patrick Ela: M.B.A. Acting director of the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles
- Sharon K. Emanuelli: M.A. Independent art historian; curator; symposium moderator, Craft in America
- Stephen Fenton: Creative Director, Craft in America
- Janet Ginsburg: Writer
- Dale Gluckman: M.A. Curator, Costumes and Textiles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Beverly Gordon: Ph.D. Professor, Environment, Textiles and Design Department, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Barbara Hamaker: M.A. Weaver; writer; symposium coordinator, Craft in America
- David Haugland: Independent Producer, Director
- Laurie Levin: M.A. Grant writing consultant; symposium coordinator, Craft in America
- Kathy Levitt: M.F.A. Filmmaker; writer; producer
- Robert Liu: Ph.D. Co-Publisher, Ornament Magazine; scientist; jeweler; photographer; bead historian
- Bruce Metcalf: M.F.A. Jeweler; teacher; writer on the nature of craft work
- Steven Poster: A.S.C. Cinematographer, Supervising Director of Photography, Craft in America
- Howard Rissatti: Ph.D. (Former) Chair, Department of Crafts, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Carol Sauvion: Creator, Executive Producer, Craft in America
- Kenneth Trapp: M.A. (Former) Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Roslyn Tunis: M.A. Independent Curator; consultant
- Hidde Van Duym: Ph.D. Director of Research for Craft in America; Arts Administrator and consultant
Copyright Š 2006 by CRAFT IN AMERICA
Carol Sauvion (Creator, Executive Producer, Craft in America): Thank you first of all to Cynthia Sears. And thanks to Jon and Lillian Lovelace for opening their home to us for this day. We want to take the information that we glean here today and make this series something special that reflects the incredible wealth of talent and culture and care that people in this country have for handmade things. There are a couple of people I have to introduce. One of them is Stephen Fenton. He has helped me so much. I worked on this project for four years. This wonderful man said âlet me look at itâ and so I faxed it to him and he faxed back âItâs a little stiff, let me work on this for youâ [Laughter.] and he came up with a fantastic proposal which pulled a lot of you in, including Kenneth Trapp. Thank you for being here Ken. Once I had the proposal, I went to Jacoba Atlas at PBS, (that was August of 2000), and she said, âYes, we like this project. We like it because there are ancillary projects. We love the fact that there will be tapes, and thereâll be a book, and hopefully thereâll be an exhibition, but before we can work with you, you need a budget, a staff, and a treatment for the first episode.â And I said, âOkay, Iâll get back to you in two weeks.â [Laughter] It took me two years to do it, so weâre making progress.
Jacoba Atlas (Senior Vice-President, Programming, PBS): Absolutely.
Carol Sauvion: Iâd like to introduce Jacoba.
Jacoba Atlas: Thanks, Carol. I actually thought it was a little over a year ago when you started to talk to me about it, so Iâve lost a year somewhere in this. But itâs very exciting, Iâve known Carol for a long time, mostly because at first I would just go into her gallery and look at the beautiful things that she has there and sometimes I would occasionally be able to take one home with me, which was a great thrill and then we became friends and Carol talked to me about this project. It was immediately intriguing I think partly because as all of you know far better than I just as somebody who loves beautiful objects and loves crafts, that craft is both aspirational and accessible. We have, (those of us who are not artists somehow have) a delusion that we can do this, even though we know we canât. But it 1 seems accessible in a way that perhaps other arts do not. So, all of this fits beautifully into what the PBS mission is about. It is about diversity. It is about education. It is about reaching out to the cultural landscape. But I do have to be honest with you; visual arts on television are some of the hardest things to create. We have very limited series on PBS about the visual arts and they have been to greater or lesser degrees a success. One that we had last year which some of you might have seen was Art 21, which was a series aiming to bring contemporary artists to the American public. Weâve also had the Sister Wendy series, which came out of the U.K. These are really hard for people to watch and I think that one of the things that youâre all going to be grappling with when you talk more with Steve tomorrow about the filmmaking aspect of this, is why visual arts are such a struggle for us to accept on television. Partly it may be because they are not three-dimensional on television, partly because you canât get the texture, you canât hold them in your hand. These are some of the challenges that youâll face as you turn this into television. One of the things that weâve all learned about TV, (and, if any of you watch television, Iâm sure you know this as well), itâs basically an entertainment landscape. People turn to television to be entertained. If you can be educated as well, and learn something as well, thatâs great and thatâs what PBS strives to have happen, that meshing between entertainment and education. And that has to be the goal of any television. Weâre not a university, weâre not a college, weâre not a high school, weâre not a museum. We live in a landscape where people can watch NBC, where people can watch HBO. We have a smart audience, but they watch those things as well. So thatâs part of the challenge. And what we know works is biography. What we know works is pure storytelling. Characters work, you want to know about people, as much as you want to know about ideas and things. The other huge challenge for television, which is a challenge for people who want to work for PBS, quite honestly, is the funding, and I think all of you or most of you in this room deal on a fairly regular basis with the challenge of funding and itâs a huge challenge for PBS. We get only less than 16 cents out of every dollar from the government. The rest of the money comes from individuals, foundations and corporate sponsorship. Iâm sure as most of you know, this has been a tough year for individuals and Wall Street and that means itâs been a tough year for foundations and for corporate underwriting as well. So it becomes more and more challenging for filmmakers and others to find the money to do the projects that they want. It does take a certain amount of tenacity, I know that Carol has that, it takes a refusal to take no for an answer, and a belief in your own project that this has to come to fruition. I think you have a couple of wonderful things to your advantage. First and foremost is that nobodyâs done this. Itâs really amazing that nobodyâs done this, but nobody has, and itâs something that I think most Americans love and would 2 want to see. Carol has assembled through Steve and the people who are working with him, a terrific team of filmmakers. I guess later today youâre going to see a short tape that they put together to let you know about the series. It is a wonderful tape. I watched it a couple of times and brought in my assistant to watch it as well, and it just sets the right mood right from the get-go. Itâs amusing, itâs got the right attitude, itâs engaging, and itâs beautiful to look at. So, we see a lot of material that aspires to be wonderful and falls short and Iâm really happy to say that this is just the opposite, it aspires to be wonderful and it is wonderful. So, that bodes very well for the future and for what youâre trying to do. Thereâs a wonderful quote, if I may, from the tape, that I just loved, and itâs that objects are our only original events from history. And I love that. Objects are our only original events from history, everything else is secondhand, everything else is interpretation. But you can hold something from history and I think that what Carol is doing here is helping to create the present right now and put it into the future so that there will be a history for now. And weâre happy to be a part of it. Thank you. [Applause.]
Carol Sauvion: Shan, shall we turn the meeting over to you?
Sharon K. Emanuelli, M.A. (Independent art historian; curator; symposium moderator, Craft in America): I want to thank everybody for the ready enthusiasm and the generosity of spirit with which all of you, scholars, guests, [and] filmmakers have embraced this project, and the willingness to share your thoughts and concerns and your expertise with us. I know this is because Carol is incredibly persuasive, that her convictions and enthusiasms are infectious, but it really is an honor for me to be sitting in this room with such an accomplished and talented array of individuals, and I mean that so sincerely. It is because of your support, and that of others who could not be here today, that I can believe that I might someday be sitting in my living room and watching Craft in America on my television set. Many of you, like me, were first exposed to the project with the help of that beautiful and beautifully written piece of Steve Fentonâs based on Carolâs effort at imagining an appropriate and original way to approach the subject that is her lifeâs work. It is an evocative, inspiring and emotional piece. From that point, work has been done to begin the process of grounding and articulating the practical content of this project. As many of you have mentioned thereâs enough material for 500 hours and the more one gets into the complexities of the subject, the more one finds complexity. In this context, I am ever mindful of an adage often repeated by my mentor, Edith Wyle, founder of the Craft and Folk Art Museum, whenever we questioned her logic in developing projects, âConsistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.â 3 But there is the need to harness the material and focus our efforts. We must have guidelines, we must have limits to the scope, we must know the material, and we must be able to readily define the material and activities we are presenting. So it is our job today to further that goal and in this session we will deal with the broad themes and conceptual approaches to the subject. Weâre here to listen to our scholar advisors and special guests and to what they have to contribute. Itâs an opportunity also for the filmmakers to understand better the nature of the subject and the practice of craft history and theory and many of its current applications. While we may not apply the technical language and vocabulary used here in the film, we must be mindful that we are making a film for a popular audience, and that we want to impart real information and further comprehension.
Carol Sauvion: We need to mention two names: Lloyd Herman, the first curator of the Renwick Gallery, who has been involved in the project since the beginning, Unfortunately Lloyd is in Boston this weekend and could not be with us. And Nicki Sandoval, who was at the Museum of the American Indian, and who is now coming back to California and starting her doctoral work at University of California, Santa Barbara. Sheâs driving across the country and is not able to be with us.
Shan Emanuelli: Okay. Ken Trapp: What Kind of History Are We Presenting?
Kenneth Trapp, M.A. (Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum): In speaking about history, Iâve developed a series of thoughts and questions. For me this project represents a collective history of Americans as much as it does a collective history of human beings in that we are addressing the need of human beings to create objects by hand. Some of the questions that came to my mind as I thought about this project are, whose histories are we recording and are we presenting to the public? From what perspectives? Who tells the stories and by what authority? Who is the defined and who is the definer? To me, Craft in America has to be a series of seamless histories interwoven to tell a full rich story. Will this program be art history, decorative art history, craft history, design history? Is it cultural, social, political history? Is it American history? Material culture, technologies history, human history, personal histories? Of course, all of the above. But itâs the manner in which these histories are told and what the viewpoint is. I would like to bring to your attention thoughts about histories from my research when I was in California. There was an association called the Redlands Indian Association in Redlands, California, in which a group of philanthropic white women asked Native American women to make lace. From the beginning of the turn of the 20th century to the end of the 20th century, there was a vast sea change in how we would look at this whole philanthropic approach. I think it goes from what began as a positive to one where we would look at it almost as a negative. For example, the audacity of taking an art form 4 that is very white and western to Native Americans. Although the impulse was philanthropic, in the end it was seen as exploitive. The same thing was happening at the Sherman Institute in which young Indian boys were introduced to furniture making based upon Gustav Stickley prototypes. Obviously, they werenât living with his furniture. So, whose stories are we telling? How do we integrate those stories, those histories of those who are the makers, those who are the users, those who are the connoisseurs? For those of you who might know something about the Arts & Crafts Movement, especially in the United States, from the interest of it in 1972 with the Princeton exhibition, âThe Arts & Crafts Movement in America, from 1876 to 1916â has seen a resurgence of interest. What I find rather amazing, though, is that the movement has been largely emptied of its content. What drew me to it as a movement was a philosophy, was a human aspect of this movement, the humanitarian impulses behind it. Now itâs become a fashion statement, very much a fad. We see this in the revival of Stickley furniture; pick up the New York Times magazine, any Shelter magazine, and youâll see how the movement has become one of the ways things look. If you go back in time, though, and think of the Arts & Crafts Movement, and the people who were actually a part of it, and who were creating the objects, they, of course, were living histories. We have given on overlay of our view of that movement largely by romanticizing it, and I think perhaps the lowest level of romanticizing is in the Franklin reproductions of Cotswold cottages, which are seen as the epitome of the good life. We also see this in the paintings of (if I may use this word advisedly) of Thomas Kinkade, painter of light, that he has chosen this quintessential Cotswold cottage as the emblematic of what life should be in all of its goodness. We are a heterogeneous society, with many thousands of craft practitioners of diverse backgrounds. How do we open up these histories to be inclusive, I know inclusive has become a clichĂŠ, certainly in the museum world. When I moved from California to Washington, I was termed âPCâ very quickly and I said, âI donât think itâs politically correct, I think itâs politically right that we open up the process and include people of many backgrounds.â So itâs how to find those people. I can tell you as a curator working for the National Museum, (that is, the Smithsonian complex), finding many of these people has proven problematic. The last thing I would like to say is that, craft (as we approach it at the Renwick), represents a vast accumulation of human knowledge, from which we have drawn the information that informs all the books that we go to to learn about craft. That is, the books werenât written and then we started the practice, it was the practice and then the books came. The glory of craft is in the union of materials with the hand, with the human need and with the idea. And for me, Craft in America will succeed if it reaches even a small part of this; because itâs opening the doors for what I hope will be future films as well as discourse on this phenomenon in 5 American art. To that end, I have proposed repeatedly since Iâve been in Washington that the postal service issue a series of stamps based upon American craft. And for those of you who have worked with the National Endowment for the Humanities, and have been asked, âwhereâs the humanity of craft?â that was the very first question I got from the postal service. Whereâs the interest in this material and whereâs the humanity in it? So we have a challenge with that. Thank you.
Shan Emanuelli: Bruce Metcalf: A Theoretical Framework for Craft.
Bruce Metcalf, M.F.A. (Jeweler; teacher; writer on the nature of craft work): I guess Iâm one of two people in this room who are full-time, practicing craftspeople, is that right? Along with Jim?
Carol Sauvion: We also have Nikki Lewis, who is in her first year of graduate school at UCLA in the Ceramics Department, and teaching and making pots and beautiful things. And we have Tia Pulitzer, who has just finished her BFA from Kansas City Art Institute. There has been a lot of discussion about the âgraying of the craft worldâ so Iâve asked these two young women to be here today to prove that this is not the case. [Laughter.] Also with us today is Barbara Hamaker, weaver, basket maker, and writer who is in the process of writing the treatments for this series.
Bruce Metcalf: So there are five of us here, which is good. [Laughter.] I was thinking last night about what a practicing craftsperson would think about this series if they saw it on TV, in particular, what they would hope for, since this series will represent us, and it will be the first representation in quite some time, on the national TV scene. I guess all of you must know, but Iâll just re-state it: if youâre a practicing craftsperson, youâve given your life over to this thing. Iâve been doing it thirty years, and itâs not just a job, itâs a calling. And that makes it somewhat different, than simply just a job where one gets money at it. Thereâs a passionate commitment that comes with the business that I think is difficult to explain. So the series will bear their burden of hope. And, so I was wondering, what are they going to want? Thereâs going to be an incredible amount of desire focused on this series, from people like myself, (aside from petty self-interest, I mean, thereâll be a lot of people thinking, oh, why wasnât I on that show, and then theyâll think, well, gee, is this going to help me market my work? Is it going to develop a marketâŚ?) Strip all that away, and I think what is left is that practicing craft people will want the series to explain why craft matters. Why craft matters. And not just why it matters to practitioners like myself, but why it matters to everybody. And I think it does, from my experience and from my study. I think itâs true, not only of us as practitioners, but of the whole population. Which is not something I think most people grasp, or even begin to understand. I think every practicing craftsperson is committed to a project that is significant beyond the 6 immediate life. Itâs also symbolic, in a really, really important way, in that it represents an alternative way of living oneâs life within a broad culture thatâs largely commercial, and in which production has been removed from personal experience. In other words, most of us donât get our hands on the stuff that we use anymore, itâs all made out there. That is not the case for a craftsperson. And I think that that intimate relationship between life and production is really important. So, from the point of view of a practicing craftsperson, this series will be seen as a failure if it does not explain why craft matters. Thatâs what I thought last night about 3 in the morning. As an amateur theorist as well, I think that theories might be interesting to bring to the question now, because I think theory does start to approach answering that question of why does craft matter. When I look at a craft object, (like this cup), the normal approach in the art world would be to treat this as an isolated object, the thing on the wall, the sculpture on the pedestal. I think that one of the things that craft does is that to really understand it, you have to divert attention away from the object itself in two directions: on the one side about, (to use a kind of Marxist expression) conditions of production, and on the other side, conditions of reception. That is, under what conditions the object is made and under what condition the object is used, or received. It seems to me that this series is very interested in conditions of production, but largely in terms of a lifestyle, of how craftspeople are living their lives, and I think thatâs fine, but I donât know if thatâs going to solve any of the real problems about why craft matters. Since Iâm a student of history, if you read Ruskin and if you read Morris, you find that their primary concern was with unalienated labor, that there was this idea of an intimate connection between work and life, where work is not alienated from life, (in the Marxist critique of a factory laborer), where the worker has no real connection between the machine and the commercial production that he or she might be engaged with. The idea of the craft object is that these people actually get to determine what this thing is gonna be. Not only that, but they engage in a long, long process of apprenticeship to the material. Weâre talking decades. And that, in turn, takes a degree of commitment that is rarely seen in this culture anymore. I think most people here, since youâre all professionals, you do understand commitment, but if you go to a shopping mall, and you look at how people conduct their lives and how they search for meaning through shopping, I donât think that thatâs something that normally people have accessible to themselves. And I also think in the craft object, thereâs something about a passionate refusal. I think thatâs really interesting. This is an object of resistance. The comparison is to the French Resistance, during World War II. These objects stand against much of the larger culture, and they are intended to do that, very clearly and very particularly, even though people might not say so. In other words, the handmade object is definitively not mass-produced. It is definitively not mass distributed, itâs not advertised in magazines. So itâs operating outside of the main currents that drive this culture, and to me thatâs incredibly important, as I say because itâs both a resistance and an alternative. 7 And another thing about conditions of production is that people come to these things through their bodies. I wrote an article called âThe Hand at the Heart of Craftâ where I tried to rationalize and justify this business of how craftspeople become craftspeople. Itâs all about an intimate experience through the body, and particularly through the hands. We all started this because we got our hands on material and suddenly a light went on. Suddenly we thought, thereâs something that we can do with our lives that has to do with labor, but in particular with hand labor, and you cannot underestimate that. And that aspect of the body is interesting to me, because we all know that the main force of culture is away from the body. In my research in handwork, it appears that the human hand, and language use and acquisition, and social intelligence (and Iâm thinking about Howard Gardner here) coevolved, all three at the same time. So hand use involved in tool making, and language involved in communicating how to make and use tools, and social organization in terms of how to hunt, how to gather, how to use tools, all evolved on the African savannah at the same time. But if you think about contemporary culture, weâre still social, we still use language, but American culture is much less interested in the hand, and the use of the hand, so there seems to be this kind of truncation of the third leg of that tripod. So thatâs why I think craft is also extremely important, because it brings up the use of the hand, and it makes it possible, intimate and important again. I also think there are important implications with conditions of reception. I think for a lot of people who buy and use this stuff thereâsâŚI would call it a participation in authenticity. In that, this thing is, as I pointed out, made by hand, itâs made by a single person, itâs functioning outside of all those circulations of mass marketing and mass production, and for everybody who actually buys and uses these things, they stand at only one degree of separation from the producer. In ceramics, there literally are fingerprints on these things. Look at the bottom sometimes, and you can see peopleâs fingerprints, the fingerprint of the maker is there, and I think people intuitively recognize that that one degree of separation is really important. Itâs vital to how people understand these objects. And I think that a uniqueness is seen as an analogy to oneâs own individuality, in other words that craft object stands for oneâs singularity, in a world of mass production. Which I think a lot of people understand and relate to very strongly. And then for functional craft, thereâs something about the experience of these things. Weâre so used in the visual arts to simply regarding art from a distance, and having an intellectual or an aesthetic experience about it. But with craft, and craft that is used, you get your hands on these things. You pick âem up, you use âem, you drink out of âem, you know, you put âem on your body. Like that. And thatâs a different order of experience entirely from most of the fine arts. Entirely different. Because again it involves the body, it implicates the body, and it implicates social interaction in ways that much of fine art does not do, and in fact many fine artists are very jealous, they wish they could engage people like that. 8 And then, the last thing about conditions of reception. The way I see it, the way I interpret it, is that people who buy and use these objects are actually covert supporters of resistance. You know? That they see their participation in these objects as support of this sort of nighttime activity of doing something that the larger culture doesnât necessarily reward. And again, I think thatâs really important. So when I say, what matters about craft, thatâs what I think about from my own point view, as a maker and as theoretician of these objects, and if this series can communicate those points, I think it will be a success. And I think it will teach people and itâll make people appreciate more what these objects are about, and it will serve the field and it will also serve the public in a really important way. Thank you. [Applause.]
Shan Emanuelli: Mike Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity and the Meaning of Objects.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D. (Behavioral Psychologist; Professor, Claremont Graduate University): I really am very little qualified to speak here, because I never studied craft, specifically, but I have been interested in the visual arts for a long time. In fact, I wrote my dissertation on it about 40 years ago, or so. In that study, I was interested in the conditions of production of visual art and I studied young artists and how they proceeded with their work. And, we discovered some interesting things there, a book came out of it called âThe Creative Visionâ which is based on how a person starts with a blank canvas and ends up with a finished painting. But as time went on, I became more interested in what Bruce calls the âconditions of receptionâ that is, once an object is made, what will people do with it? How are works of art used, encountered, (whatever word you want to employ), in the homes of people, so we started looking, interviewing people in their homes and asking them, âwhat is special to you in this house, in this apartment?â And, initially we started with the intention of chronicling the works of art that were being used by people in their homes, but very quickly we discovered that actually we had started with a false assumption, namely that works of art are what produce aesthetic experiences in people. It turned out that actually there was a quantity, [an] enormity of objects that people could mention as being special to them and they could talk about them with the same subtlety and involvement that one would speak about works of art. This object could be a refrigerator, an old sofa, or a plastic figurine that they received for selling Tupperware at a convention. In other words, what was so amazing after awhile was to see how people are able to invest any kind of object with a personal meaning, which is not necessarily conveyed by any of the formal qualities of the object, or the way it was made. Itâs how the people related to the object, how they acquired it in the first place, what moment in their lives this object entered their radar screen, or whatever. And that allowed them to create in their homes a kind of symbolic environment which was meaningful, which represented their lives, which represented their personality, and that is in a wayâŚIâm trying to figure out how all of this related to what youâre up to. 9 But it seems to me that it makes the connection with the experience and activity much clearer, this is what Jacoba started saying, how difficult it is to simply present on TV visual objects. But, objects are meaningful only in relation to the lives of people, so if you figure, whether on the productive end or on the reception end, there are all kinds of ties that are possible to make: why this object was made the way it was, or why itâs cherished. And, as I say, the notion about there being a one-to-one correspondence between formal qualities and the meaning it produces in the user (so to speak) is not very clear, itâs not a one-toone, I mean, we keep thinking, that if the object has this shape, it will produce a predictable reaction, or experience in the person who sees or uses it. And thatâs not true, you have to understand that a personâs own (if you want to call it) aesthetics, but itâs more than aesthetics, itâs a way in which the object impacts on the life at that particular moment. We find that if you want to categorize the meanings that these objects have in peopleâs lives, itâs fairly easy to see in terms of, for instance, a temporalâŚvery important is the temporal sequence. I mean, some objects are cherished because they recall the past, and these are things that you inherit, that you were given, that you bought during your honeymoon, or a particular trip, and every time you look at this object, it triggers a set of memories and experiences that constitutes your own identity, in the past. There are many objects that acquire their meaning because you are using them now, because you are involved with them, and you are constantly resorting to them. And these are objects like cups that you drink from, or a particular lathe that you keep in the basement and you use it to make things with, or photographic equipment, or climbing boots, if you are climber, and these things have a powerfulâŚthey are like repositories of your current activities, and therefore, theyâre an extension of the self, in that sense. And then there are objects that refer to the future, because you have them, you are collecting them in order to express your dreams, your desires in the future. This could be books that you are collecting for a trip to Europe, or gardening equipment with which you are going to make your garden beautiful, and so forth. So, past, present, future is one way to look at the meaning of objects. And the other very important division is between self and others, some objects are definitely expressions of your uniqueness, and here personal interest, here talent will find its way of being represented through the objects you surround yourself with. An even larger part, perhaps, are objects that are connections to others, that you have to symbolize or represent your relationships, and this can go back generations, or be the little drawings that your child makes, and you attach to the refrigerator door with magnets. Whatever. These are incredibly important to kind of represent (again) concretely the network of relations that constitutes partly who you are. And of course there are enormous age differences and gender differences in this, like young people are almost all surrounded by objects that represent the self and present and as you move on in life, it becomes more other people and the past. And so, these are kind of general markers of what the meaning of objects in everyday life is.
Carol Sauvion: When I first became aware of your work, the thing that seemed most pertinent to our work was your concept of flow, and optimal experience. I think the making of a craft object is the ultimate optimal experience, and I wonder if you would speak a bit about that.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Yes, I thought that Bruce was very eloquent about that, thatâs why I didnât speak about it, but obviously, heâs describing what any creative person, or anyone who is using their skills at the borders of possibility, at the fullest of oneâs possibility, experiences. I call this the flow experience, because people use this analogy of being carried by a river, of being on automatic pilot, of being able to kind of effortlessly do very difficult things. Which are all characteristics of this flow experience. I had been studying that also and actually I got to studying that by that original study of artists where I saw people, young artists, work for weeks on a canvas practically without interruption, except to kind of crash for a few hours and then get up and start again. And at that time, psychology tried to explain behavior in terms of the goals, in terms of what the end product of behavior was. And so you would expect these young artists, having finished the painting, to be really enamored of their work, and look at it, and enjoy it, or show it off, or try to sell it, and so forth, but instead, what was so amazing to me was how almost immediately the work was forgotten and put against the wall and never looked at again for a long time. Whereas instead, the artist could hardly wait to start the new painting. So it became clear after awhile, that the reward of the activity was not the end product of the painting, the reward of the activity was the production of the work itself. So that became then a question of, what is it about the activity that is so involving, so rewarding, that people are willing to devote their lives, as Bruce says, to doing these things, and sure we have learned a lot since then and thereâs quite a bit of work and knowledge about the traits that make an activity productive of flow and the arts are an ideal way to get that flow experience. Others are sports or ritual or dance or music, all activities that exist primarily because they produce flow, not because of their value in any other sense, so, yes, thatâs another way that one could look at it.
Shan Emanuelli: Dale Gluckman has kindly agreed to suffer through definition and the considerations of approaching many different types of activity.
Dale Gluckman, M.A. (Curator, Costumes and Textiles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art): I want to make a disclaimer here that all these definitions do not necessarily reflect the views of the management. [Laughter.] Theyâre very idiosyncratic, and probably thereâll be a lot of discussion about them, but I tried (coming also from a semi-non-craft background here, as a curator of costumes and textiles), tried to define these terms as best I could. So here we go. Donât throw things, just get 11 up and leave. Quietly. [Laughter.] Okay. If my definitions are perhaps a little different than the standard ones, I donât know, for me I divided [craft] nto studiobased, workshop-based, culture-based and home-based. And those are just working terms. Studio-based to me involves artists who usually have some kind of formal art training, and their production is either a primary source of income, or theyâve made a serious commitment to it and theyâd like it to be their primary source of income, and that functionality is not necessarily a value in this. And that there is this concept of the single artistic genius, a concept that infuses the so-called fine arts in our culture. A variant on this to me was workshop-based (and studio-based to me is somebody [and you might disagree], but to me is somebody like Peter Voulkos), but then I thought thereâs another type that doesnât quite fit into that, and that I defined as workshop-based, and that may include formal art training, or apprenticeships, it is a source of income, but functionality is much more highly valued, and the hand of the craftsman in particular is highly valued and I was (just off the top of my head) I was thinking of somebody like Sam Maloof, just as an example. Culture-based, which often is defined as traditional crafts (and I avoided a little bit the word traditional, because itâs such a very complex word, and because we often, when we hear the word traditional, we think of something (a.) thatâs dead and (b.) that doesnât change – thatâs not really true – so I would call it culturebased for want of a better term), that involves usually a long apprenticeship, or what I call generational training, your father, your grandfather, your greatgrandfather, you learn it generation from generation, generational training, and it functions for personal use, or for local use, or for export in the tourist market and it can be an income generator, whether that income is in commodities or whether itâs in monetary form, itâs nevertheless a product thatâs often sold or traded in the market, sometimes quite widely sold. And itâs guided by traditional aesthetic styles, but it can incorporate and involve over time, and bring in other styles. And that thereâs a certain flexibility of creative expression, individual expression, but itâs within a sort of balloon (shall we say) or under an umbrella, of the way we do things, the traditional style that is usually related to [or is] culture-specific. And then I defined amateur as home-based, with no formal art training, usually nothing applies to everyone, of course. Itâs usually for personal pleasure, its functionality is valued and itâs not a primary source of income. Now, what to me distinguished additionally the four above was thatâŚthe main difference was intent. To me, in studio-based craft, the idea is to create an object of beauty or express an idea, or an emotion, that is the artistâs internal mechanisms being expressed in some way, the artistâs reaction to the world around him, or to his internal feeling (his or her). Whereas in the workshop, it was the idea of creating an object of beauty, but an object that is functional. How to create a beautiful coffee cup. And in culture-based crafts, the object is to create a functional object which may or may not be beautiful, but often is very 12 beautiful, sometimes to the eyes of outsiders, sometimes it takes an outsider to say âthat broom is just gorgeousâ and everybody says, but itâs the broom! I am reminded of a wonderful quote the Balinese have, which is âwe have no art, we just do things the best we can.â I thought that was really getting at the heart of what craft is about, and this human desire to make something beautiful, (I think it relates to what Bruce was talking about) to satisfy an inner need and this relationship between mind, body, and hand, mind, and object and to avoid boredom. And I often think that variation and style is just that the craftsperson or the artist got bored and they wanted to change things, do something a little different. Then, there are the interactions between studio, culture and amateur crafts. There is a certain fluidity between the three, and the working concepts of one infuse the other: culture-based crafts can become studio crafts I mean, there are certainly people whose traditions began, or histories began, within traditional or culture-based crafts, and they became studio artists. An amateur can evolve obviously into a studio artist or be a component in culture-based art, just because somethingâs traditional doesnât mean that people canât practice it just for their own pleasure, in their home and [for] their own personal use as opposed to making it for the market, say. And one example that comes to mind is Japanese baskets, which went just in the past few decades, from a culture- or amateurbased, or needs-based craft into a studio craft. So today, you get people whoâŚthatâs what they do, is make these beautiful baskets to sell, and they sign them and so on. And maybe 50 or 100 years ago they were unsigned and were considered just again âwhat we do.â So things can change within one personâs life and also over generations. Now I want to talk a little bit about folk crafts, [which I] think have had a profound influence on the craft movement. And I was thinking about Soetsu Yanagi, the founder of the Japan Folk Art Museum. He visited the United States in 1929 and â30 at Harvard. Then again in 1952 and â53, with Hamada and Bernard Leach, he visited Black Mountain College, where Marguerite Wildenhain was teaching at the time, the Archie Bray Foundation, where Hamada demonstrated (thereâs this wonderful picture in a book I found of a young Peter Voulkos watching Hamada build a pot), and he also came to Los Angeles, to Chouinard. And he made, I think, a wonderful statement. Yanagi said, âWe must clearly understand, that in the world of arts, especially crafts, there is another way of approaching the kingdom of beauty beside that of genius.â And I thought that was a very interesting quote, because he was the opposite side of the Bernard Berenson concept of the male creative genius as the basis of post-Western renaissance art. And I thought about this because in my own institution, (a so-called fine arts institution), there is a constant tension and struggle between craft and fine art that goes on and I recognize that a lot of this isâŚtheyâre still carrying (to me) the baggage of Bernard Berenson. And Yanagi was trying to free us from that. 13 Itâs important to identify the commonalities and differences between the hand craft movements and the industrial craft movements, for example Arts & Crafts Movement and the Bauhaus. They both sprung from a belief in artistic communities, the beauty of everyday objects, especially early Bauhaus and Gropius, and a desire to provide an aesthetically pleasing and cohesive environment for the middle class. It turned out in most cases the middle class couldnât afford what they produced, but that was another story. Yet there are also very profound differences, obviously the Arts & Crafts Movement began as a reaction against the machine, (which was seen as the destroyer of beauty and of this human connection to product), and the Bauhaus embraced the machine as a creator of beauty. I also found a wonderful quote by a woman named Mary Emma Harris (who was at Black Mountain in the â50âs when Yanagi, Hamada, and Leach were there), and she said âUnlike the ideology of the Bauhaus, which stressed the machine aesthetic of a flawless form, and a respect for the new process developed through technology, Zen Buddhism taught a respect for the meditative nature of repetitive actions, such as that of the production potter. It also provided an aesthetic which recognized the beauty of the irregular or the flaw in the handcrafted object.â Yanagi, Hamada and Leach compared the egotism of the American artist and the importance of self-expression, experimentation, the intellect and control over nature, with the Japanese folk craftsmanâs respect for tradition, his search for simplicity, and his reliance on intuition. They also examined the Western concept of making an object and the Eastern concept of the object being born in the craftsmanâs hands. I think for me that summed up the two. I guess the point Iâm bringing out is that Arts & Crafts and Bauhaus went like thisâŚ(hands diverge)âŚand to us today they appear as opposites in their approach, yet they stem from the same roots and they have actually infused each other, if you look at the people who left Europe and came to the United States, many of them had Bauhaus training, but they ended up at places like Black Mountain and Cranbrook and hand vs. machine, itâs almost a false dichotomy, in a sense. But I thought that it was an interesting point to bring out. And also I wanted to mention one thing that I thought you should [include] in the film. Craft is also a means of communication across cultural and linguistic divides. And I was reminded of a piece of research I did many years ago for someone where I went and I looked for traditional crafts production in the Los Angeles communities. And one of the things that came out of it was, as I found embroiderers in the Greek community, and weavers in the Lithuanian community, they were really curious about what the other community was doing (at one point we talked about a possible exhibition, which unfortunately didnât materialize), they said, âwe would love this, we want to see what another community is doing. There was a communal language between them that they could use as a bridge to getting to know each other. And I thought it was an interesting experience to see that. 14 The Arts and Crafts Movement itself, getting back to the historical side of things, idealized the pre-industrial past, and I think thatâs important to think about this in terms of how you define traditional crafts, how much of it is idealized, how much of it isâŚthe reality of how people practicing those things actually see themselves (Ken touched on that). And that the American crafts movement was really a search to find a distinctly American art, and thatâs why they looked at Native American styles for inspiration, for example, as well as the Medieval, Asian, Folk and Colonial styles. One aspect of the Arts & Crafts Movement in England, and here, was the desire to provide a means of income for genteel women, which may have ended up being a lace group or another permutation. For example, the Royal School of Needlework in England was started to provide work for women of the middle classes and upper classes who had either lost their husbands, or for some reason had no means of support. And they either had to live off a male relative or turn to prostitution, there was literally no profession for them, and this was a way to give them an income with dignity, and at the same time, allow them some creative expression, the workshop of the Royal School of Needlework was run completely by women. And Hull House came out of that same desire. My last sentence is do not forget the Wiener Werkstatt, which was modeled on the Arts & Crafts and the work of people like Macintosh, but to my mind is a bridge between the arts and crafts ideal and the Bauhaus, and actually had a wide influence in the United States thatâs often forgotten but thatâs recently come to be recognized. Thank you. [Applause.]
Robert Liu, Ph.D. (Co-publisher, Ornament Magazine; scientist; jeweler; photographer; bead historian): I thought that this breakdown was really heuristic – a great way to look at everything in a compact way. But I think it also brings to mind, (because Iâm a person thatâs as interested in ancient, ethnographic, as well as contemporary), thatâŚwe tend to look atâŚI mean, this is Crafts in AmericaâŚbut, crafts, every craft has a history, a tale, thousands of years long, so therefore, we can learn a lot by looking at ethnographic groups as well as ancient. I mean, thereâs nothing more immediate than taking the most common of objects, like a bead or a spindle whorl in your hand, and right there, if you know something, you can tell so much about the culture or the person that owned itâŚhowâŚyou know, the touch of the human hand is right there, thereâs nothing more immediate. And what interests me, (and I think we ought to maybe put a little bit of this in it), is, for instanceâŚwe look at traditional crafts as rigid, theyâre not that really rigid, I just finished a study on silver torques of the Miao, a Chinese minority. I only had a sample, and I had some literature. And since my Chinese is that of an eight-year-old, I canât go there, really. So I decided to see, what does it mean? This is really rigid, these are beautiful torques worn by about 9 million Miao or Hmong hill tribes in China and the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos and Thailand). But when you start looking at them, theyâre full of variations, theyâre beautiful honest crafting, and this is the best of crafts, I think, that we want to bring up. There is nothing more evocative than the human hand applied to something that is meaningful, worn by their fellow people, and they donât do this for ego, but they insert a little bit of 15 themselves and a little bit of twist here or there, and I think this is something we want to be aware of.
Shan Emanuelli: I would like to introduce Miguel Angel Corzo, and I would also like to say that heâs going to address a little bit of our âFutureâ topic in terms of education.
Miguel Angel Corzo, D.Sc. (President, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania): I have to confess that I was delighted to see myself labeled as scholar [Laughter.] and when I negotiate with my faculty, I will make sure that they see that it says âscholarâ here [Laughter.]. I really come to the crafts through one person whoâs in this room, and thatâs Elaine Levin. Because, Elaine, (more years than she and I want to remember), introduced me to crafts in America. First in a very simple fashion: she hoped that I would be able to design a potterâs wheel for her. And when I failed at that, then she said, âWell, maybe then I can explain to you some of the beauty of these things. And as I was looking at the title of Craft in America, I started thinking, âAmericaâs a very big continent, and if we are going to address crafts in all of this continent, then itâs a very daunting task.â I also thought that one of the things that might come out of this is a better understanding of what this country is about through crafts. Because crafts bring to the world (and particularly American crafts bring to the world), a very different sense of what crafts in other countries are. And I was trying to define for myself what this meant, and why was it that craftsmen who came from other countries to the United States would suddenly take on a very different dimension. And as Iâve asked artists around here what it is that makes crafts in the United States such a specific, special thing, I can only really say that maybe it is a sense of freedom. That freedom really permeates, in crafts, well beyond what we understand it to be, because weâre used to it. So that when you work in a different country, and you come here, and you suddenly feel that freedom, then itâs an artistic freedom that allows you to go completely outside your own limitations, and look at no limitations. And thatâs a message, I think, thatâs very important to convey in a program that deals with this, because it is a very powerful message about art and about a society that allows art to really expand in these directions. I guess that another main thought that comes to this is, how is the United States linked to the rest of the world through its art? And, for a presentation on a television program, I think that that also takes a very magnificent dimension, because if we extend the threads of the crafts in this country to the rest of the world, I believe that we are going to see (particularly in the latter part of the 20th century), weâre going to see that there is a connection of our crafts here with everything thatâs out there. And as Mr. Liu was saying before, it takes generations, centuries. So there is this continuous thread running from all of these countries into the United States, and coming to an efflorescence and a blooming that happens here, which is truly amazing. If weâre able to convey this, I think we will have really gotten to the point where an understanding of the 16 crafts, and of what this country has been able to produce, really means. We shouldnât talk about ethnicities or about cultures or about origins. We really should talk about the creative mind that exists throughout the whole world and that has converged somehow with a big bang here in the United States and really taken on that extraordinary dimension. I think that there are anecdotal references to the culture (or to the past cultures), and we can see it in basket weavings, or in ceramics, or in jewelry, or in every other form. And you can detect something formal about that. But I think that thereâs another dimension, which is a spiritual dimension that one should really be looking for and trying to convey. Because thatâs what crafts are about: theyâre about the spirit. Theyâre really about the capacity to create something that transcends the intellect and goes into the emotion. And thatâs really of all the world. So, the possibilities of making the reference to other continents, and making the reference to the use of certain types of materials, I think will enrich tremendously visually and intellectually and aesthetically, but the explanation of why things seem to blossom here in a different way will be more significant. In terms of education, I imagine that I have to be an advocate of education in different ways. One of them, because the grants and the fellowships that allow people from the United States to travel abroad, and to see other cultures and to understand other aspects, is certainly something that flourishes strongly and that allows for growth. But one of the things that I have noticed is that, although in crafts we have African and Hispanic influence here, I havenât really seen the African or Hispanic formal education really come into our United States level of education. And the tradition seems to go more from mother to daughter or father to son than through the formalized system. And thatâs something I think that we should think about and try to explore. I think that now weâre trying to structure our education in a way that is non-linear, that is more modular, that is more inter-disciplinary, that responds better to our society, because thatâs what the students want. They really want to explore a variety of forms and embrace work that defies categorization. So, through education and what is going to be happening a little bit in the future, is that weâre going to encourage this type of cross-disciplinary study and experimentation, while really maintaining the skills the traditional media demand. Maybe some of the things that have defined crafts and artists (in the past), are things such as function and utility and beauty, site, community, audience, studio practice, competition. The dialogue that has to be engaged between the artist and society and between the artist and his or her own soul. Itâs an intellectual rigor that has to be connected with the hand and there is, I think, a unique intelligence to craft that is essential to the development of the artist as a whole. We can address diversity because craft makes the physical values and aspirations of oneâs culture, society, history and locale aware. We are able to transform raw materials into work that serves and reflects human life. And these 17 are ways of acknowledging oneâs past and oneâs tradition. I think that if we are able to make the linkage between oneâs tradition and the future and show that crafts is that linkage, then we will have reached what hopefully will be this amazing experience of looking at the world in this moment of history through crafts. Thanks. [Applause.]
Carol Sauvion: There were two things that struck me about Miguel Angelâs presentation. Iâm so used to considering the diversity of influences going into our craft culture, and Miguel Angel seemed to be talking about how we have now our own craft culture that is going out and into the world. So that was a new way of looking at it. And the second thing was that he said that things went from the intellect to the higher plane, the emotion, and I think in our culture we think of the intellect as the highest plane and the emotion is something that we tend to negate a lot of the time, so that was interesting to me.
Barbara Hamaker, M.A. (Weaver; writer; symposium coordinator, Craft in America): Iâm a working craftsperson, and I canât tell you how many people say to me, âWell, why donât you hire somebody to do that, well, why donât you get three or four people to knock those out for you?â Because all they think about is, because Iâm making a living at this, that Iâm interested in the money, and itâs not the money, itâs the doing of it. And I think that people in our culture are so brainwashed into thinking that they have to make money, I mean, we know we have to pay the rent, but it drives me crazy that people donât understand that internal process of how driven we are to work with our hands. And I think thatâsâŚI know Carol knows that so well, and I know that thatâs so much a part of this project, is trying to reveal that about craftspeople. Iâm a weaver and Iâve known Jim Bassler for many many years, and that process of working with the threads, of learning how to spin, of going through all of that. The people that look at the crafts from the outside only see the product, and so what we need to depict in this film so much is the meaning derived from the process. And I see the meaning of life as what is missing in our culture and in our mass media today.
Jim Bassler, M.A. (Professor Emeritus, Department of design/Media arts, Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles): I retired two years ago from UCLA, from a department of design, which became a department of design media arts. And before that, when Iâd been chair of the department, it had been the Department of Art Design and Art History. And so from art design, art history, the art historians wanted out – they didnât want to be with people who made things. And they would tell you in the elevator, that, [Laughter.] you donât belong on campus. And then the division between the art faculty and the design faculty was a problem. The department of design, for many years, had some sort of craft components in it, we had jewelry making, we had furniture making, industrial design, fiber. I was in the fiber area. Ceramics. I 18 might have forgotten something. We even had fashion, glass. In fact, when I was chair, glass was voted out. I was the only person who wanted to keep the glass program in the program. But it was really a territorial kind of thing, where the pickinâs are so slim, that everybodyâs sort of fighting over these little things. And they wanted glass out so the ceramics could blossom. But anyway, the point is, that I retired two years ago, I was recalled by the department because of the demand of the students, who are now in an electronic kind of program. And they found that the students demanded some kind of other activity other than looking at computers. And they didnât believe that was going to happen at all and they recalled me because my studio, (or the large room in which I worked for many years), was still sort of vacant up on the fourth floor. And it had never been taken over by anybody. And it still had all the stuff, so it was sort of like going into some sort of Dickens period, walking into the room, and thereâs the loom, and I reinvigorated, and the students, the demand was amazing, where 50 or 60 students would come in forâŚI would take about 22 students. Thereâs another department on campus, which is now the department of World Arts & Culture, which was formerly the dance department. And they too had asked me to teach something to the students, and I came up with a course called Design Processes World Cultures, which allowed me then to service those students. A lot of them were dancers; a lot of them were just sort of searching for some kind of direction. And so these were very successful courses that I could go on teaching forever, because the demand is there, students really sort of trying to figure out how things are put together. And I would approach it in a very simple kind of way. Also, Iâd been telling somebody at the break about one of the things that I did that I thought worked quite well and it was introducing to the students this book, The Things They Carried by Tim OâBrien, which has to do with Viet Nam. And I presented that to the students to see if indeedâŚbecause theyâre so divorced from objects. And I was sort of saying, weâre talking about things, and are there things that you carry with you, and how would you make those things in your mind visible. And this was a silkscreen project, and it was very, very successful, because what those students brought, in other words, memories they had, they brought in photographs of family, they brought in photographs of dead parents or relatives. It was just a very amazing kind of thing to see the idea of objects, how they thought of objects, and how they brought it in and made a project out of it. So, anyway, thatâs what Iâm doing.
Beverly Gordon, Ph.D. (Professor, Environment, Textiles and Design Department, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison): I have a comment that came out of Daleâs remarks and I appreciated the thanklessness that came out of the categorizations, but the hierarchy which still informs so much of the way we think, where the (in what you were calling the studio-based arts) I think you said, they express ideas. And then we had the other categories, and I donât presume you necessarily meant the others donât. But I think that what we really need to stress is that the home-based arts, all of them express ideas, they may not be as self-conscious about what those are, but they all express ideas and that is exactly what we need to have come forth in 19 something like this because we too often buy that hierarchy that says, one is about ideas and the other is not. And there are incredible amounts of thinking and ideas embedded in every traditional art and in everything that we do. Ideas aboutâŚ[someone mentions something] rightâŚand Iâm not critiquing that that is a difference, Iâm just saying that we need to stress that theyâre all ideas.
Steve Fenton: When you talk about ideas, could you define the full scope of ideas?
Beverly Gordon: I guess as Iâm thinking about it, itâs that if a Hopi potter makes a pot, there are ideas about the universe in that pot, what is the relationship with the earth, there are ideas about everything that are in there, what the designs might be, the very processes of making it, and those are ideas as much as I am making a selfconscious comment on a world event or something like that.
Steve Fenton: If we go to the home-based idea, if I go to a bead store, for instance, and I buy several tubes of Delica beads, and Iâm going to string a necklace, am I doing ithat consciously or subconsciously with an idea? Or am I doing it justâŚ.
Beverly Gordon: I would argue there are ideas about whatâs beautiful, there are ideas about whatâs meaningful, there areâŚit may not be a narrative, but there are certainlyâŚ.
Steve Fenton: So there may not be a philosophical idea in the sense of big issues, but itâs also what looks good and what feels good, in terms of, as a design issue.
Kathy Levitt: But itâs also the idea of making something. You know, when you go to buy those tubes, itâs like you didnât go out, you didnât decide to go someplace and buy a necklace, you decided to make a necklace. So thereâs that intentionality with it that I think is important, that connection of making things that is part of that process, is what you were going for. And that in itself is an important idea.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Something resonated from Daleâs talk. She used the phrase idealizing preindustrial practice or something like that. That was a concern of mine in coming here. I was wondering to what extent is the definition of craft a traditional, preindustrial one, because Iâm also interested in emerging forms and I was starting to think, where is handicraft done now in emerging forms of craft? If you think about customizing cars, customizing low-rider bikes, making surfboardsâŚthere are craftsmen who spend all their time developing new forms of surfboards, and so forth. And video equipment, sound equipment, where you put together the 20 things yourselfâŚcomputers, and the work that some young people spend customizing and doing their own chips, putting these in the computer, dedicated chips for doing different things. So, I wonder if thatâs stretching too much, the way youâre thinking about it, or not, because it seems to me that there is a continuum of involvement with objects through the hand and through the mind, which is not limited to the kind of historical tradition of forms. And I donât know if thatâs too far afield or not.
Kenneth Trapp: One of the things that amaze me is how rich the handcrafted traditions are in the United States. There are pockets of activity that rarely receive attention beyond the makers. Iâm thinking of bladesmithing right now, which would fall within wrought iron, or forged iron; decoy carvers, which fall under decorative, nondecorative [and] certain basket traditions. But they often donât perk up, even in our own field. Iâm going next week to Flagstaff to an exhibition called Trappings of the American West. Thereâs a whole cowboy culture, which Iâm now working on an exhibition, that encompasses leather, metalworking, fiber, but it falls out of most museum or publications except for those who already have the vested interest in it. The traditional cowboy arts association in Idaho is taking the idea of tradition into cowboy culture. When we say tradition, theyâre following rather rigid decorative vocabularies. But bladesmithing in particular, is one thatâs, no pun intended, forging new art forms within a very ancient methods; new forms, new ways of handling metals and the marriage of materials. I think there is more at work here than we are aware of.
Howard Risatti, Ph.D. (Chair, Department of Crafts, Virginia Commonwealth University): I think the notion of âhomo faber,â man the makerâŚI understand that when instant cake mixes came out, they were not very successful, and they learned that if you didnât have the eggs in the package, so you didnât just add milk and water, that women felt they were making the cake. And thatâs why we still have these things today. So this desire to make things I would say is very important. And I think that thatâs somehow making the necklace is not the same as just buying one. The other thing about the new forms, though, it seems to me, [is] that weâre so used to industrial production, but that also has, as Bruce said, the standardization. And people like to: one, make things and two, to have individual things, so you do customize an automobile thatâs a prefab thing that you take and you do something else to. Now I think that when we talk about crafts, though, weâre talking about something else thatâs not just that. Because I think weâre talking about certain kinds of objects that fulfill a certain kind of function. And this function is pretty much trans-cultural, trans-spatial, trans-temporal. I mean, I donât have any trouble recognizing a Chinese pot, or a pre-Columbian pot. King 21 Tutâs chair was perfectly obvious as a chair. We didnât say âwhat is this thing for?â So, thereâs that âsomething elseâ and so I think that itâs not quite just inventing new forms, I think thatâs a side issue here. And I would also say, just to comment on what Bruce said earlier (and I think this ties in) is that the modern period is then about the revolt against the authority of tradition. And I think that crafts have resisted that. And in some sense thatâs one reason why they donât have the prestige of say, painting and sculpture in the fine arts. But there is this tradition, this continuity thatâs involved in the crafts, in making, and so I think thatâs another aspect thatâs going on here.
Kathy Levitt, M.F.A. (Filmmaker, writer, producer): I want to say that a big part of the tradition of craft is about function. And that these were things that were developed for function. And so involved in that is the notion of invention as well. And thatâs why I think itâs important to look at this question of customizing cars, or computers, or whatever as part of that too, because itâs about inventing, recrafting things, with that aspect of invention and making it your own. And it has that functionality that connects to crafts, so I think that really deserves some attention.
Roslyn Tunis, M.A. (Independent Curator, Consultant): Iâd like to address the idea of including in some way either separately or as part of the continuum the indigenous crafts or art of this country. And I really liked what Dr. Corzo said about the threads going out. Of course theyâve come in and thereâs this incredible fusion going on now and has been going on, actually for a long time with the bringing of the glass beads to this country and Native Americans incorporating them into their work. And now I am doing this exhibition on Native Americans who are working in glass. And they are doing studio glass. Working at Pilchuck, going to universities. And so thereâs this total cross-cultural thing thatâs going on that I think that really we should address and that I think is very, very exciting. The other thing is that not only are crafts marginalized, as we have discussed, but native crafts of course are marginalized, and then womenâs crafts within native cultures, for instance, basket making is marginalized. I think that needs to be addressed. And when you talked about the idea, and you addressed it as well Steve, the idea goes beyond the idea of making something useful or beautiful. The idea goes back to the tradition of going out at the right season and collecting the right grasses, of curing them properly, of telling the stories, of telling the prayers that go along with the collecting of the grasses. And then having the next generation watch as you do this and passing the stories, not only how to make a basket, but the stories within the basket and the larger context. And so Iâd like to somehow suggest that we incorporate that. When Jacoba mentioned the last line in the film: âObjects are the only original events from history,â I remember John Ruskinâs statement which was, 22 âCivilizations tell their stories in three books: the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art, and only the last is reliable as truth.â
Robert Liu: We were talking this morning about these very issues, and I think that you cannot have a discussion about crafts without bringing up the question that as much as we are recognizing and using and integrating the cultures of the whole world in what we do, we do have a terrible tendency to not give credit to anybody that canât defend themselves. We have taken every cultureâs ideas, forms, [and] used them for ourselves. If you just look at contemporary crafts today, some of the best-known people, anyone with an historical sense can see that they are stealing right and left from Iranian pottery or things that anybody with any art history can tell. And, we donât have to make a big thing about it, but we have to say that artists have to be a little bit more honest about where they get their ideas from and their inspiration. Most of the time they say âOh, I invented it.â Of course itâs not. Weâre all stealing. But this is never brought out. You can steal from ethnographic cultures because they canât get a lawyer and put an injunction on us. But we canât go to someone recognizable and able to speak up and do this. So I think this has to do with your discussion about inclusion of Native Americans. But every culture that we desire, we covet, we like, and we want to somehow incorporate this into our work. Many people are doing this as a sign of respect rather than just copping someoneâs designs. But I think this is an issue that has to be discussed in any kind of a major coverage of the crafts.
Shan Emanuelli Robert, does it go the other way?
Robert Liu: If you look at the San Blas Indians, theyâre using the imagery of airplanes or tourists. Is that stealing? No. Theyâre observing these weird creatures coming into their culture and theyâre saying, âHey, that would make a nice image.â Thatâs a lot different than our saying âThe next yearâs couture is going to be involving San Blas themes and letâs see what we can use of it.â But I donât think âtheyâ meaning the outside world exploit things aesthetically like we do. And all I want is for us to be cognizant of that.
Janet Ginsburg, M.A. (Television producer, Writer, art curator): Youâve all sort of touched on this a little bit with the idea of craft in America. I mean, in a sense, America is the first sort of little experiment in globalization. Except for Native American crafts, nothing is really native here. It came from somewhere, it mixed, it evolved. Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean as it relates to what youâre seeing today? I mean something happened that made craft in America different than craft in Europe, craft in Asia, craft anywhere else. What is it?
Robert Liu: I forgot in my notes. Someone, YOU [Miguel Angel Corzo] said⌠[Laughter]. You talked about the artistic freedom in this country. That should be extended to the fact that we can do anything in this country without the slightest qualification. You can start a business, you can be anything. Thatâs because in America itâs permissible. Right? That same artistic freedom is a two-sided sword. Because the fact that you can go out and do anything art-wise, (whether it catches on with the public or not), means you can use anything. At the same time, we do exploit others; we donât give much credit, especially those who become rich and famous. So, I think this is one aspect of American craft thatâs distinctly that. We know so much. We donât have a long tradition. Most of us donât know beans about Native American or Pre-Columbian cultures. So, therefore, most of the time, if we use something, we arenât even conscious that we may be stealing an idea from somebody.
Miguel Angel Corzo: Well, I donât completely share your point of view, and let me explain why. I think that there is in art something that brings an influence. For a long time when we heard how African âprimitiveâ art (already the name is repugnant), primitive art was influencing Picasso or influencing a certain series of artists. It wasnât really plagiarizing; it was recognizing that there are things that can be interpreted in different ways. What I was addressing when I spoke about what happens in this country, I think [it was] maybe more represented by an image of bringing threads from around the world and then weaving them. The result is not a traditional fabric. The result is something that is totally different, because all of these threads that come together here, when they coalesce, then they create something different. And it is that condition of freedom of creation that makes that weave look totally different. And that doesnât necessarily mean that itâs stolen, it means that itâs influenced. And I think that we are much richer because we have so many influences, and we donât have the condition of repeating what was made before, which some cultures do.
Robert Liu: I think thatâs very true. The best of work that takes careful consideration of other influences and using it is fine, but there is also very much a fact that we do appropriate things, and I think when you were talking about home-based arts. Thereâs this whole phenomenon in America that people want to learn lifelong. They want to know how to do things. They want to have meaning in their lives. And most of them go and take a workshop and learn a technique. And so you have this long series of someone that just learned the technique saying âIâll go out there and teach this to a class,â and then you have twenty little teachers fanning out with the same idea, and I think in a sense you have this danger that people donât realize that what was taught to them was something that might have been very laboriously arrived at. It may have taken elements of other cultures, 24 and instead they just realize that this is something Iâve paid for. I own this now. I can give it away, and I can use it. And I can make money.
Shan Emanuelli: Jim, do you have a response?
Jim Bassler: Yes. Iâve got a couple of examples. One is in the early 1970âs, my wife and I moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, just to escape Nixon and the Viet Nam War. And we just thought it would be a very exciting life. And at that particular time, [in] the weaving village Teotitlan de Valle a designer from the Southwest brought a Navajo rug down to have it repaired. And it was amazing to see how the influence of the Navajo rug design began to be translated into the traditions of Teotitlan until today you can have as much Navajo as you want along with Mitla and all that and itâs a wonderful kind of marriage of these ideas going on. And so I think thatâs sort of interesting. And then also, in teaching art history, (I teach this course on the textiles of the Americas), itâs interesting to see the influence of the Inca on the civilizations that they conquered. So that you begin to see the Chimu and the Chacay. In time, the influence of the Inca on their imagery begins toâŚbut it still stays Chimu because the Chimu hold on to a certain part but also the Inca does something else. And I just think itâs been going on forever. I go to Bali and I see an idea and I come back and explore that idea. But with new materials, with new dyes and all that, it becomes my own, I feel.
Bruce Metcalf: I think part of what is being discussed here is the issue of ownership, of cultural ownership. That is what I think Robert raised. And as soon as you start talking about ownership, I think what comes into consideration is profit and loss. It seems to me that theft occurs when there is a party that loses. And maybe thatâs how I would try to draw the line between influence and theft. And, of course, you [Roslyn Tunis] know all about how American Indians, especially in the Southwest, suffered from Anglo exploitation of jewelry and jewelry styles. Itâs almost sickening to see what happened. A lot of what happened in that issue was really about profit and loss. It was about Anglos going in and seeing that they could exploit these people, and then actually leave the people out of the cycle of exploitation and just use the imagery and have the stuff made offshore, which actually occurred the way I understand it. It seems to me that a great deal of what happens in American craft is not so much about profit and loss, though. It is about influence. It is about the process of exchange, even though it may be one-sided, that occurs constantly between 25 cultures. Itâs unavoidable, and no amount of posturing and putting up signposts is going to stop that process. Itâs simply going to occur whether we want it to, or let it, or say itâs good or bad. Itâs going to happen. From my point of view American craft, of most of the kinds that weâre talking here is a hybrid. It is a new invention. It is not actually a traditional form. Itâs a nineteenth century invention in response to industrialization; of people trying to come to terms with new conditions of culture. And one of those responses was to divorce hand making from necessity. The way I think about it was that before industrialization there was no material culture that wasnât made by hand. It was simply not an issue. To speak of something being hand made would have been absolutely pointless. But to speak of it against the pervasive background of industrialization suddenly to say something is made by hand has meaning, and it has particular meanings. So the way I regard it, American craft, and in fact craft in any industrialized country in the world is a new form in response to industrialization, and you canât understand it and you canât speak of it clearly without making that point and without underlining it a couple of times. Because of that, because of the divorce of hand fabrication from necessity, itâs different from traditional things although it does carry many, many of those traditional knowledges and references and looking back to past cultures many of which donât even exist anymore. So, itâs a hybrid, and itâs a new hybrid. Itâs new in human experience, and therefore interesting because of that.
Roslyn Tunis: I totally agree with you, and the influences can be inspirational or appropriation. And thereâs a big difference between the two. So, the appropriation is taking it and having it made offshore, or having it made in Mexico, or just even by another American person. And so inspiration has happened internationally, and even in this country before any European even set foot here where natives were exchanging ideas and sending shells from the coast to the interior and so forth. And then incorporating all these other materials, but always made by hand as you [Bruce Metcalf] said. And then when the new technology came in, like metal, these things became more elaborate, like the totem poles. The totem poles in the North were very, very simple before the tools came in.
Howard Risatti: I just want to quibble a little bit with Bruce. I absolutely agree with him and I absolutely agree that the Industrial Revolution is the issue here, and the machine. Iâve been just doing some writing about design, and the design profession seems to me to do what hand craft had done before, except it accommodates itself to the machine which has all kinds of other things that happen. But I think that we see, we receive hand made objects differently today because of the machine. So this is a question of reception. But I think Daleâs [Gluckman] comments about different kinds of crafts has something to do with 26 the notion that there are people who still make objects by hand indifferent to the machine. And thatâs a kind of continuing tradition, and even a folk tradition. But then there are these craft people who are educated I think in a university context who are aware of these issues vis-Ă -vis the machine and make objects against that background of the machine. So, Iâm only quibbling around the edges here, but I think that helps clarify why thereâs a continuing tradition of craft thatâs traditional, and based on tradition maybe like Sam Maloof. But then there are other people who are making thing that engage the issue of the machine and its anti-hand, anti-individual attitudes.
Shan Emanuelli: Miguel Angel, do you think about that in terms of the future of your university and what theyâre teaching? The machine versus hand?
Miguel Angel Corzo: Well. I think that itâs vital to the future that these traditions of craft continue, but Iâm also trying to understand what it is that a new form of craft can take place given that we have new materials that we havenât yet explored as being used for the production of crafts, including electronic materials. And that may take us into another hybrid where we might just discover that we have craft objects that are completely alien to what weâve seen so far because they take on a new dimension.
Hidde Van Duym, Ph.D (Director of Research for Craft in America; Arts Administrator and consultant): I just wanted to pick up on Bruceâs comment. I think itâs an ongoing battle between the industrial process and handmade. Iâm thinking of, for instance, memory books. People who want to make the most personal thing: an album of the family. You go to a Michaelâs store and there are mass-produced materials to create your personal memory book. So that struggle; it seems almost as if industrialism or technological processes or mass marketing are nipping at the heels of anyone who wants to do something personal. So I think itâs an ongoing struggle in our society to somehow or other combat being co-opted by the impersonal processes. And I think one of the things that would be nice to see discussed is that tension that comes all the time. Iâm talking about what you [Bruce Metcalf] were describing as the resistance. I think itâs an ongoing item of resistance.
Anthony Cortese (Film editor for Craft in America): As somebody who does their craft with machines, I feel as if I should defend us.
Shan Emanuelli: Anthony is the editor.
Anthony Cortese: I just think that craft to me is: if something starts with the question, âWhat if?â it becomes craft. If you are just going about the motions and doing your thing, whether youâre using the machine or your hands itâs just you going about the motions. But if you are trying to create something using tradition and innovation and the materials at hand, then itâs craft.
Shan Emanuelli: I think one of the issues we are coming up to now is: are we talking about all the meanings of craft or are we talking about handcraft in this film? I think that the idea was to talk about handmade handcrafted objects as opposed to things that are not, but certainly the terminology covers much more than that.
Steve Fenton: Then you do have the question of a Sam Maloof, who takes handcrafted to a degree or starts with machine crafting and then goes into the handcrafted. And at what point is it a handcrafted object, and at what point is it a machine-crafted?
Beverly Gordon: Well, I think this is all a knotty issue, and doesnât make sense to be purist because technologies have always been changing in any so-called traditional culture. But the other issue that I was going to bring up was that it is stated in the prospectus that the primary viewfinder for this series would be studio craft, and as weâve been talking about, that does skew it. And what weâve been talking about is this: people have talked about craft as if itâs always functional, and much of studio craft is not functional. And I donât have a solution here, but I think we should put it on the table. The issue is: if that is really going to guide the series that studio craft is the focus, itâs going to mean that some of these other issues may not be dealt with. And âIs that still on the table or notâ is really a question that occurred to me as I was thinking about this.
Carol Sauvion: I think the focus will be individual expression. I donât see it being specifically studio craft. When I think of studio craft I think of people who have been trained in university, and who taking a material knowledge and expressing some kind of intellectual concept with it, versus someone who is perhaps making something because they need it: a quilt to be used, or a pitcher to be used. I think that âstudio craftâ is too narrow in the terminology that we are using here today.
Shan Emanuelli: One of the things I would like us to do is address what we think to be the important themes that should or could encompass all of the episodes.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: The one thing that is emerging, or a dialectic emerging here is that between the kind of universal human need to express oneâs self and to work and get lost in the activity and the other one is the notion of diversity and cultural tradition. And the two sometimes seem to be pulling in different directions but I think they are both essential. The unity of human consciousness versus the diversity of culture. Thatâs one type of theme that can be illustrated and revisited across everything.
Kenneth Trapp: For me, the unifying and overarching theme in this series would be, as Mike [Csikszentmihalyi] said âthe universal need to create, to use our hands to express ourselves.â I would ask that we not use the word âlifestyleâ because I think it makes everyone else living a life and we become quaint. The issue of quaintness though I think is something that does bother me in the level of practitioners, the number of them and the activity. There is, to me, within this diversity a rich unifying text, and that is, the need to create.
Janet Ginsburg: I think part of whatâs important here is to give the historical perspective, to talk about the changing nature, and the evolving nature of craft in America.
Roslyn Tunis: I guess one of the themes could be these threads, as Miguel Angel [Corzo] put it, the cross-cultural fusion, globally, and within this continent, and going both ways.
Robert Liu: Jacoba [Atlas] said the first thing is itâs hard to make craft a visual phenomenon. A television phenomenon. And therefore, part of our job is really to show this whole thing that we are talking about how important it is process both intellectually and manually. That probably will be addressed later, but that is probably one of the most difficult things to do.
Janet Ginsberg: What Mike [Csikszentmihalyi] was talking about earlier, and Bruce [Metcalf] also, I thought they book ended each other so brilliantly. The object as an object really becomes the touchstone, and that the stories that can be told either happen from the artist creating this thing and itâs a completely different set of stories for the people who are actually using it or living with it.
Shan Emanuelli: Craft is a touchstone to human experience.
Janet Ginsburg: Well, the object. In other words, how you would tell the story. Because, as was pointed out, and Jacoba [Atlas] is absolutely right about this, if you just see, and here is a picture of a pot and here is a picture of a moving pot, it wonât resonate for the viewer because they have no relation to it. And what theyâre interested in are the stories of the people on either end of this that had a relationship to it.
Beverly Gordon: I want to go back to the issue of process and questions. The visualization of process is one thing, but I think the real key thing is the meaning of the process. I used to demonstrate weaving, and peoplesâ comment that would come by all the time was âHow long does that take?â Not being able to understand that it could be meaningful not just as a means to an end, but as an experience. And I think thatâs not necessarily self-evident unless that is stressed, so I would say that as a part of that visualization itâs always the meaning has to be the satisfaction, the depth of that.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Itâs interesting that we studied flow (some of my colleagues from Italy actually) in these Thai highland villages in Thailand where the women weave all the time and that is part of its tradition but itâs also individual expression and all that. And the neat thingâŚthis reminded me when you [Beverly Gordon] said, people asked âhow long did that take?ââŚwell, these women are so involved in what they are doing that they have traditionally children interrupt them when itâs time to cook dinner because they are so lost in what they are doing that they donât realize that the day has gone by. So these kids are up in the hill watching for the men to come back from the fields and then they run down and say, âMother, itâs time to cook.â
Kenneth Trapp: Process is a part of work, and work is a part of process. Yes, the theme is what Bruce said: âItâs a calling.â
Howard Risatti: I think when we were talking about the evolving nature of craft, I think one of the things we forget, and Bruce [Metcalf] was talking about this is that before the Industrial Revolution and before the capitalist system we are involved in, people thought about the amount of time spent on things differently. So, we think things should be efficient, we need to get things done quickly, we think about computing the amount of money towards the amount of material, what you can charge for an object. And weâre talking about a different world in which craft evolved, and when youâre talking about third world countries, Thailand or someplace, theyâre still not dealing with these issues. And thatâs why craft seems so strange today. So I think we need to keep that in mind as a value. So when you spend all this time making something, it means something, and thereâs a value thatâs being communicated. Just like the person who tries to make their own necklace with beads. So, itâs communicating values. Itâs carrying on certain kinds of values. And, again, I think these are resistant to the revolt against tradition, which is involved in making things quick and making things fast. I mean, we have now a slow food movement, which is obviously against fast food. Or when somebody spends time to put a meal on the table and have everything right. Thereâs a certain value thatâs being communicated, and itâs a value about humanism and being in the world, in a certain way. And I think this is what we are talking about here. And I think this is strange to our society.
Bruce Metcalf: Actually, my next published paper will be a thesis that craft is embodied sympathy. For those of you who know art lingo, Arthur Danto came up with this idea that art is embodied meaning. And what Iâm proposing is that craft, especially useful craft, is embodied sympathy, and that the object is really about a gesture toward others of helping. Which is, I think, kind of what youâre [Howard Risatti] trying to get at: a humanist value that functions outside of cash economy, that doesnât really have anything to do with making money, or, is only peripherally involved with making money. Itâs more about caring, much more about caring.
Jim Bassler: Thatâs very hard to communicate. To students. This idea of âWhy do you do this? Itâs sort of this deeply personal kind of journey. Itâs the journey that Iâm enjoying. And when I finish this, Iâll move on to another journey.
Hidde Van Duym: Connecting with Bruce [Metcalf], but Miguel [Angel Corzo] called this. He said thereâs a unique intelligence to craft. And I think you referred to Gardnerâs types of intelligence? I think thatâs a wonderful remark because we have now a whole series: craft as a different value system, craft is embodied sympathy, and then craft has a separate unique intelligence. And I think we are grasping for something that we know has been either lost or exists in other forms and that we are trying to find in this series. So I just want to bring forward Miguelâs remark that craft is a unique intelligence of its own kind.
Elaine Levin: I was thinking that the way you express that visually, about it being humanistic and a different value system, is through the stories of the artists, who, through their impulse to live this kind of life, really visualize what you are saying. And there are many stories about crafts persons who, through what they do, and how they react to what they do, really embody that concept.
Dale Gluckman: Iâm trying to figure out how to formulate this. Touching on all these themes is this idea of craft as a human need (and how that functions and plays out on so many levels) and also as a societal need. In both cases, what is craftâs role within society and within the human psyche and the human expression, and how that functions.
Mihaly Csikzsentmihalyi: When I was thinking about these new emerging crafts it was amazing that almost all of them seem to be oriented more toward leisure than necessity. I mean, so itâs more a display of, I hate to use lifestyle, you [Kenneth Trapp] say letâs not use it, but, in many ways itâs more that than it is necessity.
Howard Risatti: Iâd like to stress that there is a continuity here at least as I see it, and thatâs that crafts have always been made better than they need to be to function. When we talk about function, thatâs one thing, but people make things, and, as I think David Pye says âThey spend great amounts of useless work on useful things.â And things are made better than they need to be to function. And I think that continues today as well. So thereâs a continuity there. And thereâs a value thatâs being expressed by that, that I think still has value today. Thatâs something that craft does. I mean, this does not happen in fine art (painting). Craftsmanship and skill is not applied anymore. It can be left out of the equation. And certainly in industrial culture and machine culture, it isnât. I mean, we make things just good enough to sell.
Dale Gluckman: It struck me that in talking about studio craft in America, do not forget that there is an international quality to that and that there are studio craftsmen working in Europe, and Japan, and Australia, and Tierra del Fuego or whatever, and that there is a certain internationalism. You are right in trying to look for the uniquely American quality, but also to be aware that much of that is not uniquely American. It may be uniquely Western Europe and American, but there is an internationalism to this.
Roslyn Tunis: I want to go back to something you said Janet [Ginsburg], and also Bruce [Metcalf] about the touchstone being the object. Each of the objects around this table tell a story. And, I think objects as story-tellers: about the person who made them, the person who acquired them, the memory it has for each, and then the memory for each of us of sharing it. And so I think the storytelling aspect of passing down history through objects, which will remain for hundreds of years.
Dale Gluckman: So much of the studio craft tradition that we are discussing here really has its origins in Europe and in England, more so initially as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. Iâm not an expert on this so Iâm a little bit at a loss, but, I think you need to bring that out in some way that the Arts and Crafts Movement started in England, Art Nouveau started in Europe, Bauhaus was Germany. Yes, these things came to America and part of the story is the search for an âAmericanâ expression of these craft ideals.
Bruce Metcalf: I was thinking about your [Janet Ginsburg] question relating to the evolving nature of craft and what that has to do particularly with American culture today. And then what I was saying in my first speech about how I think craft matters. As a teacher, one of the things that certainly I noticed and many of my colleagues noticed is that there is this really deep hunger on the part of kids coming out of high schools for something that you might call an authentic experience, but I donât think that really gets to the heart of it. I think in a lot of ways, in spite of Americaâs wealth and all our privilege, one of the things that a lot of people have to deal with is a kind of demoralization. I think there are a lot of people who are struggling with the problem of trying to invent meaning, and they donât find the normally available meanings that are given to us through commercial culture are satisfying anymore. And kids are particularly sensitive to that because theyâre at that stage of life when theyâre trying to assemble an identity and theyâre not necessarily satisfied with those given solutions that Mom and Dad and the malls and TV and movies and computers necessarily offer us. So the kids that come into the crafts programs tend to be, as I say, deeply hungry, and, in a funny way, kind of demoralized. So the word that I think of that craft may be for is a kind of remoralization. And that has to do with getting the whole body back in the picture. Employing the whole body both in terms of making these things and in terms of using them. And it has to do with trying to figure out what it means to be a citizen of the world where so much is given and so little is made. It also has to do, (I personally donât like the word) but it has to do with the spiritual, I think. Itâs not a word that I would use personally, but I think some people would. I think it has to do with explaining your place in the world.
Barbara Hamaker Going along with what Bruce said I think what I am assuming will be revealed through the stories is a way to lead a meaningful life, and of honoring the living of a meaningful life in a way that I donât see happening in our culture today. And Iâm not sure that we can speak it and teach it as much as we can reveal it. And just in the work that weâve done so far in the interviews you can see that coming out. But I think that it is so important to honor that. Thereâs another concept, a psychological concept of an âI-Thouâ relationship and an âI-Itâ relationship. And Iâm not qualified to say a lot more about that now, but I think that thatâs important to explore in this series. I also think itâs important to reveal the nature of creativity in a way that only perhaps the Process segment can do. Iâd just like to say another thing because Iâm also a basket maker. When Iâm weaving with soft fabrics, soft threads, sometimes I need a change of texture and I will go outside and make baskets. And my hands were getting all bloody because I was using bougainvillea, so I put gloves on, and I couldnât make the baskets. And I realized that I was getting information through my fingertips, and I had to take the gloves off. So thatâs something that, in a way, canât be taught, but can be revealed through the interviews with the people.
Kathy Levitt: I think that it all relates as well to this idea of another kind of intelligence. Another level of that. These kids come to you hungry for that because, I think, so much of that kind of intelligence is devalued in this world. We donât have ceramics in the schools anymore. We donât have weaving. We donât have the accessibility of working in wood or making things anymore. And I think that thatâs a terrific loss. And so that when kids come to you when they can choose more freely this is a time when they are seeking to connect maybe with a kind of intelligence that theyâve been devalued or cut off from.
Jim Bassler: I want to say something similar to what Bruce [Metcalf] said. Students are coming to me all the time. This is why they seek something out. And there are so few offerings like that on campus. But theyâre also dancers, and theyâre also artists. Theyâre not just craftspeople, theyâre just people seeking something that is going to give them an experience that fills something within them. And just one other thing real quick. I donât know the validity of this story, but Susan Petersen told it to me about Hamada giving a workshop many, many years ago. And the workshop was filled with people who had little Hamada pots. And Hamada went around and looked at each one of them and finally said: âWhy is this one the only one that has love?â And it happened to be Susan Petersonâs and she said âbecause thatâs the only one that had been used.â And all the rest had been on pedestals giving tribute to this but also showing it off as a Hamada pot, and not including it, embracing it in your life. The way you look at it and have some kind of knowledge about wanting to include it in your life I think is very, very, important. So it doesnât become some status thing within your home. It tells something about you. Iâve traveled, or Iâve done this, or Iâve got money. Or, I can afford this thing. Now, one other really horrible story was one in which I was on a panel up in San Francisco and a young man there who has a very successful gallery on the East coast, sells his work through the internet and heâs a photographer. He takes absolutely beautiful photographs of compositions, which also include the window of his home or a couch or something like that and he said that he had lost sales through the Internet because the person couldnât buy all the objects that were in the photograph. In other words, the public being so unsure of their aesthetic that they need the whole composition. And I said âdoes that include buying you window frame or buying your couch along with it?â, and he laughed. So, thereâs a problem there.
Cathleen Collins (Consultant to Craft in America; attorney; fundraiser): I want to say something from the audienceâs point of view because Iâm your audience. Iâm not a craftsperson, Iâm an acquirer of lovely art, Iâm not a student of it, the way you all are. And, I think that some of the comments that were made earlier about the other side of the equation, which is the receiving end of it. I think Bruce [Metcalf] said that, and Mike [Csikszentmihalyi] spoke to it as well; about why an object means something to the person that has it. Weâve talked a lot about why it means something to the person who is creating it, but what makes me love it is a very personal story, and I think that is something that is important. You are going to have to touch on that for your audience: because your audience is going to want to know. Yes this is a wonderful experience, but they are going to feel a little worried that they canât do that. But they want to participate in the experience. And I think it will be important to tell the second side of the story, which is the receiving end of it, and why that texture is important. Because that will make everyone watching it say âYes, Iâm part of this entire experience. I may not be able to make it, or I can make a little something, but nothing of that value. But I am part of it by receiving it and loving it and making it a part of my daily life.â I just throw that in because it needs to come out a little bit.
Robert Liu: I just want to finish out the thoughts that Steve and others have addressed about machines versus crafts. I donât think the machines are an enemy of craft. If you look at the number of machines that many craftspeople have, especially metal smiths, and some metalsmiths used machinery exclusively to make their crafts. So, itâs just another tool, and fact is this ironic paradox if youâre a metalsmith and your work looks too sloppy, or shows too many marks of the human hands, it doesnât reflect well on you. You have to make things that look like they were almost made by machine but the person knows you made them and you finished it just as well as a machine. So I donât think machinery is negative in that sense.
Shan Emanuelli: Okay, this obviously is just to start with. I donât want anyone to feel limited by it, but these are the things we have addressed. And what we want to do in a practical manner is to try to see what else should be included, what is less important. Perhaps some of the themes weâve talked about as overarching themes can be applied in one of these segments if that comes up in your minds. We have a special request from Steve Fenton that we keep in mind, that, since this is for a public that may not have experience with the subject and that we want to draw in, if there are things that illustrate and tension or a conflict that might be of interest (such as the appropriation vs. inspiration issue, which he thinks would be of interest) then would you bring it up? Right, Steve?
Steve Fenton: Well, I think that a lot of the discussion this morning was very good discussion. Itâs not necessarily something that someone whoâs sitting at home, looking at TV Guide and deciding well, shall I watch Episode II of Craft in America or should I watch Law and Order , are necessarily going to turn to Craft in America, based on that. What Iâd love to hear is some inclusion of issues that a person who is basically unknowledgeable in the subject might be interested in and find intriguing, and at the end of an hour would say, âWow. That was kind of interesting. And Iâm now more interested in the subject because itâs more relevant to me as an individual.â Thatâs what Iâd love to hear. So, if thatâs possible, that would be great.
Elaine Levin: Iâm glad you said we could freely interpret what you wrote because I have a feeling that I did. But I think that a lot of the visuals that I have and the way Iâll be talking about them also relates very much to some of the discussions that we had today, and some of the tensions and some of the conflicts that we brought up today. Memory of course, is a recalling of past experiences. And, some philosopher said that if we donât know the past, we will constantly repeat those experiences, probably to the detriment of our lives. But, in terms of art, that is not all bad. Because, artists in a sense, borrow only what they need from the past and then they transform and they manipulate and they adapt it for a more contemporary expression. So, in order to know how that happened, Iâll be speaking strictly to ceramic past history because that is my field, and we will rapidly survey the prominent movements and styles from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. A survey of any subject like this is like jumping from mountaintop to mountaintop with no time to explore intriguing valleys or rivers or streams below. And so, this should leave us slightly breathless, and, if you blink, you might miss a decade or two. [slide show begins] This is an Anasazi white ware jar from 1050 to 1300 AD. And we begin with Native American ware because even though there was no interest in Indian pottery of the Southwest or even the ware of the Indians of the Northeast by any settlers, Spanish or English, during the Art Deco period of the Nineteen Twenties and Thirties, the geometric designs of ware of this sort found an echo because it was a period in which lines and patterns began to dominate. This is a red ware slip-trailed plate from the seventeenth to early eighteenth century. And it was the prevailing style of seventeenth century European ware, and that style of course arrived with the potters who sailed from England. It was very simple and direct for a frontier settlement. The slip-trailing designs on earthenware clay were very appropriate for the basic needs of settlers in a new land. John Leidy, Pennsylvania 1796. But, as the colonists, and then the citizens of a new country became more prosperous, new immigrants arrived with more recent and more decorative European ceramic techniques. The German lettering on this Pennsylvania Dutch plate reads rather plaintively âFortune or misfortune is our breakfast every morning.â The Moravians and Gottfried Aust, 1795. At about the same time as the previous plate a group of potters from central Europe landed in Pennsylvania and they found the state much too crowded. And so they made a long march to relatively less settled North Carolina around the area where Winston-Salem is now. And in doing so they began a very lengthy functional pottery tradition in that state. And this religious group, which was called the Moravians, took slip-trailing and floral designs to a higher level than the previous work. Moreover, they believed that they did Godâs work by being craftsmen and training others to learn the process. So, you have a spiritual element already in American tradition. William Tucker, Philadelphia, 1830. Weâre jumping a little bit here. By the early nineteenth century, entrepreneurial potters like William Tucker of Philadelphia saw an opportunity to invade the porcelain china import market by producing homegrown porcelain ware in a factory setting. He didnât even argue about whether it was good or bad to produce ware in a factory setting rather than hand crafted at that particular point in our history. Earthenware was the most available clay, so searching for kaolin deposits to make porcelain required extra ingenuity, but that is also part of the American tradition. The ware was modeled after French Empire style with an exaggerated handle, but the indentations on the foot were a Tucker American innovation. We jump to the Arts and Crafts Movement and Mary Louise McLaughlin. By the 1870âs the impact of William Morrisâs Arts and Crafts Movement in England, as we talked about, it was a revolt against the factory production of crafts, and especially pottery, found an echo in the post Civil War period of America. One result of the war was a rising urban middle class. And there were women who enjoyed a little more leisure at that time, and an eagerness for artistic pursuits. This innocent-looking lady introduced and taught china painting decoration, the prevailing technique for decorating ceramics. And, like knitting and embroidery, an eager group of artistically inclined American women in Cincinnati could justify learning to paint on clay vessels as a home art. McLaughlin didnât know anything about china painting, but she taught herself. And itâs the use of mineral paints on top of a glaze. And itâs an old process used first in China. She experimented, and, because she didnât know how it was done in the past, she produced an American variation on the technique. Then, very graciously, shared her knowledge and taught both china painting, and another technique, under glaze painting, which is also an old technique that she figured out how to do, and she wrote about it and she taught others. Itâs interesting because she had no source to go to to find out about these techniques. There was no literature on it, and the potters, the men potters who were working in factories, were not about to give her any information. This lady, a friend and an enemy of Mary Louise McLaughlin, also from Cincinnati, took McLaughlinâs two procedures to the next level, and, with the help of her wealthy father and his financial backing, she opened a workshop for ladies who desired to learn and practice china and under glaze painting and eventually be paid for their artistry. Maria Nichols established the Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati of which Ken [Trapp] has written a great deal on and will forgive my very short explanation of it. It was established in 1880 and it soon became a business with a business manager producing pottery in the Arts and Crafts tradition hand-thrown by men and hand-decorated by women. Onward to Art Nouveau: the Art Nouveau style initiated in France around the 1890âs gave a new impetus to the interest in floral designs of the Victorian era. But, it was asymmetrical and very much influenced by Japanese art. It emphasized the organic in nature through these very fluid flowing lines and exaggerated the swirl of tendril and vines. This Rookwood vase, by the ladies who painted Rookwood pottery and designed by the company designers, adapted the swirling French style into a more vertical and less exaggerated American version. And it should be noted here that this idea of adapting worldwide influences is very much a part of American artistic expression. This is the work of Artus Van Briggle. The vase is called âDespondencyâ and itâs from 1904 and it is in the Art Nouveau style. Artus moved to Colorado. He had formerly worked at Rookwood as a designer, but he had tuberculosis, and he felt perhaps he could lengthen his life by moving to Colorado. And he opened a pottery there. And this design of a figure encompassing the lip of a vase interprets French Art Nouveau but is also a psychological statement: despondency over his illness from which he shortly died. This is the work of George Ohr from around 1900. George Ohr was labeled âThe Mad Potter of Biloxi.â He interpreted the Art Nouveau style using multi handles as tendrils and he manipulated the clay very freely, particularly for that period. And, in doing so, he emphasized its malleability, and itâs a characteristic that weâll see in work fifty years later around the nineteen fifties. Adelaide Alsop Robineau at the wheel. One result of the Arts and Crafts movement was the impact of women in ceramics. At Rookwood, women were decorators and designers, but their hands never touched raw clay. Adelaide Alsop Robineau was the first woman to learn throwing on the potterâs wheel, divorcing herself, and, eventually other women, from that dependence on male potters. She launched the concept of the studio potter: the person who handles every aspect of the work, in contrast to the factory potter where one person handles only one aspect of the many different procedures. This is Adelaideâs triumphant vase. Itâs called the âScarabâ vase and she produced it in 1910. It took her a thousand hours of carving with a crochet needle. Anyone who has handled a crochet needle knows that itâs rather tricky, and to apply it to the surface of clay is even trickier. Whatâs really important about it is that it earned her a first prize at the 1910 Turin International Ceramic Exhibit. She was the first American and the first woman to receive such an honor. We skip rapidly to Art Deco and the work of Waylande Gregory. The left is âBurlesque Dancer,â and the right is âNubian Headâ and itâs from 1928. The countermovement to the Arts and Crafts and the Art Nouveau styles was Art Deco, an attempt to accept technology and the machine. Waylande Gregory designed and produced figurative sculptures in multiples for the Cowan Pottery of Cleveland. His sculptures were influenced by Cubism and Picassoâs attention to African arts, and were very stylized and impersonal, and showed the sophistication of French decorative arts, which was a big influence at the time. Gregoryâs work here is in black and gold, and it also reflected the extravagance and the elegance of the 1920âs before the crash of 1929. Making a big contrast to Gregoryâs work is when Modernism makes its appearance. This is Grace Luce with âFish Womanâ of the 1930âs. The WPA (Works Progress Administration) and the FAP (Federal Arts Programs) were legislated in the 1930âs to relieve some of the stress of the economic downturn that began in 1929. A number of flourishing ceramic workshops were established; one in Cleveland continued the interest in the figurative sculpture but how different the subject matter at this time because this shows a poor woman selling fish and it really reflected the difficulties of the Depression on American society. So we have this reflection of an economic situation coming into ceramic work. Contrast to that is Marguerite Wildenhain, her portrait here. She represents the influx of European potters such as the Natzlers and Maja Grotell and a number of others who arrived just before or at the beginning of World War II. In her baggage Marguerite brought the principles of the Bauhaus, the Arts and Crafts school established in Germany in 1919, where she trained. This is a milk jug of 1923 that she produced as a student there. The Bauhaus believed that ceramics was a fine art, on the same level as painting and sculpture and other materials. Moreover, it was important to produce beautiful, inexpensive work for the masses so their lives would be enhanced. And we touched on that subject. One of the reasons that idea was so prevalent at this time was because of the Russian Revolution and the fear in some social circles that if the masses werenât, perhaps placated is the wrong word, but at least having objects in their home that were satisfying, perhaps they too would feel that their lives were not satisfying. So something had to be done in terms of objects for a large number of people. Marguerite Wildenhain again, with âCoffeepot,â in 1945. When Marguerite settled in Northern California around 1942, she taught the importance of being a crafts person devoted to that lifestyle. And this is where Bruceâs [Metcalfâs] discussion about devoting yourself to a certain kind of life comes in. Because her work spoke at this time to the simplicity of design and glaze as form follows function, her philosophy among other factors energized the studio pottery movement that we see still at work today because we have all these pitchers and coffee cups on the table that are part of that same movement that she inspired so clearly and dramatically. She was a very impressive speaker and very impassioned about her feeling about a crafts lifestyle. In great contrast we have the nineteen fifties and the influence of Abstract Expressionism, and of course Jackson Pollockâs painting of âOne,â 1950. Up to this point, the perfection of functional form dominated with some interest in figurative sculpture, but the advent of Abstract Expressionist painting coupled with a new knowledge of sixteenth century Japanese folk ceramics that emphasized the plasticity of clay in an asymmetrical context, and Picassoâs manipulation of thrown forms ultimately came together in the work of Peter Voulkos. Voulkosâ seeing beyond the perfection of form and beyond the traditional concepts of function as emphasized by Wildenhain and others during the nineteen forties and fifties led to his literally and figuratively overturning our ideas of function. This is Peter Voulkosâ âRondina.â And itâs 1958, and it is assembled, thrown, coiled and altered forms in a very spontaneous and intuitive approach much like the Abstract Expressionist painters dealt with paint. Voulkos opened what some considered a Pandora âs Box to influences that ceramists had previously handled much more timidly. An emphasis on clayâs plasticity a lĂ George Ohr and Japanese ceramics, the emphasis on the process, and the character of the material as seen in Abstract Expressionist painting motivated Voulkos and others such as John Mason and Paul Soldner, all of them working for a time at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in the mid-nineteen fifties. Robert Arneson âDiet Cola,â 1965. Voulkos opened the door, and Robert Arneson walked in with Pop Art. Not just a six-pack, but an icon on several levels. An image with cultural connotations for a cola-guzzling society with social references because it speaks to the diet-conscious society striving for model-like thinness, and incorporating surrealism and humor giving human qualities to inanimate objects. All of this in one six-pack of diet cola. Arneson with âCrazedâ 1972. The psychological implications of Artus Van Briggleâs vase titled âDespondencyâ is updated and more aggressive with this artistâs portrait expressing personal exasperation, frustration and anger. At the same time the title âCrazedâ is a pun on the crackle glaze, which is, I think, a little hard for you to see, but itâs all those lines that run through the white glaze. Itâs humorous enough to somewhat undercut the seriousness of this emotion. Arneson was also reacting to all the turmoil of the nineteen sixties which began to find expression in the ceramics of the nineteen seventies. No doubt many of you remember Grant Woodâs âAmerican Gothicââ 1930. Many segments of society began, in the sixties, to question the relevance of customs and attitudes and beliefs. Artists looked at past art and saw some revered images such as this one that had relevance for an earlier decade but now were no longer germane. This is Howard Kottler âLook Alikesâ of 1972. So, one way of borrowing from the past was to adapt and manipulate the images. And, in doing so here with not-sosubtle humor, Howard Kottler suggests a sexual orientation that was certainly a taboo subject for public discussion at that particular time. A few other examples of diverse directions and influences: William Harnett with a painting called âMy Gems,â late nineteenth century. A number of ceramists saw possibilities in nineteenth century still life paintings. You can barely see the book that is lying on the table in the left hand lower corner. Richard Shaw with âJar and Two Volumes,â1978. Realism and Super-Realism were very important movements in the nineteen-seventies in part because of Watergate. The public was asking âWhat is real? What is the truth?â Shawâs objects had to be touched to be certain that they were made of clay. He uses decals that he made himself, and he also uses china paints. Itâs that updating of that technique important to the women decorators of the 1880âs, and itâs used here and helps the artist confuse our perception of what is real. Italy in the Della Robia style, Sixteenth Century: Italian altar ceramics of that era surround the Holy Family with an arch of flowers and fruits, and in doing so make references to the agricultural culture of Italy at that time. This is Karen Koblitz âHomage to Della Robia,â 1988. This American artist studied and worked in Italy for a number of years, and, as a ceramist, her still life assemblage pays homage to the clay vessel instead of the Holy Family, which she enshrines in a Della Robia sixteenth-century style arch. No doubt you recognize the Mayan temples of Guatemala. The cultural diversity of America has given permission to artists to be influenced by any world culture or any artistic tradition. And so, the architecture of the Mayan temples of Mexico and Guatemala have cast a mysterious spell. This is Patrick Crabb, 1999. The Mayan temples embodied religious rituals and appeals to the gods of that culture. And the artist recognized that and the fact that this was an architectural wonder and a symbol of a vibrant culture. And, like Karen Koblitz, he elevates the clay vessel to an honored position for his tribute to that past. And so we come full circle with a Mimbres bowl of 1050 to 1150 AD; eleventh century from the Southwest. The designs circling the rim and the animals in the center all held symbolic importance for that culture. And then we have Diego Romero with the âChongo Brothersâ of 1996. He is a Southwest Pueblo Indian trained at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, and UCLA; but heâs taking inspiration from his ancestors to express contemporary Native American issues. The Chongo brothers represent the Indian people in situations at times autobiographical and based on his family members and generally the experience of Native Americans. And he also uses the geometric patterning and symbols found on the ancient ware. And so, Memory has shown us that the objects from our American ceramic tradition were sensitive to political, social and economic conditions as well as aesthetic movements and styles. And so, contemporary ceramists have borrowed from that past in ways that enhance the present. Iâve shown the mountaintops in hopes that the survey will nevertheless confirm the richness of this one exciting and important direction for American ceramics. [Applause.]
David Haugland (Filmmaker, director): I have a question generally to the experts in the room: to talk a bit of how they would articulate or conceive of memory in the context of craft. This morning we had such a rich discussion of various points of view that all seemed to come together very nicely and were complimentary. Iâm hoping that now, with Memory and the other themes we go into, we could have that same kind of âdumpingâ if you will, of information, because it would be very helpful as we try to integrate that intoâŚexactly what Memory means and how it influences, or from different perspectives, how Memory plays a role. Because Iâm sure that as everyone read the documents in terms of the proposal and how itâs written, maybe questions came up to them or interpretations of Memory and that kind of thing. From my perspective, hearing the spectrum of takes on Memory would be very helpful at this point.
Roslyn Tunis: I was just saying to Elaine how much I appreciated her presentation because it showed us images from the past and the correlation, not the appropriation but inspiration from the past. And I thought that was an excellent presentation for that. And, Iâm hoping that, as part of what we do for Memory, that we can continue to do that; because I think it will give the public a greater appreciation of contemporary craft when they see that it didnât come out of a whole cloth, that it came from somewhere else and itâs part of a continuum.
David Haugland: I understand what you are saying and I appreciate it as well. But I think thereâs a difference between memory and history, and Iâd like to hear that discussed because I think they are quite distinct, and from my perspective, Iâd like to get a sense, as in other things weâve discussed today, where those boundaries may be, or where they may overlap.
Carol Sauvion: I think that Mike, in one of his books, discusses this. Am I correct? That memory is history through a personal experience. Maybe you [Mike Csikszentmihalyi] can say it better than IâŚ
Mike Csikszentmihalyi: I think that is what I would say. It is personal history. That sense of having a book, that Bible that has the name of your great-great-grandparents in. Itâs something that every time you look at it or you show it to your children you open up a whole perspective on the past of which you are part of that whole river or stream of human experience and itâs part of you. And anything that can convey that becomes very precious. In thinking about ceramics: in our studies, itâs really interesting how cherished objects often are the most fragile ones. Glassware and ceramics being among the most valued because they can break so easily. Anytime you can show somebody that you have part of this set of ceramics whereas your sister has already broken hers [Laughter.] but yours are still intact. This becomes something that reflects on you personally. You are in a sense defeating entropy. Defeating time eroding shape. Time is always reducing everything to ashes. So, having something that is both personally connected and resisting the erosion of time becomes very precious.
Kenneth Trapp: When I think of Memory (and I want to apply it to the tangible), the Memorial Quilt comes to mind immediately; the Aids Memorial Quilt. But, thereâs that whole tradition of memory quilts. You speak of glass and ceramics, Mike. Textiles, too, in particular, are fragile, and seem to carry, for me a greater memory because of the intimacy we have with them. I was struck by the early things you showed Elaine [Levin], because to me they were both memory and history. The transference of techniques or decorative styles, letâs say, from Germany to the low countries to Pennsylvania to North Carolina. For me, it was difficult to know when one began and one stopped. Memory for me was much more personal. It might the transference from father to son, say, within the potting industry. It could also be the collective memory from a village or from a region of a country. So, itâs not always quite as clear where one begins and one ends. But there are specific objects or categories that carry memory more than history. And those are the personal associations with textiles, with quilts.
Beverly Gordon: I think that Memory is a somewhat problematic beginning of the series. It implies that everyone has a memory of these things, which they donât. And brings up, if you talk about controversial issues, what we perceive as memory but may just be invented. Nostalgia or something. Itâs not really memory; or romanticizing the past. I wasnât sure why you chose memory as opposed to history because some of the subsets that were on here seem more to be history than memory. Or, maybe Memory would come in later in the series, and not to start with Memory. I donât know. Iâm just throwing this out for conversation because it implies that we do have a memory that we may not have.
Steve Fenton: I think from a structural standpoint for the series itâs not only important to start off with something of a historical perspective to set the framework of craft in America, but also what makes it memory beyond history is that this is also a place to expose the personal connections which is the basis of why craft is important to us all. There is a relationship of individuals to items, to objects that have been passed on through the years from generation to generation that is also part of this episode. Itâs the idea that whether itâs the quilt that has been handed down both historically and interpersonally within a family or the antique rocking horse thatâs up in the attic that belonged to a previous generation that now gets passed down. Thatâs the connection that takes it beyond just history in this first episode.
Patrick Ela, M.B.A. (Acting Director of the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles): One thing Iâm struck by is: memory I would associate more with the memory of the maker or of the craftsperson, and history I might associate more with the keeper of the object having been made. When you were talking about the oneon-one nature of memory, I was thinking maybe of a master craftsperson passing on techniques and skills that would be innovated. Whereas, history, this Diego Romero, I loved that slide. This is a person living in a living tradition. Heâs part of a living memory that goes back hundreds of years and thereâs a tyranny of traditional forms that heâs breaking away from. And thatâs like living in a memory, and I think a lot of other contemporary craftspeople are striving to be innovative and break away from memory, and to establish themselves as unique makers. So, itâs a very politically and emotionally charged topic, memory, I think. And I think if it were focused maybe on the maker, it would make more sense to me, than on the keeper of the objects made in the past.
Barbara Hamaker: I just wanted to relate a personal experience as a weaver, in the late eighties, when I was working at Ornament. Some people who Robert [Liu] knows travel back and forth to Afghanistan and I canât remember if it was a photograph or a slide. I donât think I saw the actual rug. But, Iâm used to thinking of hand woven Persian rugs and rugs from Afghanistan as being incredibly traditional beautiful prayer rugs. I donât know what the patterns mean, but I relate to their beauty. And I saw a picture of a rug with Russian tanks woven into it, and was so stunned. And I thought, âMy God, this is history. Iâm living in history!â And to me, thatâs something that this Memory episode will capture for the broader audience. Iâll never forget it. It was a very stunning experience. And Iâm sure potters and jewelers and other people will have similar experiences with their own craft. But I think that thatâs something that we need to capture in some way in this episode.
Elaine Levin: Iâm not sure I made the point. In fact, I know I didnât. Thereâs a feeling in America that has been dissipated somewhat. Itâs that we donât have a tradition, that thereâs no worth to the objects that were made in the past. We donât have the kind of tradition that Japan or China or some European countries have. And I think itâs important to, in some way, emphasize that we do have a tradition, that there is something that we can look back at. I think in recent times weâve recognized some of that. The other thing is, in terms of ceramics, I donât want to let people leave here and think that this is the only direction that ceramics has gone in. There are many, many different directions, but this is the one that we are talking about today. And so, I want to put that in that kind of context.
Laurie Levin, M.A. (Grant writing consultant; symposium coordinator, Craft in America): I too am not a craft person per se, so Iâm seeing this from the point of view of the viewer. For me, the whole idea of memory and history is sort of like a dialectic. The memory re-channels the history. It passes through me and I create my memory based on fractals of history. Itâs an interactive kind of relationship between those two concepts, and for the viewer, I think you are almost compelled to draw the viewer in by talking about personal memory so that they can resonate with some of the larger concepts that you are going to be talking about.
Shan Emanuelli: And as a culture, it seems to me, we are living the memory-consciously or not-of what has happened to condition current times. And, in a sense, craft now is a result, as Bruce [Metcalf] was elaborating earlier, of the changing conditions of life in the United States in the nineteenth century. Thereâs memory to history. We do think about history in terms of the way that we live our lives now. Most of us do.
Patrick Ela: I was going to say that I was at the 18th or 17th annual UCLA powwow last week, and many weavers from different Navajo trading posts were weaving American flags as emblematic of September 11th. And they were beautifully woven. I didnât see any lazy lines, but they were the real thing.
Barbara Hamaker: I think that coupling with that, I think that we have not discussed pre- and postSeptember 11th, but I think that thatâs something that Carol and I have talked about, and how that will impact this series in some way.
Shan Emanuelli: I guess for me this conversation raises the question: do we want a history of craft involved in this project, or do we want to be back to a more just thematic emphasis. Do we want to give that context or do we not.
Carol Sauvion: I think we need to give that context. It is absolutely imperative that people understand how this fit into our past, and how it has survived, and how it exists today; and then, what is the future of it?
Shan Emanuelli: Do we have to have the same memory to talk about it as Memory?
Carol Sauvion: I donât think so. Does every historian have the same perspective when they write a book about history?
Beverly Gordon: My response to that is perhaps what I was trying to get at earlier when I raised this issue about history or memory, which is: itâs very easy to have platitudes about the past and oversimplifications and then almost create the myth that we have certain memories all together. Of course, I am a historian so I like to understand where we come from. But I think itâs important to be as respectful of the complexity as possible. Thatâs what I was talking about, about memory. I donât know how you can tell the whole history because itâs big. You donât have a lot of hours. And I think the idea of using personal memory is a good one, but it still isnât always an accurate reflection of everything. You just need to be careful, thatâs all.
David Haugland: Because weâre living in a multi-cultural society, I think that Memory is much more appropriate in terms of a label than is history, because if we were to do history, my concern is that history typically is told from a point of view. And itâs interpreting perhaps other cultural or individual interests; whereas if weâre looking at telling stories grounded in craft and about craft, then in a multi-cultural environment, isnât [it] Memory that can be inclusive of a broader spectrum of experience and reflection whether it happens to be Indian crafts or grounded in German heritage, or whatever else it might be? Isnât that potentially a more even-handed way of looking at and telling those stories? I mean, my concern is that history typically comes from a point of view. And, if weâre doing a point of view, thatâs fine. But itâs a very different approach.
Howard Risatti: Iâd like to say something. I thought about this category when we first talked about it. And I thought it maybe would be a good time to present a structure, as Steve [Fenton] has suggested. And I also thought though about the idea of a human memory rather than this other kind of memory or history. So that you could talk about crafts and suggest that these things are things that happened a long time ago, and they still happen today and so this becomes a part of a kind of human memory and that would be a way of then focusing in on this point in this country and show a connection thatâs trans-temporal, trans-spatial, trans-cultural. So you already have your multi-cultural basis here because containers are containers all over. And these things are established very early on, it seems to me, in the history of crafts, and continue to the present. So, that would be a way of talking about a human memory here in a larger, almost genetic sense. It could be the idea that this memory is in the hand. I mean, you remember and you learn techniques with the hand to make the object. And the techniques remain fairly constant in many ways. And so the hand could be a focus to talk about the object and that could be a consistent thing that runs through at least the first episode, but I think through most of these episodes. So the hand could be a focal point as a visual element combined with an object that the hand makes. So there would be a memory thatâs embedded in the hand and in the mind that produces and comes out in the object that we see. That would be how I think it as a human memory. Then you could talk about peopleâs particular objects: that mine is different from yours, but they fit within the same category. And that would bring us up to other issues, other episodes.
Shan Emanuelli: Rather than pursuing anything to do with [how] the Industrial Revolution conditioned the changing nature of how we see craft?
Howard Risatti: I think those are all there, arenât they? Because what weâre talking about is the Industrial Revolution is the thing that obliterates the hand. So the hand becomes under pressure because of the Industrial Revolution and that can be a counterpoint to this, but the theme starts early with the hand and the object and the making and this kind of memory which then is called into question, I think with the Industrial Revolution. I think thatâs what Bruce is saying and I think itâs an issue that we deal with in the present.
Kenneth Trapp: On the other side is, potters and weavers, metal smiths who speak about the memory of their materials. So, you could, no pun intended, weave that into this. If weâre talking about the makers and the consumers as memory, the materials themselves have that inherent quality or aspect to them. Iâve just been dealing with a group of potters in Minnesota. Iâve asked them questions, âHow did you know that this particular spout would turn?â The memory was within, in the clay, as the fire matured there was a certain turning, or this would happen, not fully expected. Or the memory thatâs already inherent in the sheet of metal. What I find fascinating is if weâre talking about memory, these makers are infusing that material with the very word that we are discussing, as though it has a life. Thereâs a life force within the material.
Shan Emanuelli: Future now? OK. Iâm going to ask Mike if he has thoughts to start with.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Iâm interested in Future partly becauseâŚIâm trying to figure out whether, for instance, my youngest son is a craftsman or not. And I can explain what I see him doing and see whether this is within the parameters of discourse here. He teaches, actually at MIT, but what he does is, he builds robots. And each robot he builds from scratch, I mean, he welds the steel, he puts in the computers, the parts that he actually collects himself. The last piece he did was one, that some of you may have seen on CNN, itâs called the âAfghan Explorerâ. He took a lawnmower and outfitted it with actually much more powerful motors to be like a lunar landing vehicle. Let loose in Afghanistan, it can go up and down mountains and it has two-way TV screen and videos that are connected to satellite in Aspen, so that if it meets anybody in the desert, it can start talking to it and talking back and forth, and this is all within the notion that we are getting censored news, we donât know whatâs going to happen out there. We should be able to democratize and popularize information and this is one way of doing that, using technology as a way of communicating with people who otherwise would not know what they are thinking about.
Shan Emanuelli: He teaches art?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Heâs in the media lab at MIT. So, using kind of technology, in a kind of creative way. He doesnât think of it as art. He doesnât think of it as knowledge. The closest is the use of technology to create something, which is new, which has a purpose, which interacts with our life in a way that we otherwise wouldnât have it. So to me this sounds a little bit like craft and itâs not something that has been done before in the same way, but itâs the same kind of human attempt to use whatever is at hand to make something which expresses the best of what one can do, and has some kind of purpose. Not necessarily artistic aesthetic purpose and not a utilitarian purpose. Itâs kind of in between. So, I was just thinking. On the extreme, it seems to me that could be seen as craft and as the future. I donât know.
Laurie Levin: Are you trying to bust through our categories of whatâs craft and whatâs art, and whatâs invention? Maybe thatâs what the Future is, itâs crossing boundaries in terms of the categories traditionally thought of as one or the other.
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi: Yes. I mean, these things keep changing. For instance, in Italy, during the Renaissance arte meant not art but craft. It was how you did things with your hand in a beautiful way. Leonardo DaVinci was painting furniture and crafting and so was Botticelli, so were all these people doing craft as well as art. Itâs only with Mannerism and a little later with Romanticism that the two get separated. And then the Arts and Crafts Movement tries put it back together. I donât think we need to consider these categories as eternal. So, making surfboards by hand, and to a group of connoisseurs who know whatâs a really excellent surfboard, that is closer, and so is customizing low-riders and cars and so forth. I think itâs interesting also the fact that most of these examples I come up with are different in terms of they are not as functional as crafts used to be. Surfboards are being used in a kind of athletic, leisure, but also creative. There a whole culture around surfing that is not like jogging. Itâs a culture. And so there are these things that are breaking into new directions through craft nowadays.
Hidde Van Duym: Childrenâs toys are in that same category. Galleries carry toys, real toys, but theyâre very, very specially made. Iâm just filling in the gray areas of all these boundaries, and I thought of childrenâs toys being in that same category. I think toys have served as model for creative crafts a great deal.
Robert Liu: Somehow your outline suggests that if we look at each of the traditional craft fields and look at where people are probing, that is also within what we want to say about the future of crafts, right? Like, for instance, take rapid prototyping, which is an industrial process whereby you design something in a computer and then, through various means, this is made into a three-dimensional object. Jewelers are now doing this. Is this germane to what weâre talking about? Future crafts? It has a pizzazz to it that the audience would really love. And the fact that maybe one percent of craftspeople have the capability to come on to this kind of technology. Wouldnât that fit in?
Anthony Cortese: I donât think we can explore the future without discussing how technology of that sort fits into the future of craft. I think youâd be selling the show short if you did.
Bruce Metcalf: There is an incredible amount of different things going on with the interface between craft media and hand fabrication and different computerized technologies. And some of it is really, really amazing. So, it would be logical if you want to talk about the future. The issue that then becomes interesting, and there are a lot of people approaching this question in different ways. The speculation is that as computer technologies become more pervasive, does that change the role of the craftsperson to a designer, to somebody who simply makes a plan and has the machine render it. At which point, as far as I am concerned, it would cease to be craft. Thatâs certainly a question thatâs worth entertaining.
Robert Liu: To take it further, there are people who are doing so-called virtual jewelry.
Bruce Metcalf: I thought that was pretty bogus.
Robert Liu: Which, to me, is virtual nothingness. Thatâs also a possible direction.
Laurie Levin: So the linkage between fabrication and object has this sort of inextricable bonding there and if you separate it, itâs no longer craft. Is that what youâre saying?
Robert Liu: That would take out all the European tradition of the master designing the piece and being made, whether itâs in fabric or glass, which has been ongoing for decades in Scandinavia.
Bruce Metcalf: Those are made by hand. A friend of mine named Janice Lesman Moss is now working with computer controlled looms. And what she can do is draw up the fabric on a computer. She strings up the loom, and then thereâs some technology about having the colored thread being changed. I didnât see enough of it to know whatâs going on. But basically, once the loom is set up, she turns it on. And thatâs all she does.
Patrick Ela: They did that earlier in the century with Jacquard looms.
Bruce Metcalf: With the Jacquard looms, right. This is much more complex.
Dale Gluckman: But with the Jacquard loom you still have a weaver throwing the shuttle back and forth. You just eliminated the drawboy.
Bruce Metcalf: This is a Jacquard loom with the powers increased by a factor of ten. And itâs amazing. And whatâs interesting about it is that it builds on the traditions of hand weaving, and, from her point of view, her design sense is completely informed by her experience of making these things by hand, but, the weavings sheâs now working on are not made by hand. Sheâs a designer now.
Barbara Hamaker: It seems to me that in the Future episode the one thing we must explore is materials. And how in past, present and future, the craftsperson is informed by the materials they work with. And, how, throughout this whole five episode series thatâs going to play a part in what we talk about. And I think that we would be remiss if we didnât explore everything that we can possibly imagine in the Future episode because that is whatâs going to inform the young people and bring in the kids that are looking.
Anthony Cortese: Part of my point was just to let the viewer decide and sort out for themselves what is craft and whatâs not. But you say the direction things are going in and the tools that are at peopleâs disposal now, and let the viewer decide. You could raise that question, and the answer could be no, this isnât craft. But I think thatâs perfectly fine.
Barbara Hamaker: I think part of what would be wonderful to do in this film is to actually ask the questions, not tell the viewer the answers. And present the problems that we are actually grappling with here.
Patrick Ela: The conversation just strikes me as being discussions almost about a second Industrial Revolution where there are these new things happening with the interface of technology and computerization and robotery, or whatever the right word is. It sounds very reminiscent of some of the discussions that were happening a hundred years ago and whether somebodyâs a craftsperson or a designer and if thereâs a pejorative implication. Many people who work in craft media donât like to be called craftspeople, they like to be called artists. Thereâs an issue of money: if itâs more money is it art? If itâs less money, is it craft? These are all old things, but they seem to be gearing up for a new iteration.
Dale Gluckman: Along these lines, the definition that weâve been kind of working with here it seems to me, is pretty much the Arts and Crafts definition. If itâs made by hand. And the Yanagi tradition that if itâs made by hand you can see the work of the person who made it and itâs imbued with a certain moral quality and so on, which is fine. Iâm not criticizing. Iâm just saying that one of the questions to be posed for the future is: âIs that definition going to have to change?â Are we going to either lose the term craft entirely and are we going to have to redefine craft as the craftsperson as the one who designs it and the computer as the one who makes it. There may be some real changes in the definition of what weâre dealing with and maybe even the disappearance of the term entirely. I donât know, but (we need) to pose those kinds of questions for the future.
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi: From my point of view, the way a program like this could be really successful is not so much in providing historical information or theoretical ideas about whatâs craft and not craft but more opening up to the viewer possibilities of seeing the things around them, of interacting with the world around. Getting involved with activities that they would never have thought they could do. To appreciate objects for their integrity and for their uniqueness, that seems to me is a more, I hate to say educational, but more useful kind of program.
Beverly Gordon: Something just occurred to me that maybe others of you have thought about before, but almost to go in the opposite direction, talking about robotics, and so forth. The craft here has been defined in terms of lasting objects. Sometimes we talk about craft in terms of things like baking or cooking or more ephemeral things that are the products of our hands and that are involving materials, but they may not last. Perhaps thatâs the past and it may be the future as well. That we have cooking, baking as leisure now, as opposed to as necessity, but the same way we have craft as leisure past time and not necessity for some people. Iâm just throwing this out because it just popped into my head. Where are the boundaries? Are you really in these fixed media? One question is âDoes it move into things like robots?â and the other question is âDoes it move into things that have been with us for a long time but that are more ephemeral?â
Kenneth Trapp: When I think about the future, Iâm reminded that weâve had this discussion about the hand. One question would be: âWill the human hand become superfluous in light of technology?â But that aside, thereâs also another phenomenon. With increased leisure, we find more people in their later years turning to activities, whether you want to call it amateur, hobbyist, or whatever. There is an outlet for them. We have a turned wood show at the Renwick now. And, weâve been having demonstrations in the gallery two days a week. We made a discovery which we thought would happen, but not to the extent that it has. And itâs the men in particular who come as repeaters to watch demonstrations who are saying to us âIâm retired. I retired at an early age. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Iâve found my discovery.â Quilters are telling us the same thing. So I think itâs the level of the activity that we are looking at. How highly professionalized is it? How far do we want to go into the so-called hobbyist or amateur (I prefer amateur) impulse? So, when I despair that technology might take over, we have no idea what the socio-political climate will be in our country in a few decades. It may be that we are actually reviving ancient techniques just to survive. We could be sitting here making predictions that will totally undone by history. Iâm going back to something that Beverly [Gordon] said. I donât know those of you who grew up in the fifties. I remember the fifties. We were supposed to be flying through space by now in those little helicopters and popping pills because eating was a nuisance. No one ever predicted ethnic foodies, the slow food movement, that sort of thing. Artisan bakery movement. So, what we thought would be so secure in our future was so way off.
Steven Poster, A.S.C. (Cinematographer, Supervising Director of Photography, Craft in America): We are in an amazingly dangerous period now in the world where weâre losing more and more freedom on a daily basis. Paul Krugman, who writes about economics for the New York Times said, âHistory has repeatedly made fools of people who have tried to predict future technological developments, let alone the implications of these developments for long-term growth.â I thought that was germane to what we are talking about.
Dale Gluckman: One more thing about the future. Again, being aware of the pitfalls of prediction. And Iâm not really predicting. But it struck me that when Ken [Trapp] was talking about guys who have retired early, and have now discovered woodturning and whatever, which is terrific, thereâs this huge baby boom generation thatâs teetering on the brink of retirement (literally), and, again, thatâs going to play out over the next twenty years or something, thirty years. Are some of those people going to turn to crafts and even if itâs only as a hobby, but probably for many of them on a fairly sophisticated level? In other words and infuse that maybe crafts are not really dead and dying, but that in fact they are going to have another revitalization as there is this huge population with means and leisure and so on and that it may just turn out to be quite different than we expect. That itâs :not going to die.
Barbara Hamaker And not only that, they are grandparents, so they will be affecting the younger generation in some way, even if the grandchild says âWhat in the hell are you doing?â
Robert Liu: Thereâs always a jump, a generational jump. You donât care what your parents do, but your grandparents are interesting.
Roslyn Tunis: You talked about the viewer. A few people have mentioned it. We havenât used the word âcollectorâ yet. And the collector, whether it be an individual or a museum, is going to be the Future. Whoâs going to be keeping it? Whoâs going to be maintaining the history of craft and what it is? And so I think we really need to address the collector, whoever that may be. And how crafts are documented, the history of crafts, the memory of crafts, the technology of crafts, the change, the definitions, the objects themselves and the stories that they tell.
Dale Gluckman: That reminded me. In reading over this, I guess itâs from being a museum curator, I thought about the voice of the collector. I thought of all the other ways craft can fulfill your life if you are a craftsperson, or if you enjoy them in some way. As a collector, crafts can create an incredible life journey for you as a person. As a person collecting things, learning about them, learning about process, meeting artists, opening your eyes to ancient versions of the modern things you collect, whatever it is. Leading you back to archeology in a thousand ways. Just as collecting art of any kind can. And a lot of people donât realize that if they are not natural born collectors. It can be, in the best of senses, an interactive process. And you donât have to be a multi-zillionaire to collect craft.
Kenneth Trapp: Weâre a cheap date. [Laughter.]
Dale Gluckman: Yes, weâre a cheap date. [Laughter.] Textiles are even cheaper, let me tell you. So I think that it may be something very interesting to bring across at some point. This perspective of the collector. Trying to implant in the audience what that can mean and how it can enrich your life and how it is feasible to do.
Roslyn Tunis: That will definitely connect the viewer. What does this mean in my life?
Dale Gluckman: And how I can participate in this? Iâve seen all this stuff and itâs so exciting, but I could never be a glassblower or whatever, but I can participate in a different way.
Roslyn Tunis: And also, whatâs the difference, never mind between the definitions, whether itâs craft as fine art or craft as hobby, or whatever. How can I even become part of the dialogue? Do I go to a street fair; do I go to the ACE shows? Do I go to a museum shop? How do I know? How would I feel comfortable in even beginning that process? And I love your idea about it helping to connect people. Whether itâs his or her own personal history, or the history of the world.
Dale Gluckman: Or meeting the collectors. Iâve talked to people who collect textiles: âOh, itâs taken me to Central Asiaâ or âIâve met all these people in Washington.â They would never have had this world had they not been captivated by a shmatta somewhere and started this journey.
Robert Liu: This is actually already happening because Iâm going to touch upon this. People who are specifically interested in things made of one medium. There are groups of collectors that come and follow the shows around the country. And some even travel abroad to do this. And usually they tow along their husbands. They do the collecting and buying. And so, itâs very much a phenomenon whereby they are able to interact with the makers. Thereâs this real immediacy. You can even commission things. Itâs just that where do we put this? Do we put it in Community; do we put it in Memory? Whatever it is, if thereâs no audience out there to appreciate it, whatâs the use in making it?
Shan Emanuelli: Beverly is going to speak about Community.
Beverly Gordon: One of the advantages of being one of the later people in the day is that much of what I was planning to say has already been touched upon so I can kind of move through it quickly, but it shows how interrelated these themes certainly are. I also was going to start by saying that craft is often what we have left of times gone by, or people gone by or what we know about something from the past. I think thatâs been adequately addressed. Although, it runs so deep. I once heard a presentation on Paracas mantles, those are textiles from Pre-Columbian Peru, and by really looking very closely at the way they were constructed, we could really learn all sorts of things about the structure of the civilization that produced them. That there were apprentices in the workshop, and so forth, by a real close examination and so sometimes thatâs the best way we can touch other times and places and have a sense of community with them. There are some ways in which we use crafts as absolute symbols of the people who produced them and the best example I can think of for that is the Shakers and one of the Shaker sisters saying, âI hate it that Iâm being remembered as a chair.â [Laughter.] And that that is the thing we are best known for and not really our belief system, (although we could argue that their belief system was in fact encoded in it), but the crafted object so much embodies the people who made them, whether itâs an individual or a community. And we learn to understand other people through their craft, sometimes in an almost pre-verbal way. When I was a teenager, I spent untold hours at The Museum of the American Indian in New York. It was in Harlem, and nobody was ever there but me. And I really came to know the people through the things that were there. They spoke to me in a way that I didnât have words for. I didnât understand how to verbalize it, but I got it. I got it in my body. I got it in my fingers. In other words, the energy that they put into those things came through to me. A single object can represent a community of interest. I have a copy of a book that Iâve written on the table over there where thereâs picture of an anti-slave holder potholder. It was the anti-bellum anti-slavery movement putting its belief in an object that was actually then sold and passed on, and it calls through time even today. We certainly have communities of place represented in crafted objects, or belief, or experience. I believe Iâve already mentioned the anti-slavery quilts, but we can go into quilts further. There were presentation quilts for individual churches that theyâd give to the minister, and perhaps theyâd put the names of the people, and that whole community of that church or that group of people became embodied in there. Also, quilts were given to people going away, making the journey westward. And the whole group of friends that might have worked on that became so embodied in that crafted object that it still stands as a testimony to a community. The AIDS quilt has been mentioned, the shared community today. Certainly, craft helps create community and further its cohesion on so many levels. And again, weâve talked about some of these. There are communities of producers. Whether itâs the memories you might have of being at camp as a child and sitting and making pots with other children and that sense of the community that was created at that time. Or people from around the world who gather around to work together on their individual baskets, or whatever. I have an image in my own mind, if I had slides today, of Guatemalan weavers who tie each of their weavings around a single central pole and theyâre all around it in a circle working on their own, but as a community. And that is forming a cohesion among them. The community might be within a family passing traditions from mothers to daughters. Discovering things of oneâs ancestors. Things that have been already mentioned today. Craft classes, for example, in some Native communities now where they are teaching to bring back traditions. Especially for powwow regalia for example, learning how to do bead work And among Indians, there are NEA grants for passing on things as apprentices. It helps cohere the community, preserve it, and even continue to create it. The community of producers of what we have been calling amateurs are among the strongest communities that I know. Guilds, organizations of, sometimes hobbyists. I know it best from the fiber world, and itâs incredibly intense there. In the early seventies, I guess it was, I went to my first Handweaverâs Guild of America meeting, and they had chartered a plane. And these women took over the plane. I had never seen anything like it. It was the strongest sense of âWe are bonded as a group because we are so passionate about this interest.â And people came alive in that setting, and still do, and will flock to annual conventions. I certainly hope that somehow that will be included in these films because it is so intense. And there are such deep friendships that show through. And sometimes, this is a way that individuals within that community context find their own voice. And I can think of a quilter that I know in Wisconsin who was really brought up in a very traditional, sort of self-effacing manner. But she did start to quilt. And somehow she found her way to Paducah, Kentucky where the quilterâs annual show is, and it gave her her voice. She has now become the most incredible advocate for what women do in quilts. Not just women, but primarily women. And it was that community that allowed her to do it. That discovery of the community of interest. And we talked about the community of collectors. This has been mentioned very well. It has historical roots: china collectors who were collecting those china pieces that we saw earlier today. If you collect, sometimes itâs a bond with people who are very different from yourselves. And they can take you, as Dale [Gluckman] was saying, deeply into another world. Iâm thinking of some collectors I know of Southwest Indian pottery who got drawn in, and became deeply engaged in the lives of the people who made it, and had friendships that will take them forever on, and are life changings. These kinds of things are very common. Sometimes the sense of community is a little (I donât know if I want to use the word) bogus, but, we think we know who people are through their crafts, or weâve had these craft projects like the Indian lace project that was mentioned this morning, or the people who went as Arts and Crafts reformers, to Appalachia and had them start weaving things they didnât ever make before. And then people think they have a sense of community with the people who made them which may not be an entirely true one; but it still speaks to people who then get into it deeply enough, who learn about it, who would become a part of that. And even when there are people in those groups who have had something foisted upon them, it, in turn, becomes their tradition. It in turn becomes a part of their community. So, their descendants may treasure that because it was still what their ancestors did. So, we have very complex situations going on in these types of communities. Thereâs a depth of how far out Community can go. And it can start again, with things that may not be entirely genuine, and then become genuine over time. We can have communities of heritage, which has been talked about perhaps in Memory. I know an Oneida Indian man who went out and started collecting Iroquois beadwork as a way of learning where he came from and who his people were. That would be his community of heritage. Or my colleague Sonya Clark, who does (among other things) beadwork, who is an African-American from the Caribbean. She began to find her own long-term heritage by going to the Yoruba culture in Africa. Her work takes off on ideas of the head and ideas that come from that culture, and itâs been generation upon generation through different places, from Africa to the Caribbean to the United States. But it is her community of heritage and it has given her a huge amount of both creative passionate fire, but also a sense of belonging to something much bigger than her own individual place. Sometimes we make things as a group, and again, this community of guilds and so forth is a way of really forging that community. People making things for bazaars in the past. Sitting around doing their work, and, itâs not all in the past. I recently was at a senior citizenâs complex where there were some women making some things for their annual Christmas Bazaar. They had work parties, and at these work parties, even today, they were having the time of their lives dressing up in silly hats, really having a sense of joy. And thatâs an ongoing kind of community, which happens around the craft production. Sometimes I think that studio craft people, the people who have more isolated studios may have less of that, ironically than the more amateurs. But there are still professional organizations and so forth. The kinds of communities I have spoken of so far, (you could certainly go into any one of these in great detail) relate to a community of people and bonding with other people and that sense of belonging and togetherness. But I think that theyâre other kinds of community that may extend not just to other people, but also to place, for example. I know Landscape is coming next, but Roslyn [Tunis] mentioned before basket makers having to go out to the land to gather things at the right time, the right time of year, the right way of relating to the material. If you are digging up clay for a pot, certainly among Southwestern potters, itâs something you have to do in the appropriate way. Itâs your mother. Thereâs a community of place, a community of belonging that can come through craft, which is so deep. Itâs not just a superficial community. Itâs a depth of community. But again, it neednât be a person who has lived in a place for eons. I have a friend who lives in the city of Milwaukee whoâs a basket maker and she knows every place in the city of Milwaukee that has wild willow, or whatever else she might use; and knows that place like her friend because of her connection through the craft, and then organizes her year around it and has brought other friends into it, and then it extends in fact to other people as well. So, I think that Community is connection. And I was going to end with something that was a theme for us this morning, which is about our bodies. While we might not think that we are in community with our bodies, through craft, we have a sense of connection with the body: the rhythms of work, the smells of materials in some cases, the soreness of certain muscles. The sensual pleasure of touching things, and so, I think that community is a broad concept about connection, belonging, and togetherness; and we can find it in just about any aspect that we look at. [Applause.]
Carol Sauvion: Beverly, you have talked about something that has been not a conflict, but a point of contention as weâve gone along. And that is, what craft do we talk about? Helen Bing is a donor to the project, and when she gave me money for the project she said âYou must work with people whose work is of great excellence.â In other words the people who are doing the finest work. Nanette Laitman, whom I spoke with last week and who donated money to the Archives of American Art to talk with craft artists around the country, said that the word âcraftâ denigrates the artist and that this project, as I described it to her, was too commercial. So, do you think thereâs a problem for us to include some of the things you have just described in this project?
Beverly Gordon: Well, I have several responses to that, hundreds maybe. [Laughter.] One thing is perhaps to problematize that. To problematize that. To use it. We were saying maybe we have to use some of these conflicts right out there. And that whole issue of only the work of the finest people; you say that on one hand, yet, even in the prospectus, who is the audience? The audience is these makers, who may be at various levels of fine-ness. But theyâre the ones who are excited. What we are talking about if we are talking about the meaning, the meaning may transcend the product. Maybe if this is about the process, itâs not only about the product. So, thatâs one way to problematize it. And then the whole issue of what is craft. That is a tricky one, and weâve heard that in terms of âis it robots? Is it bread?â Perhaps we can look at the underlying impetus, and use that. And then you can use fine producers and their work as profiles, but why not profile the hobbyist, some of whom do fabulous work. Itâs not one thing or the other. Itâs everything. Certainly, I would think if you were talking about the community of craft, that community is not elitist. It would break my heart if somehow that were not somehow really clear.
Carol Sauvion: So, let me ask the other scholars, if I may. Ken [Trapp] I was going to ask you next. How do you feel about this?
Kenneth Trapp: I have definite feelings. My interest in a Dale Chihuly doesnât preclude my interest in the hobbyist, or an amateur. I thought this was about a rich fabric of makers, a rich fabric of consumers, clients, whatever you want to call them. If we ignore the very groups that Beverly [Gordon] talked about, I think we are going to have a very dull video. I think weâre going to have something exceedingly elitist. I have problems with that.
Bruce Metcalf: I would like to amplify that a little bit. It seems to me that craft has a lot of meanings and that if you focus only on the professionals, you are going to get a very narrow range of possible meanings of both the objects and the activity, and the reception. Thatâs only one aspect of what craft is and can be about. I think that by concentrating too much on the idea of quality, you could miss a tremendous amount of the range of meaning.
Carol Sauvion: You are the scholars. You are people whom we look to for guidance, and you are saying itâs OK to include the non-professional in this series.
Beverly Gordon: I think itâs more than OK. I think itâs imperative. Itâs imperative.
Dale Gluckman: We speak with one voice.
Beverly Gordon: When I was talking about problematizing: If someone says, âwe only want you to talk about the finest.â You need to bring out that this is an issue. And that whole thing: we denigrate with the word craft. All these definitions, somehow, they have been problematic because they are all charged. You donât need to resolve it. You donât need to come up with the right definitions, but to somehow admit, or put out there that some people find the word craft demeaning. And to put out there that some people who make craft donât want to be associated with the hobbyists, because they think it demeans what they do. To put that out there is what Iâm talking about. Not necessarily to have an answer.
Roslyn Tunis: I want to address a couple of points. One is about the donor, the donor of the funds. And we do need donors, I understand that. The donor making decisions as to what this is all about is very problematic. And, so I think that donors need to understand that there is a broader perspective. And, often the donors are the collectors of the so-called âfine artâ of craft. And, naturally, they would like to have their artists promoted. But, as I mentioned to someone, hearing many years ago from Wayne Higby trying to define the different aspects of craft. And talking about crafts with a big C and crafts with a little c. And all the different size câs in the middle. And thatâs what weâre talking about. If anything, craft is really a very democratic process. And so, if we start saying only certain kinds of craft can be âelevatedâ to PBS, then weâre defeating this whole purpose. I think it was Dale [Gluckman] who started to identify the different: âWhat is craft? What is design?â etc. I think that definitely does need to be addressed, and not in a very pedantic way. But that these are possible types of ways of looking but thereâs definitely blurring of the lines between all of these. And between types of materials and technologies. And, we are not going to give you a finite definition of what is craft.
Patrick Ela: That was a very nice presentation you [Beverly Gordon] made, by the way. You talked about all kinds of things: family, workers, classes, collectors, adherents, heritage, sense of place, all these different things. It seems to me that crafts are lost or invisible to the broader public because the words are old words. It seems to me that what we are collectively talking about, is a style of living or a commitment to authenticity or some type of substance that is interpreted differently by professionals and semi-professionals and hobbyists and so on. But itâs about a commitment to living in an authentic way. Weâre trying to, in this series, I would think, embrace and enlarge an audience. And the more connected the audience feels with the idea of quality or authenticity or professionalism, thatâs the big community. I think all of these communities that you mentioned are part of a group collectively who are committed to a style of living, or an authentic pursuit of existence here on earth. They imbue the objects like you found at the Museum of the American Indian, where you didnât have to speak the language; the energy of the maker came through to you. It seems to me that thatâs sort of collectively what weâre dealing with here.
Beverly Gordon: Lifestyle?
Patrick Ela: I know it sounds pejorative and lightweight and everything, but I think thatâs really what it is.
Beverly Gordon: I wouldnât think itâs lifestyle, because some people are living their whole life around the crafts, and some people are not. Some people have that more compartmentalized into some piece of it. Thatâs not their lifestyle. But it isâŚ
Patrick Ela: No, but itâs a gradation of involvement with these types of objects. And some people are wholly committed to them and live their life part and parcel for that. And others are tangentially involved, but if youâre interested in it, you seek out makers of authentic objects. If youâre not interested, you go to Sears or somewhere and you get whatever you need. Itâs to me, very much about lifestyle, this whole discussion.
Carol Sauvion: I think that itâs also an economic issue. I know, often art students will buy a small piece of an artistâs work just to have that piece because they canât afford to buy something of a greater size. So I do think partially all of this is economic.
Shan Emanuelli: Well, thatâs often the motivation, donât you think? To make things for yourself that you canât afford to buy.
Carol Sauvion: Partially, I agree with you, Shan.
Robert Liu: I sense that weâre dancing around that bad word âquality.â Just because there are so many levels of practitioners, does this mean that weâre going to let everybody in, or are we still want the best of every level?
Shan Emanuelli: May I answer that? I think what weâre talking about here is telling stories, not necessarily looking at the objects.
Robert Liu: I find that really disturbing.
Shan Emanuelli: I donât mean that there will be no objects. But I do think that when you are talking about community, how many objects can you look at from that community anyway? And weâre talking about the role of craft in their lives. Weâre not talking about what fine objects they produce in that discussion. Thatâs my opinion of it.
Robert Liu: The word craft. If you change a couple of letters and put in a p. OK? [Laughter.] Iâm not an elitist. I deal with everybody, but I do think you want to show the good examples. You might show the bad examples to show what not to show. But youâre not going to show a democratic array of this stuff and say âHey look this is what itâs about.â I donât think thatâs what you want to have thousands of hours and millions of dollars be directed towards.
Kenneth Trapp: I presumed from the start that we would show only the very best of what we are looking at, that represented the finest of processes, technologies, the finest examples of human creativity. It doesnât mean if somebody is unknown, that it doesnât have quality.
Robert Liu: I didnât say that, but Ken, the word quality was never seemingly put out there. I got the distinct feeling that weâre going to be much more democratic about this and not try to pick out a level.
Hidde Van Duym: Democracy doesnât necessary mean bad quality.
Janet Ginsburg: But I think what I so appreciated about what Beverly was talking about was that thereâs a brilliance in craft, an energy to craft that isnât necessarily there in art simply because itâs approachable. Whether youâre talking about the fact that everybody can identify with a pitcher or a bowl, or that you have these communities. There always seems to be this well of people, well of energy, well of creative effort thatâs going on. The studio artists are, as you pointed out, in sort of a unique position. There are an awful lot of people who are really interesting, really tremendous and may not be able in their lives to be a studio artist. You [Kenneth Trapp] were talking about the retired woodworkers. It just energized their lives. They probably arenât in any position to become a studio artist per se, but their stories may be fascinating, and their work may be fascinating.
Barbara Hamaker: I just want to add a couple of things about community. From what Beverly said, I wrote down the word nourish. It seemed to me that all of the communities are nourishing to the people who belong to them in whatever category theyâre in. And another category of community is the category of purpose. And that comes under, specifically, the AIDS quilt. And I think that there must be other areas that people are galvanized to come together around a purpose, whether itâs a crises or something where people of great diversity and probably great economic diversity, ethnic diversity come together in a way and nourish each other. People who would never ordinarily even sit in the same room together, and do something together, whatever kind of craft it would be. And I think that thatâs part of what will enliven the discussion of Community, and perhaps may be missing in todayâs society, with people living alone and emailing everybody and working in their own solitary way. I think we can show the diversity of the craft communities that have evolved over time and that probably exist now.
Roslyn Tunis: I wanted to also talk about community, and I like the word nourishing. As we know, many native peoples have been removed from their communities and removed from their grandparents, great-grandparents. And then parents have married outside the native community. Now the children, who were brought up in urban communities, are going back to their communities, relearning the crafts, relearning the ceremonies that the crafts are made for, and then creating them, passing them down now to their children, but also making them available to us. And I think thatâs a very important part of getting back oneâs heritage. And not only getting it back, but even re-creating it, because in some communities so much was lost that the songs have to be recreated. The pieces, the works have to be recreated. And so itâs a whole new way of remembering and being nourished.
Beverly Gordon: The last thing I would say is that we just talked about this issue of quality. We mentioned the AIDS Quilt in a few different contexts. If you are talking about quality, the AIDS quilt is not here for quality. A lot of the squares on it are very poor quality, but it has a deep meaning. It has stories. And I think (to be on my little soapbox) if youâre going to talk about craft in America, you do need to talk about more than fine craft in America. Because craft in America is many things. It still doesnât mean one needs to focus on inferior objects, but you do need to talk about the breadth of it.
Kathy Levitt: Iâd like to add to that. The whole idea of flow and creativity. That itâs not just limited to high-level professionals, but part of the gratification of craft and the doing of craft and the community of sharing knowledge about how to do these things is also that itâs accessible to the doer. If you want to learn it and you want to do it, you can. And then that notion of flow is available to you whether the finished product is a highly refined quilt that is going to hang in a museum or if itâs going to be something that speaks very personally out of your own experience. So, I think it works on a lot of different levels in terms of community.
Roslyn Tunis: Bruce and I were talking about the loneliness of the craftsperson, and how does the craftsperson gain community if they are always working in their studio, alone? So, is it the teacher then has the students as part of their community, or is it going to a craft show and seeing other people? So, I think loneliness and community.
Shan Emanuelli: One of my favorite parts of the filming that was done in Montana is of Sarah Jaeger saying âMy friend calls me the village potter, and I love it. The thing I love the most is to hear somebody say that they take my mug out and drink their coffee every morning. Itâs their favorite mug.â That sort of thing talks about the way the potter or the studio craftsperson can become part of the community by participating in the community, in the commerce and the daily life of the community.
Carol Sauvion: It also reminds me of Sam Morgan, the potter from Oregon who went to Archie Bray, and we talked about what craft meant to him. And he said it gave him a sense of a calm space. And I think rather than think of it as loneliness, I would think of it as a solitary occupation. Because when youâre working at your craft, youâre not lonely, youâre busy. Youâre thinking. Youâre free in a way that you are not in other experiences. Youâre concentrating and youâre working hard, but your mind is free. So, itâs a creative time, I think.
Bruce Metcalf: Youâre romanticizing.
Carol Sauvion: Well, I donât make my living at it, so Iâm allowed to do that. And I have the other option of going out and being with the community, and seeing the pieces.
Bruce Metcalf: Some of it is really dull, trust me.
Janet Ginsburg: That will be in the directorâs cut. [Laughter.]
Howard Risatti: Iâm supposed to talk about Landscape, which I found a little bit difficult term, but Iâm thinking of Landscape as a complex metaphor. Itâs a metaphor about our relationship between nature and culture. And I think this relationship then is symbolized by crafts. What I mean to suggest here is that on the one hand, crafts literally connect to nature because of their rooted-ness in material, technique and functional form. So there is this connection thatâs, I think very, very literal. I think there are models in nature that inspire the crafts. I was reading Sophie Coeâs book on Pre-Columbian foods, and I learned something. In Venetian dialect, a small shot glass is called a ciqueto. And in fact, I found out that that word comes to Venice via the Spanish from the Aztec word for carved gourd cup. So thereâs this idea then that they literally have this connection to this world of nature. On the other hand, I think that crafts also have to be seen as representing culture, or our culture. Theyâre made by people to improve upon nature. So thatâs itâs not just getting water from a puddle in the ground or a gourd, but making something else. It seems to me once we do that we stand apart from nature. This becomes the world of human endeavors then, human aspirations. And so, I see craft objects are as representative of this world that weâve built for ourselves. This world that comes out of nature, this, then landscape, this metaphor weâre thinking of. And I also see this as part of a collective experience that goes back to this notion of human memory. I think Mike [Csikszentmihalyi] talked about these objects that are special to people. Any object that you invest something in, but Iâm not sure that thatâs what weâre talking about here, because this is a collective experience as opposed to a kind of nostalgic experience. We understand these objects as being functional objects not as something that has a personal connection because of some nostalgia. So, in this sense, craft allows us to negotiate the realms of nature and culture, to have this connection between these two realms, which fine art, by the way, does not have. And this brings us back to the idea of landscape as a metaphor. I think it has to do with our understanding of our place in the world, how we relate to our surroundings, and how we belong in the world itself. And the world here Iâm thinking is the world of nature and the world of culture. I donât think we need to dismiss nature, as the machine wants us to do. One of the things that I find interesting about the machine is that it actually in fact conquers nature so you can do things to wood and to other materials with the machine that you canât do with the hand. So, the hand forces you to have a different connection and relationship with the world. You have to coax the form out of the clay, to carefully deal with the wood in a certain way. But with the machine, you can impose your will on nature and I think there are ramifications for our attitude about the environment connected to in the way machines make us think about our relationship to the world. I think this is a consciousness of this relationship in crafts, which is expressed through beautifully made and aesthetically charged objects. And I think these kinds of objects then do what purely functional objects canât do. So they make us understand this connection between these two worlds. And I think if we look at the landscape then as the things around us, the details on buildings. I think the quality of the materials that we chose for stuff, the choice of materials going back to the clay over the next hill rather than having it shipped across the country, the grasses that come from the area that you are around; these things affect the way we make objects and they also have something to do with our sense of where we belong in this world. I think that this notion of globalization is something else that obliterates the sense of our place. If you go to shopping malls, and if you go to airports, you donât know where you are. I was giving a talk to a conference in Florida and changed planes in Atlanta; and a few weeks later I was in Pittsburgh changing to go to Chicago, and I didnât know where I was because exactly the same ceramic tile, exactly the same franchise coffee shop was at the top of the escalator. And so, these kinds of things, I think, are not the kinds of landscape weâre talking about here. So, I think that weâre relating to place. Place is a physical, geographic place, a locale if we want. Also itâs a mythical or historical place. And also is a personal and a psychic place or space. [Applause].
Hidde Van Duym: It is just like drinking an essence. Could you expound a little more, Howard? You said so much in so few sentences. Particularly that last sentence when you went over the various dimensions of space. You have packed so much in this statement.
Howard Risatti: I guess the basic idea Iâm thinking about is that if we become conscious of the notion of the things we make and our relationship to the world, Iâd say this physical world of nature, then we start to have an understanding of ourselves in a different way. So, even psychically, the space we live in, how we interact and live in that space; also physically I would say. These are some of the ideas Iâm thinking about: and these may have something to do with the historical: history, myth. Iâm thinking that you do certain kinds of rituals in certain ways, but this is how we define ourselves. My colleague Jim Farmer who works in the Southwest talks about Anasazi pottery, Mimbres pottery and his idea is that we make this pottery because thatâs who we are, and weâre not those people because they make that kind of pottery. This goes back to Community as well. But it also has a sense of you being in the world, and we are these people as opposed to those people.
Hidde Van Duym: So, is a map, which really establishes our relationship to nature (certainly the earliest maps are creations, they are perceptions, they are handmade) in the realm of craft?
Howard Risatti: No. I donât think so. Somebody said, and Iâm not sure, I think it was one of the French philosophers who said âthe map is not the terrain.â The map is one thing, but the actual place you live is something else. So, Iâm thinking of this in this other sense, not as an abstraction.
Kenneth Trapp: There is a book called The Language of Naming (I think thatâs the title) in which the authors describe what it was like to come to the new world, and the necessity of the naming and how the naming of our places based upon nature informed our relationship to this continent. Itâs much easier to call something the White Mountain than it is the big hill fifty miles down the river. Nature became a way of ordering our experience with the landscape. So by the very fact of naming we were able to remember. So it brings into play Memory as well as Community as well as naming in relationship to nature.
Janet Ginsburg: Going back to the series and how this might work, the ideas that you talked about were largely abstract. Letâs talk about a particular craft person or craft that youâre aware of and how it relates to Landscape.
Kenneth Trapp: I can do that. The reason that I stepped in was the wood show that we have up; itâs called âWoodturning in North America Since 1930.â Our opening symposium was Women in Woodworking. One of the speakers was Virginia Dodson from Arizona. Virginia went through a lot of slides of images from nature: clouds, rivers, mountains, so forth; bringing it all the way down to the work she was doing with laminated wood vessels in Arizona. As soon as she started showing the rock formations in Arizona, the landscape, I understood the pieces on view in the exhibition. Previous to that they were abstracted patterns. I understood laminated wood, but this brought it all together. Suddenly in concrete form was her interaction, her appreciation and experience with nature brought into the form of a bowl. It was absolutely beautiful.
Janet Ginsburg: It sounds elegant.
Kenneth Trapp: Oh, it was. And I canât look at that object now without all of these images going through my mind. Itâs a totally different object. Itâs no longer an object that just has geometric form and is abstracted, but itâs now an object that seems to be literally torn from nature. From the landscape. Itâs quite beautiful.
Howard Risatti: In that same wood show thereâs a bowl by Giles Gilson. Itâs entitled âSunsetâ and itâs the color of sunset at the top. Then the color fades to a buff Navajo sandstone color. It has a Navajo emblem on it, but itâs spray painted with a kind of lacquer with a chrome rim. So, here we have this natural element and then we have car culture combined together in this object. So it combines two elements of this landscape, this metaphor weâre talking about.
Barbara Hamaker: I am also reminded of what Mike [Csikszentmihalyi] was talking about this morning, with his son making metal robots and being informed by the present landscape, the culture that he lives in.
Dale Gluckman: Iâm not sure this is where this goes but itâs something I need to dump out on the table here. Itâs something that we touched on earlier, but I wanted to reinforce it, or bring it back into focus for you to think about, which is this idea of the difference between our current environment (most peopleâs daily environment) in America in which we are surrounded largely by manufactured goods and the pre-industrial environment out of which craft traditions have come. I thought it would be an interesting exercise, and might capture the imagination of your viewers to try at some point in this (and it may not be Landscape, it may go somewhere else), to make people aware, just as Jim Bassler was saying when he started a textile class recently, he had all the students look at everything they were wearing and where it came from, and why they chose it, and what materials it was made out of, and where was it made. Of course it turned out to be made somewhere not in the United States. It got them thinking about how things are now, the given which we take for granted, and that it might have been another way in another time or another place. To me, crafts will make sense to them if they can transport themselves mentally back to a world where everything is handmade. Until about two hundred fifty years or so, that was the case for thousands of years. It just struck me as something that you could somehow incorporate into this, to begin to give people some kind of perspective on this.
Janet Ginsburg: It takes the romance right out of it.
Dale Gluckman: Iâm not romanticizing it. On the other hand, I was thinking about an experience I had. I was living in West Africa for a while. We sat with a Dogon blacksmith in a hut near the Dogon cliffs one afternoon, and heâs sitting there with a goatskin bellows. This is 1982. Heâs using a goatskin bellows. I turned to my husband and said âMy God. This is like being in the Bronze Age. There is nothing within our line of sight that was made by a machine.â Everything he was wearing. Everything he was using, (I still get chills talking about it), everything in the hut. Everything was made by hand or out of nature. We could absolutely have been sitting there ten thousand years ago and nothing would have been different except us. And it was an amazing experience, an amazing time machine that I felt very privileged to experience.
Carol Sauvion: I had that same experience, although not quite as intensely. In February I went to visit the studio of Wharton Esherick in Paoli, Pennsylvania, and almost everything in that studio, he made: the studio itself, the furniture, the sink in the kitchen. Everything. The martini stirrer was a long piece of wood. And the art, the paintings, everything. It was just fantastic. I know what you are saying. Very special. And thatâs part of Landscape, I think. That originally was my concept. I feel like my home is my landscape. When Iâm in my home surrounded by the things that I have in my home, Iâm in space thatâs unique to me and itâs important to who I am as a person to have that experience daily.
Dale Gluckman: Something else, which is the environment of crafts production, whether, itâs someoneâs workshop or whether itâs the Mennonite Community hall where everyone is sitting around quilting or whatever. How the environment, the landscape of the craftsman, the space where the craft is produced can also be another kind of landscape.
Hidde Van Duym: This is our second nostalgia then. The first nostalgia, I think, is we never were really able to adjust to urban life. We still keep dreaming about agricultural life. The ultimate dream is to still be with the land, to have a little farm. Now is the second nostalgia, which is the nostalgia for the hand. Now that our entire culture is based on the manipulation of technologies, we are dreaming about doing something with our hands. And our wanting to do this is part of that, I think. As a matter of fact, it kind of worries me. I find Mikeâs statement that what is being produced in craft is produced for leisure a worrisome statement. I would like to hear more about that. It certainly is food for thought.
Roslyn Tunis: I wanted to talk about landscape and of the vital materials you have in episode three. We imagine that the contemporary craft person can go out and just, or through a catalog or the web, just order anything they need for making their objects. However, there are still cultures, especially those in the Arctic that have a lot of trouble getting their materials. And some of them die trying to go out into certain areas and have to dynamite out the stone, for instance. And so, the landscape is really, really important to these people, and itâs not necessarily easy to acquire materials to make their objects, and itâs certainly not a leisure activity. In the North, for instance, itâs an introduced craft because now theyâre making it for the outside world rather than for themselves. But they still cannot buy their materials, they have to actually go out and get them and it is very, very difficult. And even though their landscape may look like itâs full of rock, itâs not the kind of rock that they can use for carving. So, theyâve got to wait for winter actually, to take their snowmobiles, if theyâve got them, or their dog sleds and go out and dynamite through the ice to get their stone. They canât go in the summer because they canât get there by water. So I think the landscape can be a hindrance as well as a help in making craft.
Dale Gluckman: I just wanted to add one thing to that, which is the idea of landscape as dictating or guiding what you produce. Which is another aspect. You may have to go out to find X, but you also may be only able to produce X if you happen to live by the river that has the right kind of mud to make mud cloth and if you live on another river, you donât make mud cloth because you donât have access. Or, the kind of reeds you use for your basket are going to be very different if you live here than if you live over there. And so the landscape, the nature around you often dictates the materials, what the craft ends up looking like in essence, and how you work with it, because it can be site specific. Because some things you can do one thing with, and others you canât. You can bend bamboo maybe in a way that you canât bend willow.
Beverly Gordon: I think itâs important to remember though is that a lot of the craft that we are talking about is since the Industrial Revolution. Thereâs cloth thatâs manufactured, that is used, and there are other materials. So, we shouldnât romanticize that the only way of dealing with Landscape is whatâs right there. Indeed we live in urban landscapes. Indeed, the materials are also the products of industry that are used in craft. So, itâs all of the above. Itâs not one or the other.
Shan Emanuelli: Robert Liu: Process
Robert Liu: When we look at any contemporary object or ancient artifact that is crafted by hand, the processes used to make it are among the most obvious attributes along with the material or materials of which it is composed. Whether from our times or from antiquity, the function may or may not be apparent, but any observer would have some idea or opinion on how it was made and how well made. Most traditional craft materials, stone, ceramic, metals, glass or related silicates and organic media like wood, have been used since pre-historic times and current craftspeople still use essentially the same tools and techniques. We cannot know all the aspects and conditions under which an item was crafted but the commonality of material and technique bind us very strongly to the handmade object. We cannot know for sure that the level of crafting of an object is due to the skills of the maker, the level of the patronage and thus how much time could be given in the making, but contemporary crafts people can be grateful that significant changes have occurred since ancient times. According to Bob Bianchi, a very insightful Egyptologist, the Egyptian craftsperson was totally anonymous and had no creative input into what was made. But, the overseer who was responsible for the total design as well as the planning and received compensation far greater than the craftsman. That overseer received hundreds of times more bread and beer. Do we have a modern equivalent? Iâm not going to answer that. Process is the foundation of crafts, but it alone is obviously not enough. Aesthetic content and concept all weight the scales of praise and recognition. Most crafts people that we rank highly are all masters of their craft, having so seamlessly conquered the techniques of their media that they can speak with their hands without wavering, so that their art can flow without the hindrance of an inadequate technical vocabulary. But having intruded for over a quarter of a century into artistâs studios and probed their minds with notebook and camera, the situation is not so simple. Many are facile with process or technique and blend this manual dexterity with their training and design aesthetics and other capabilities gained through a college art education. But at least half or more of crafts people today have no formal art training and acquire the technical knowledge primarily through paid workshops. Besides spawning innumerable copies of the instructors who may have recently learned a technique themselves, we now have a greatly increased emphasis on technique and medium. In fact there are societies or organized groups in glass, metal, beads and beadwork and polymer clay to name the prominent ones. This move towards paying for skills has many ramifications and is part of the movement of life long learning, usually outside of established academic institutions-what I call a near frenzy to bring meaning into peopleâs lives: yoga, beadwork, gatherings of craft people, these are all among such examples. Process figures heavily in the attraction to such activities; many find the sheer joy of doing something with their hands, often repetitive, gives them intense pleasure as well as building the neuromuscular skills so crucial to many craft media. The paradox lies in fewer people working with their hands or having an understanding of material processes while others are eagerly absorbing such skills. Craftspeople working with materials (metal, glass and ceramics) and processes that involve hot working or the application of flame and heat still occupy a position in our society that is comparable to alchemists, shamans or magicians in ancient or tribal cultures. They are possessors of mysterious, intriguing and powerful skills not available to the lay population. I feel there is this combination of the unfamiliar and the familiar that resides in most craft objects- the viewer can usually know something about its function, material or how it was made-but often does not much on know how one turns a piece of clay, metal, glass or polymer clay, into an object of great beauty and aesthetics. This fascination with the capabilities of the human hand and mind is what will have enduring appeal of the craft process to so many people.
Dale Gluckman: It seemed to me that this whole idea of process and authenticity made me think about the other side of that which is what I would call the faux craft objects. If you go into Robinsonâs May and you go upstairs in the dish department, youâre going to see all these things that are trying to look hand made, but they are not. And, I donât know where this fits, but it says to me that there must be a desire, there must be a community of consumers out there that donât know the difference between the handmade one and the pseudo- handmade one but clearly want something handmade or that they think is hand made, but they donât know the difference. Which made me think about the importance of this project, and whether you can bring this out or not, but to make people realize that there is a difference. We can all see it, but the average person canât.
Steve Fenton: Or canât afford it.
Dale Gluckman: So much of what is out there in the marketplace is faux something masquerading as real something.
Robert Liu: O.K. This phenomenon is at least 40,000 years old. When at the dawn of art in the Ice Age when humans were beginning to make ornamentation for their bodies it started right away. Someone would take a revered object, hard to get materials and make it out of something simpler. You go through the entire history, this was always the case when something was desired and scarce someone would make a substitute. The ironic thing was that it often took more time to make the substitute than it did to make the real object and this is rife throughout Chinese craft history. But, time didnât mean anything. So, when we tell people that what we are doing is really a part of human history, I think this has an enormous appeal. Somehow we have to be the didactic teacher and say âLook, when you go out to the store next time look and see, feel it, tap it against your tooth. Is it real, or is it made in a mold. Thereâs not anything wrong with it, but, if you want to buy something real, here are the tools to tell the difference.â
Barbara Hamaker: Robert, you have provided a metaphor for this project. Iâm stunned because itâs so brilliant. Iâll preface this by giving you a very short story. Twenty-some years ago, a boyfriend of mine was studying the alchemical process of turning base metal into gold. I, being the naive kid, didnât really understand what alchemy was. I thought Wow! Now that Iâm in my fifties and have done a lot of reading, I understand that the alchemical process is within us to turn ourselves into gold, to turn the base metal into gold. And I think that the process that the craftsperson goes through as they are striving to produce the gold, the object that is the gold, is that they are transforming themselves into the product. I think that is what this is about.
Carol Sauvion: We have to stop now. Thank you all for giving your thought and your time to this. The most precious thing of all is time, and youâve given so much of it. Thank you.
Collecting and Curating Meaning-filled Objects
In this lesson, students consider the human tendency to collect objects that have meaning to us. They meet Forrest L. Merrill, a long-time collector of vessels made of wood, metal, glass, fiber, and clay. They learn how Mr. Merrill has spent his life collecting these hand-crafted objects and developing friendships with the artists who make them. In a segment of the VISIONARIES, students hear the collector talk about what is important to him in the objects he collectsâwhat he looks for when he considers adding a new object to his collection. Students are asked to think about their own collections and collections that their friends or family members have. As they consider the idea of collecting, they learn how collectors tend to organize and display their collections. While viewing VISIONARIES, students briefly meet Michele Ellis Pracy, Fresno Art Museum curator, who is curating an exhibition of work by fiber artist, Kay Sekimachi. Students spend time considering Ms. Sekimachiâs Leaf Bowlsâhow they are made and the message or story they conveyâand they also learn about the role of a curator. Students work individually or in small groups to curate an exhibition of a collection of their choosing. They must provide a rationale for the inclusion of each of the artworks or objects. They must also create an exhibition planâa diagram or drawing of the exhibition space and the pathway to be followed by visitors to the exhibitionâaccompanied by a âvision statement,â in which they outline the message or story that the exhibition conveys.
SUPPORT MATERIALS
Collecting & Curating Meaning-Filled Objects
Full Guide & Worksheets
Background Reading
Lesson Overview
Teaching Tips
Teaching Tips for Teachers
Further Information
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Closing Strategies
Presenting & Reflecting Upon the Exhibition Plan
Vocabulary
Vocabulary & Key Terms
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions for Students
Activity #1
Collecting Inventory
For Teachers:
Worksheet for Students:
Activity #2
Exploring Exhibitions
For Teachers:
Worksheet for Students:
Activity #3
Planning an Exhibition
Worksheet for Students:
Activity #4
Creating a 3D Model Exhibition (optional)
Iâm not particularly interested in just showing pretty things. I want the work to have a story. I want the artist, through the work, to tell a story. I would like there to be some message or some goal to share with people this totally different way of life, of living with art.
â Forrest L. Merrill
Grade Level: 7â12
Estimated Time: Three to four 45 minute class periods
Craft in America episode: VISIONARIES
Background Information
Collector Forrest L. Merrill has a deep appreciation for all manner of hand-wrought vessels of wood, metal, glass, fiber, and clay, as well as for the exceptional artists who create them. But even more important are the personal relationships he forges with these artists and his desire to share his unique collection with a public for whom art education and exposure to art is disappearing. Inspired in 1950 by a high school art teacher, his first purchase was a glass bowl by Glen Lukens, a pioneer in studio crafts. Right then, a collector was born. Merrillâs collection, based in Berkeley, CA, is one of the largest and most important of its kind in the world, containing pieces that span the arcs of entire careers of major artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Kay Sekimachi is a fiber artist and weaver, known as a âweaverâs weaverâ for her unusual use of the loom in constructing three-dimensional sculptural pieces. She is recognized as a pioneer in the resurrection of fiber and weaving as a legitimate means of artistic expression. In the early 1970s, she used nylon monofilament to create hanging quadruple tubular woven forms in an exploration of space, transparency, and movement. Sekimachiâs primary sources of inspiration are the shapes, forms and natural colors gleaned from her Japanese heritage. She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts, where she studied with Trude Guermonprez, and at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, where she studied with Jack Lenor Larsen.
Key Concepts
- Human beings often collect things, and when we do, we tend to store, care for, produce an inventory, and display the collection for others to see and appreciate.
- Collectors and curators consider various techniques, methods, venues, and criteria when interpreting, selecting, and curating artworks and objects for a viewing audience.
- Artworks and objects collected, preserved, or presented by collectors and curators communicate meaning and often tell a story of personal, social, or cultural significance.
- People gain insights into meanings of artworks and objects by engaging in careful description and interpretation.
Critical Questions
- Why do people collect?
- How do collectors organize and display their collections?
- What is involved in curating an exhibition?
Objectives
Students will:
- Understand that people often collect artworks and objects that alone and collectively have meaning and tell a story.
- Speculate about why people collect artworks and other objects.
- Curate an exhibition of artworks or other objects by choosing artworks/objects that are to be displayed, deciding where and how they will be displayed, and providing a vision statement to explain the curatorial choices made.
- Create a two-dimensional exhibition plan indicating the placement of objects and viewersâ pathway through the exhibition.
Vocabulary
Collector, Curator, Exhibition, Wall Text, Interpretive Label, Vitrine, Installation
Interdisciplinary Connection
While the work in this lesson begins with collecting and curating artworks, the concepts having to do with how humans collect objects that have meaning to them or to their community extend beyond visual art to other subject areas. Curatorial practice is basically the same, even when the objects collected and the ideas conveyed through the display of the objects are different. Students easily might collect and curate objects having to do with history, science, mathematics, and foreign languages, for example. There are several opportunities in this lesson to practice and refine writing, in the creation of a vision statement, certainly, but also in the rationales provided for objects in the collection and the interpretive labels that will accompany the objects in the exhibition.
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
This lesson addresses the following standards. The performance standards listed here are directly related to the lessonâs goals.
- Anchor Standard #4. Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation. VA:Pr4.1.8a, VA:Pr4.1.Ia, VA:Pr4.1.IIIa
- Anchor Standard #6. Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work. VA:Pr6.1.8a, VA:Pr6.1.IIIa
- Anchor Standard #8. Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work. VA:Re8.1.8a, VA:Re8.1.Ia,
- Anchor Standard #11. Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding. VA:Cn11.1.8a
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Resources
- Craft in America VISIONARIES episode viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episodes/visionaries
- American Craft Council article about Forrest L. Merrill, his collections and his reasons for collecting. Also features an image of his collection of leaf vessels created by Kay Sekimachi and displayed together on a bookshelf: craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/collector-cause
- Images of Kay Sekimachiâs Leaf Bowls in an exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum: bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/past/in-the-realm-of-nature
- Students may wish to visit exhibitions on Craft in Americaâs website to select objects for their own exhibitions: www.craftinamerica.org/exhibitions
- Students will be asked to visit exhibitions on Craft in Americaâs website to analyze how artworks are displayed.
- A Nation of Makers: www.craftinamerica.org/exhibition/a-nation-of-makers-at-idyllwild-art-gallery
- Art and Other Tactics: Contemporary Craft by Artist Veterans (Vietnam War â Present): www.craftinamerica.org/exhibition/art-and-other-tactics-contemporary-craft-by-artist-veterans-2
- Art and Other Tactics: Contemporary Craft by Artist Veterans (WWII â Present): www.craftinamerica.org/exhibition/art-and-other-tactics-contemporary-craft-by-artist-veterans-3
- A Google image search for âexhibition design plansâ or âexhibition design modelsâ will result in an array of examples of plans and models for exhibitions for students to examine.
- Students may be interested in seeing the following video clip from a CBS Sunday Morning episode featuring a Washing Machine Museum and the collector who is its creator: www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-sunday-morning/video/lGWN2o8PME3M5SMnbCpynYQaAJFF3Qv9/a-washing-machine-museum
- For students who wish to learn more about the work of a museum curator, the following videos showcase curators who talk about their work: youtu.be/Hix5aMZvMQ8 and youtu.be/4qCDSPe2-uc
- In this video from the PBS series, The Art Assignment, students will learn about curatorial practice in general, not only in museums: youtu.be/GMZVUtUhNwo
Worksheets
Materials
- Drawing paper 11 x 17 or 17 x 22
- Pencils, Markers
- Foam board or cardboard for use in creating (optional) three-dimensional exhibition models
Ask students if they now have or if they have ever had a collection of any sort. Perhaps they know someoneâa family member or a friendâwho collects something. Remind them that people collect all kinds of things, everything from rubber ducks to comic books, bottle caps to Pokemon cards, baseball cards to teddy bears, Barbie dolls to transformers. Some people collect rocks, shells or sea glass. Invite students to share what they or someone they know collects.
As you discuss collections, ask students to think about why it is that people collect things. Have them consider further how people choose something to collect. Elicit from students that people tend to like whatever it is they collect. They tend to be drawn to the objects they collect, perhaps because of the way they look, perhaps because they have special meaning in their lives, or perhaps because they have access to these particular objects. Explore a range of reasons why people have collections.
Suggest that people organize, care for, and display their collections in different ways. Here again ask student to recall collectors they know and their respective collections. Where are these collections kept? Some people store collections in shoeboxes or other containers. Some people store the collection as a display on shelves or tabletops. Occasionally an entire room or building is devoted to a collection. Much depends on the collectionâwhat is collected, the size of the objects collected, the number of objects within the collection, and so on. Collectors also tend to organize their collections. Have students share how collections they know about are organized. Are there categories and subcategories within the collection? Again, depending on the collection, objects might be grouped together according to their history, function, or appearance, for example.
This should be a lively discussion in which students are invited to recall collections they have had or have seen and to think about them in new ways. Students should recognize that many of us collect something, and when we do, we tend to store, care for, produce an inventory, and display the collection for others to see and appreciate.
Explain that for the next few class periods students will be thinking more about collecting and collections. They will be introduced to one collector, but they should also consider collectors and collections they know about. They also will be introduced to a curatorâa person who takes care of collections and who plans exhibitions to showcase collections. Tell students that they will have the opportunity to think like a collector as well as a curator, as they âcollectâ artworks or other objects and then plan an exhibition of the collection. Post the critical questions for the lesson and explain that as they work together to learn more about collecting and curating, they should be able to discuss the following critical questions:
- Why do people collect?
- How do collectors organize and display their collections?
- What is involved in curating an exhibition?
Tell students that in the video segment they are about to see, they will meet Forrest L. Merrill, a man who began collecting artworks when he was in high school. His collection has grown over the years and includes artworks created by many different artists, but in this video they mostly will learn about his collection of artworks by the artist, Kay Sekimachi. The segment opens with Michele Ellis Pracy, a curator with the Fresno Art Museum, claiming, âKay Sekimachi is a visionary.â As a curator, Ms. Pracy selects, interprets and presents objects in an exhibition. In this case, she is responsible for selecting and exhibiting artworks created by the artist Kay Sekimachi for an upcoming exhibition of her work. We will see her talking with Forrest L. Merrill because the exhibition will include many of Sekimachiâs artworks borrowed from his collection.
As they watch the video have students consider the following:
- What kinds of artworks does Forrest L. Merrill collect?
- What does Forrest L. Merrill value or look for in the artworks he collects?
Watch Forrestâs segment beginning at 31:03 to 38:00 at www.craftinamerica.org/episode/visionaries.
After Viewing
Discuss the video. Ask students to share their immediate response; what resonated with them. Refer to the questions that students were asked to consider along with others listed here.
Discussion
- What kinds of artworks does Forrest L. Merrill collect? (handcrafted items such as weavings and pots)
- What does Forrest L. Merrill value or look for in the artworks he collects? (he wants the artworks to tell a story or provide a message of some sort)
- What do you now know that you didnât know before watching the segment? (answers will vary)
- If you were to meet Forrest L. Merrill, what questions would you ask him? (answers will vary)
- Remind students that the video segment began with comments by the curator Michele Ellis Pracy. Explain that the term, curator, has its origins in the Latin word, cĹŤrÄre, meaning âto watch over, attend.â What do you think a curator does? (A curator is responsible for the care and maintenance of a collection, such as a collection in a museum, zoo, or other place of exhibit. Curators also plan exhibitions of collections.)
- What do students think a curator would need to know in order to do the job? What questions does she or he need to ask? Explain that curators care for and maintain collections; they also select, interpret and present objects from the collection for others to see and appreciate. Curators need to know a lot about the objects in the collection, including their origins, significance and meaning. In creating an exhibition, curators need to consider the audience who will see the exhibition, which objects to exhibit, how the objects should be arranged in the exhibition, what they would like the audience to do and think about as they view the exhibitionâthe story or message they wish to provide for the audience, and how they will convey the story or message by the way they arrange the objects. See Resources for links to more about curators and their work.
- The curator Michele Ellis Pracy said, âI love visionaries because they take us forward.â Using this as a way of thinking about visionaries, how is Forrest L. Merrill a âvisionary?â What is he âtaking forwardâ by collecting artworks and sharing them with so many audiences? (answers will vary)
Before Viewing
In order for students to appreciate how objects in a collection have meaning, provide them an opportunity to carefully view and interpret Kay Sekimachiâs Leaf Bowls. View the segment on Kay Sekimachi in which she demonstrates making her Leaf Bowls. Watch Kay Sekimachiâs segment on Leaf Bowls beginning at 25:10 to 26:39 at www.craftinamerica.org/episodes/visionaries.
After Viewing
Review the process the artist uses to create the Leaf Bowls. Make sure that students realize that these are real leaves that have been soaked overnight and then are dried around a mold. So that students might look more carefully, project an image (or provide students with photocopies) of one or more of these bowls. Remind students that Forrest L. Merrill collects this artistâs work and that he has several of her Leaf Bowls in his collection. Remind them also that he says he is not simply interested in beautiful objects; he is interested in objects that tell a story or convey a message. Have students describe and discuss the story or message conveyed by Sekimachiâs Leaf Bowls.
Discussion
- Imagine you had to describe this object to someone who could not see it. What words would you use? What does it look like? (a bowl, but with holes) What materials do you see? (wood, fibers) How are they arranged? (Leaf shapes are next to each other or overlapping)
- What adjectives come to mind? (light, delicate, fragile, lacy, soft, translucent, etc.)
- What story is being told by these objects? (story of transformation, story of change, etc.)
- What message might they convey? (For example: Nature can be fragile and strong at the same time. Natural objects have beauty even as they change form. Natural objects are both simple and complex.)
- Introduce metaphorâa figure of speech in which one thing is seen as or presented as something else. Remind students that it is sometimes useful to use metaphor when thinking about artworks. In this case we would be thinking of Kay Sekimachiâs Leaf Bowls as something else. A skeleton, memory, lace, or a vessel, for example.
Introduce the Collecting and Curating Project
Explain that students will assume the roles of both collector and curator as they gather artworks/objectsâdigital or actualâto form a collection, attending to the meanings that these artworks/objects have or the story they tell. They then will âcurateâ an exhibition of these artworks/objects, imagining and planning the space for displaying them, determining how the audience will encounter and perceive the objects as they plan the âpathwayâ for viewing, and provide a vision (message, story, perspective) for the exhibition. Students may work alone or in small groups to complete the project. Explain that the Collecting and Curating Project consists of four main tasks:
- Choosing a collection
- Exploring exhibitions: How are artworks/objects displayed?
- Planning an exhibition
- Presenting and reflecting upon the exhibition plan
Choosing a Collection
Have students work alone or in small groups on this project. They first will need to decide upon which of the following collection options they will choose as their focus.
- Option 1: Building on the Leaf Bowl.
Create an exhibition of Kay Sekimachiâs Leaf Bowl and other objects made by this or other artists, for a maximum number of 10 objects, chosen from the Craft In America site. (See Resources for links.) - Option 2: Showcasing an existing collection.
Create an exhibition of your own personal collection of five to ten objects. These may be shells, buttons, pottery pieces, or other objects that you have joined together as a collection. - Option 3: Creating an exhibit as a self (or group) portrait.
Create an exhibition of five to ten objects that represent who you are and what you care about.
For each option, students should complete the worksheet, Collection Inventory, to complete a record of their collection and state why they have selected each object for the collection.
Exploring Exhibitions: How are artworks/objects displayed?
Explain that before they create their plan for working alone or in small groups, students need to complete the worksheet, Exploring Exhibitions: How are Artworks Displayed?, to find out how a gallery space can be used to display artworks/objects in an exhibition. The worksheet is designed as a âscavenger huntâ in which the students explore three different Craft In America traveling exhibitions to find examples that match the description in the list found on the worksheet.
Planning an Exhibition
Explain that the students will plan an exhibition of a specific collection for this project (see options 1â3). Have students first examine examples of such plans through an image search for âexhibition plans.â The results of the search will show plans that in many cases are far more detailed than what the students will eventually create, but these examples do show different ways to indicate the overall shape of the space, how the space can be divided by portable walls, and how shelving and pedestals might be indicated in such a plan.
Students will complete a worksheet, Planning an Exhibition, in which they indicate the shape of the gallery space and specify the following:
- The placement of portable/temporary walls, if they choose to use them to divide the large gallery space into smaller spaces.
- The entrance and exit of the space, including the intended âpathwayâ for visitors.
- Where specific artworks/objects will be displayed, including shelves of various sizes or shapes, pedestals (tall or floor level), ceiling treatments, and walls.
- How and where various kinds of information will be presented; for example, as wall text and/or interpretive labels.
The worksheet also prompts students to compose a âvision statementâ including what they wish the audience to experience and learn from the exhibition, and a label for each object.
Creating a Three-Dimensional Model Exhibition (optional)
Note that some students may wish to create a three-dimensional model of their exhibition that follows the specifications of their two-dimensional plan. A Google image search for âexhibition design modelsâ will result in an array of examples of three-dimensional models for exhibitions for students to examine. Many of these models are made with foam board, which would be an appropriate material for students to use. They also might use cardboard or wood scraps or a combination of various materials to create a model exhibition space for showcasing their collection.
Presenting and Reflecting Upon the Exhibition Plan
Reflection
Have students present their completed exhibition plans to the large class or in smaller groups. First, students should share their vision for the exhibition, stating the theme or ideas that the exhibition addressesâthe message or story that the exhibition conveys. Second, students should point to and explain the flow of visitor traffic, noting what objects the visitor would encounter and how each object is displayed. Suggest that those who are the audience for such presentations ask clarifying questions and make a point to commend the student curators for aspects of the plan that they believe are especially well done.
In a sketchbook or research journal, have students reflect upon their completed work. Provide the following prompts:
- What I liked best about curating the exhibition:
- What I learned about collecting and collections by this project:
- It is important for an exhibition to be based on a vision because:
- Whenever I get the chance to go to an exhibition (in a museum or gallery, for example), I will be especially interested in seeing:
Optional: Teachers might opt to provide the above questions for students to address in their sketchbooks as an overnight assignment. This works well with high school. After students answer the questions on their own and bring them to class, have them open their sketchbooks for their classmates to read. A shared electronic document also can be posted by teacher and students can contribute their answers.
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson, by examining the studentsâ worksheets, by witnessing the studentsâ exhibition plans, and by reviewing the studentsâ sketchbook/journal reflections, it should be evident that the students:
- Understand that people often collect artworks and objects that alone and collectively have meaning and tell a story.
- Have ideas and are willing to speculate about why people collect artworks and other objects.
- Have curated an exhibition of artworks or other objects by choosing artworks/objects that are to be displayed, deciding where and how they will be displayed, and providing a vision statement to explain the curatorial choices made.
- Have created a two-dimensional exhibition plan indicating the placement of objects and viewersâ pathway through the exhibition.
Authors
The Educators Guide are developed under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor Emerita of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Visionaries: Collecting and Curating Meaning-filled Objects is authored by Marilyn Stewart with contributions by Dolores E. Eaton. Dec 2018.
The CALIFORNIA episode is supported in part by STOLAROFF FOUNDATION, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.
Purpose and Planning: Connecting basket making to contemporary needs and resources
In this lesson, students will learn about basket making through the Pomo basket weaver Corine Pearce in the CALIFORNIA episode. Students will inspect and analyze the materials and functions of a wide variety of baskets. They will learn about the practical and ceremonial importance of baskets and basket making to people living in communities around the world and over time. Students will consider how people traditionally create baskets with materials available to them in their natural environment, how materials often influence the forms of the baskets made, and how materials used to make baskets can convey meaning. Students also will learn that basket makers sometimes work with alternative materials– materials that are made by humans rather than found in nature. Students will engage in the process of basket making, making decisions about their basketâs function, the materials they will use, and the basket making techniques they will employ. With support from the instructor, students will determine materials to which they have access and prepare those materials for weaving. Working individually or in small groups, students will construct a woven basket and evaluate how successful the basket is for the practical or ceremonial purpose it was created.
I like to teach basketry because it connects us all as humansâŚI realized, it doesnât matter what tribe on the planet you are from, you all still made baskets. Everyone already has a basket in them, and I am just helping them bring it out.
â Corine Pearce
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CALIFORNIA
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Worksheet #1
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Worksheet #2
for Students
Grade Level: 7â12
Estimated Time: Five to six 45 minute class periods
Background Information
Corine Pearce is a Pomo basket weaver from Redwood Valley, CA. Throughout the history of the Pomo people, baskets were the essential tool of life and Pomo baskets are among the best in the world by fact of their sheer technical virtuosity. Corine has dedicated her life to sharing her specialized knowledge and abilities with people throughout the world as well as by teaching her community at the Redwood Valley Education Center.
Key Concepts
- Around the world and throughout time, people have used baskets to store and transport food and other goods, to mark important life events, to symbolize significant meanings in celebrations and ceremonies, and for commercial trade.
- People traditionally create baskets from materials found in their local environment.
- Basket making traditions vary from place to place depending upon available materials and the specific functions that baskets serve within the community.
- Basket forms, as well as their materials, patterns and designs, hold meaning and cultural significance.
Critical Questions
- Why do people make and use baskets?
- How do the forms, materials and techniques used in basket making connect to the time and place in which baskets are made?
- How do baskets convey meaning?
Objectives
Students will:
- Understand how and why people have made and used baskets throughout the world and over time.
- Consider how baskets are used in their daily lives.
- Compare and contrast the form, materials, basket making techniques, decorative features and possible functions of selected baskets.
- Speculate about artistic, geographical and cultural origins of baskets, supported by description and analysis of the form, materials, techniques, decorative features, and possible functions of selected baskets.
- Create a basket intended for a practical or ceremonial function, using materials gathered and prepared for basket weaving.
Vocabulary
Pomo, Rancheria, Redbud, Coiling, Sedge Root, Stakes, Weavers
Interdisciplinary Connection
- Environmental Science: Collaboration with Environmental Science teachers can bring further depth into the study of basketry. Science classes can harvest and investigate properties of the natural resources in the local environment that might be used as âstakesâ or âweaversâ in basketry. Science classes can also consider materials in the environment that could be repurposed rather than going to the landfill if used in this art making process. Students may want to learn more about the connection between the environment and harvesting materials for traditional basket making. See the article, Addressing the Threats Facing Traditional Basketmaking Materials on the American Craft Council website, craftcouncil.org/post/addressing-threats-facing-traditional-basketmaking-materials which refers to Craft in America artist, Mary Jackson, and her efforts to preserve sweetgrass.
- History/Social Studies: Students may investigate the history of basketry within their own geographical region, addressing such questions as, âWhat cultural groups made and used baskets in this region?â âWhat purposes did baskets serve?â Students also may seek information about how the basket forms, materials and functions are related to the geography and cultural traditions of the region. See the documentary, âA Measure of Earthâ on the National Basketry Organization website, nationalbasketry.org/a-measure-of-the-earth-2 for its focus on basketmakers from several different regions of the country and how they use materials found in their geographical regions. Teachers may wish to emphasize these same questions with regard to contemporary life in the region, noting that many of the functions originally served by baskets are now served by objects made from materials such as plastic. At the same time, however, we find baskets in homes, stores, and other places in our contemporary world. Teachers might have students consider why we still find baskets in our world today and what purposes baskets serve in contemporary life. For example, baskets are often sold as tourist items, used as decoration, or collected as beautiful objects. They may still be used for storage and transportation, but the items stored and transported may be different from items held in baskets in the past. Some baskets are handcrafted, such as those shown in the video, while other contemporary baskets are made by machine. Basket making traditions travel with people as they move from one part of the world to another. Basket makers may need to adapt basket making when traditional materials are not available. The sweetgrass basket making tradition in North Carolina, for example, has its origins in the communities on the West Coast of Africa. Enslaved people from the West Coast of Africa continued their basket making tradition using the grasses they found in the Low Country of South Carolina. The Craft in America segment about Mary Jackson, a contemporary sweetgrass basket maker, references the history of this basket making tradition www.craftinamerica.org/shorts/mary-jackson-segment.
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
This lesson addresses the following standards. The performance standards listed here are directly related to the lessonâs goals.
- Anchor Standard #1. CREATING: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #8. RESPONDING: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
- Anchor Standard #10. CONNECTING: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.
- Anchor Standard #11. CONNECTING: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Resources
- Craft in America: CALIFORNIA episode viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episodes/california
- Encyclopedia Britannica www.britannica.com/art/basketry
- Grace Hudson Museum www.gracehudsonmuseum.org
- National Basketry Organization nationalbasketry.org for videos on various techniques, images of contemporary and traditional baskets, and information about basketry across the nation
- National Museum of the American Indian www.nmai.si.edu
Worksheets
Materials
- Collection of baskets from thrift shops or borrowed from community members that can be handled and inspected closely by students. The goal here is to have a diverse group of baskets that serve several different functions. Some examples used for everyday functions include picnic, laundry, bicycle, fishing, shopping, fruit, egg, and gathering baskets. Some baskets have special or ceremonial functions. An Easter basket is an example of such a basket. Other examples include Navajo wedding baskets and the ceremonial basket hats and caps of the Native people of the Pacific Northwest.
- A variety of Pomo baskets and baskets of various cultures: www.craftinamerica.org/object/baskets
- Stakes and Weavers – two weights of weaving materials. Stakes are a heavier weight used to form the structure of the basket. Weavers are lighter weight materials woven over and under the stakes or coiled around the stake material.
- Traditional, school-grade materials for weaving baskets consisting of cane, reed, sweetgrass, rattan, raffia palm, and straw.
- Alternative materials such as plastic bags, zip-ties, string, malleable wire, old VHS or audio tapes, and any other materials found in the studentsâ environment that could serve as strands or structural supports for basket weaving.
- Natural materials to be collected by students on school grounds or from home. Thin branches, long grasses, vines, corn husks.
- Buckets or basins of water to soften materials, if necessary.
- Strong scissors, side cutters, round-nosed pliers, and a bodkin or a strong knitting needle.
- Work gloves, which are especially useful when preparing natural materials.
Show students a handmade basket and engage them in a discussion. What is this? How do you know? Do you have baskets of your own or in your family? How do you or other members of your family use baskets? Have you ever made a basket? If so, how did you make it? What do you know about the history of baskets? How do you think baskets have been used in different parts of the world and throughout history?
Explain that in this lesson students will explore a variety of baskets, learn about basket making in one group of Native Americans living in Northern California, and create their own baskets–individually or with a small group of collaborators. Tell students that they will learn that baskets fulfill many practical uses and also play a role in special events or ceremonies. Refer to the Critical Questions and explain that as they work together to learn more about baskets and to make their own baskets, they should be able to discuss the following questions:
- Why do people make and use baskets?
- How do the forms, materials and techniques used in basket making connect to the time and place in which baskets are made?
- How do baskets convey meaning?
Provide students with a variety of actual baskets and images of baskets. Utilize the Craft in America image gallery provided for this lesson as well as acquired classroom examples. Have students inspect the baskets and prompt them to consider the questions found on the worksheet, Examining Basketry. Students may work alone, in pairs, or in small groups to complete the worksheet. Have students sort the baskets and compare and contrast them according to form, possible function, or materials. As students investigate the forms, materials, and possible functions of the baskets they should speculate about their artistic, geographical and cultural origins. At the completion of the worksheet students will have created a list of questions to be used while watching the video.
After students complete the worksheet, Examining Basketry, explain that they will view a segment of the Craft in America episode, CALIFORNIA. Tell students that the entire video focuses on craft artists and craft traditions in the state of California. The segment that they will see features a member of the Pomo people who are indigenous people of Northern California. The Pomo people are regarded as some of the worldâs finest basket makers. Pomo baskets are known for their beauty and for their exquisite craftsmanship. Pomo basket makers are both men and women, but the video features a woman, Corine Pearce. Ms. Pearce shares her own story of becoming a basket maker, and she also shares with us the process involved in creating baskets.
Make sure that students are prepared to take notes while the video is played. Suggest that as they watch the video, they should listen for and record answers to the questions generated on their worksheets while exploring the variety of baskets. Students also should consider the following critical questions:
- Why do people make and use baskets?
- How do the forms, materials and techniques used in basket making connect to the time and place in which baskets are made?
- How do baskets convey meaning?
Post these questions on the board or chart paper and review them with the students prior to viewing the video.
After Viewing
Begin a discussion of the video. Have students refer to the questions they generated after examining and sorting baskets. For each question, ask students to share what they learned through watching the video.
Discussion
- What questions do you still have?
- What did you find especially interesting?
- What are the steps in the process of making a Pomo basket?
- What part of the process in the creation of the baskets did you find most intriguing?
- What do you recall are key aspects of basket making for the Pomo people?
- How does the environment support the process of basket making for the Pomo basket makers?
- In what ways does the environment control or limit the process?
Finally, direct attention to the Critical Questions and have students discuss each:
- Why do people make and use baskets?
- How do the forms, materials and techniques used in basket making connect to the time and place in which baskets are made?
- How do baskets convey meaning?
Optional: Teachers might opt to provide the above questions for students to address in their sketchbooks as an overnight assignment. This works well with high school. After students answer the questions on their own and bring them to class, have them open their sketchbooks for their classmates to read. A shared electronic document also can be posted by teacher and students can contribute their answers. This helps preserve time for studio work.
After Discussion
Remind students that they will create their own baskets. Clarify the choices that students will be expected to make. They will need to make choices about the basketâs purpose, the materials they will use, and the basketâs form. Explain that these decisions are interrelated. The purpose of the basket is connected to its form. The materials used are also connected to both purpose and form. Explain that they will need to choose whether they will create a basket for their own personal use or for a communal use. Finally, they will need to decide if they will work individually or with others to create a basket.
Focus on Function
Remind students that around the world and throughout time baskets have fulfilled needs of people living in communities. People have used baskets to store seeds, gather eggs, transport apples and even babies. Ask students: What purpose might your basket serve your class community or you personally? Could it be storage for personal devices? Would you prefer to create a basket that will provide storage for a personal item? Could it hold or transport snacks for class events? Would you want to create a basket that serves an everyday function for the classroom? What special occasions or important life events could be marked with this basket?
As students come up with various needs a basket could fulfill, record them on the board or chart paper.
Focus on Materials
Remind students that they will need to choose materials for their baskets. What kind of materials do students have available to them? What is in their environment? Included in a studentâs environment could be the art room supply closet, home, local stores, exterior man-made areas, or out in nature. What alternative materials found in their environment, such as plastics or paper, could be prepared into strands for weaving? Give students time to reflect on their own and make notes on the worksheet, Meaning in Materials. Then using the information they gathered on the worksheet have students contribute to a shared list of ideas about materials.
Focus on Form
Remind students that they will need to make choices about the shape or form of their baskets. Have students make sketches of ideas for the shape of the basket they would like to create on the back of the worksheet or in a sketchbook.
Studio Production (three to five 45 minute class periods)
Preparing the Materials
Beginning with the decisions made by the class on the worksheets, have students prepare the materials and determine if they will create a class basket/s or individual personal baskets. Students will need to figure out how each material is to be prepped for weaving. Traditional basket weaving supplies may need to be soaked in water to allow for more malleability and control of the form. Plastics may need to be cut into strips. Papers may need to be twisted or rolled into long lengths. Materials found in nature may need to be dried or stripped of extraneous parts to create smooth strands. This is all part of the planning and should be student directed where age appropriate. For younger grades much of this work may need to be completed by the teacher.
Stakes and weavers should be determined. Remember that the stakes are the stronger, stiffer materials and the weavers are softer and can moved through and around the stakes.
Really, by the time you sit down and start weaving, you are almost finished.
-Sherrie Smith-Ferri, Curator, Grace Hudson Museumďťż
Weaving it all Together
When students have determined the purpose for, the materials they plan to use in making their baskets, and the shape of form they would like to create, they may begin the weaving process. Encourage students to explore the many instructional videos available online in order to determine the best process for completing their baskets and achieving the look they envision. Multiple weaving technique instructional videos can be found on the internet. The following is a good overall resource that provides basic instruction in basket making: feltmagnet.com/crafts/1975-Basketwork
Reflection
When baskets are completed, have the students put their baskets to use. Suggest that they place the items for which the basket was intended into their basket. Recommend that they actually carry the full basket from one place to another. If a communal basket was made have students use the basket together for its purpose.
In discussion or through a sketchbook reflection have students answer the following questions: How did it feel to use the basket? What aspects of the basket function well? What aspects of the basket do not function as expected? What words come to mind when you think about the materials you chose? Ask students to think about how their completed basket is similar to and different from the many baskets they have seen and thought about during this lesson. Encourage students to share with one or more classmates how they decided upon the function, materials and form of the basket they made. As a part of that conversation, suggest that they ask their classmate(s) to examine their baskets and share what meaning comes through to them. Remind students to consider if they were to make another basket, what would they do differently, what would they keep the same?
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson, by examining the studentsâ worksheets, and by witnessing the studentsâ studio work, it should be evident that the students:
- Connected their own work to the tradition of basket making.
- Articulated local materials and resources that could be used for basket making.
- Understand specific functions that baskets serve within a community.
- Are able to explain how their basket holds meaning and tells about the basketâs artistic, geographical, and cultural origins.
Extensions
Further exploration of the ideas of this lesson can be found in the Craft in America Education Guides and segments:
- Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: Weaving Together Content and Form
- Geeâs Bend and the Oriole Mill: Time and Textiles
- Mary Jackson’s segment from the MEMORY episode
Authors
The Educators Guide for CALIFORNIA was developed under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor Emerita of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Purpose and Planning is co-authored by Dolores E. Eaton and Marilyn Stewart, August, 2018.
The CALIFORNIA episode is supported in part by STOLAROFF FOUNDATION, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.
Painting With Fabric: How Two Artists Make Quilts
In this lesson, students will view two segments from Craft in Americaâs QUILTS episode and will meet artists Victoria Findlay Wolfe, who creates new designs by altering traditional quilt block patterns, and Michael A. Cummings, who creates quilted portraits of prominent African Americans. Both artists refer to their quilt making as similar to painting, and students hear about the process each uses. After viewing the episode, students will compare and contrast how the artists work, how their quilts are used, and from where the artists get their inspiration. Finally, students will make a paper patchwork design, choosing to alter a traditional patchwork design or create a collaged portrait of a notable subject.
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Painting with Fabric: How Two Artists Make Quilts
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Quilts Video Search
Worksheet #2 for Students
Studying the Art Quilts of Victoria Findlay Wolfe
Worksheet #3 for Students
Studying the Art Quilts of Michael A. Cummings
âI call quilting an extreme sportâŚI kind of get a physical rush when Iâm creating something.â
â Victoria Findlay Wolfe
Grade Level: 6â8
Estimated Time: four to five 45 minute class periods
Craft in America episode: QUILTS
Background Information
Victoria Findlay Wolfe has a fine art degree in painting but found her lifeâs passion in quilt making. Now a New York-based international award-winning quilter, fabric designer, teacher, author and lecturer, Findlay Wolfe is known for making quilts that look difficult to make, then teaching quilters to make them. Each quilt Findlay Wolfe makes pushes boundaries; supporting her premise that creativity requires risk. Findlay Wolfe was always fascinated by color, pattern, and design. Growing up in Minnesota, inspired by a creative mother and grandmother who was an avid quilt maker, she learned to quilt and sew at 4 years old. After training as a painter, she found her lifeâs passion to be quilting.
Michael A. Cummings is a nationally recognized quilter who lives and works in the historic Sugar Hill neighborhood of New York, NY. Self-taught, Cummings brought years of painting and collage skills to his quilt making. Inspired by jazz and working in the narrative tradition, Cummings and his sewing machine tell stories of the African American experience across historical, cultural, philosophical and mythical realms. Using vibrant colors, applique technique, and a sewing machine for the main body of the piece, he often embellishes the surface with hand embroidery and found objects. Stories involve celebrations of Josephine Baker, Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes, jazz music, mythical/historical characters, and commemorate historical events in African American history. Cummings views his quilts as giant collages, likening the process of construction to painting on canvas.
Key Concepts
- Some quilt artists choose to work within traditions; others choose to break with and change traditional designs to make new ones.
- Some quilts are intended as art objects and not used as blankets.
- Quilt artists may work in themes.
Critical Questions
- How can a traditional quilt design be altered to make a new one?
- How can quilts be used if not as a blanket?
- How can you discover a theme in a quilt artistâs work?
Objectives
Students will:
- Sketch a traditional quilt pattern and alter it to make it different.
- Create a paper quilt design that could be a plan for a non-functional quilt.
- Organize their paper quilt designs in groups with similar themes.
Vocabulary
Quilt, patchwork, batting, double knit, functional, portrait, diaspora
Interdisciplinary Connection
Social Studies: With Michael A. Cummingsâ work as inspiration, students choose notable African American individuals to feature in collaged patchwork portraits. This provides an opportunity for investigating notable individuals and important events in American history, especially those pertaining to African American history and culture. Also, as they study traditional American quilt block designs, students will encounter many stories detailing particular times and lives in American history.
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
- Visual Arts/Creating #VA:Cr2.2
Process Component: Investigate
Anchor Standard: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work. - Visual Arts/Presenting #VA:Pr.4.1
Process Component: Relate
Anchor Standard: Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation. - Visual Arts/Responding #VA:Re8.1
Process Component: Perceive
Anchor Standard: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Resources
- Craft in America QUILTS episode is viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episodes/quilts
- The National Quilt Collection at The National Museum of American History has a large selection of American quilt examples (and information about each) on its website:
www.si.edu/spotlight/national-quilt-collection - The home page of The National Museum of African American History and Culture website, features a section entitled âCollections Sampler,â that includes photographs of objects in the museumâs collection, such as the personal hymnal of Harriet Tubman, slave shackles, and a dress sewn by Rosa Parks. Each image is linked to information about individuals and/or events in African American history that could be the focus of quilts designed by students. www.si.edu/museums/african-american-museum
Worksheets
- Quilts Video Search
- Studying the Art Quilts of Victoria Findlay Wolfe
- Studying the Art Quilts of Michael A. Cummings
Materials
- Sketchbooks
- Pencils and colored pencils
- Paper for the final design: 12×18â or 24×36â are good sizes with room for lots of paper patches
- Colorful construction papers
- A plentiful supply of papers to re-use: magazines, newspapers, brown grocery bags, scraps of patterned giftwraps, patterned scrapbook papers, wallpaper samples, etc.
- Large-eyed needlesEmbroidery floss and/or crochet cotton (string) for embellishment
- Other assorted items for possible embellishment: Beads, buttons, sequins, patches, etc.
- White glue
- Scissors
- Rulers
- Permanent markers or paint pens
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
Students will view the segments from the QUILTS episode featuring Victoria Findlay Wolfe and Michael A. Cummings while answering the questions on the Quilts Video Search worksheet. Students will research and sketch information and ideas in their sketchbooks from two Smithsonian Museum websites, and develop their own ideas for a paper quilt design. Finally, students will create patched paper quilts in their choice of altered patchwork pattern or portrait of a notable person.
(Video and discussion: one 45 minute class period)
Before Viewing
Introduce the scope of the lesson to students, sharing the key concepts, critical questions, and objectives. Share a bit about what they will see. This is a good time to introduce the idea that the quilts Findlay Wolfe and Cummings make are not used as blankets. Hand out the Quilts Video Search worksheet and go over the questions. Allow students to work in teams so they can cooperatively gather the information as the video plays. You may want to stop the video when each answer is stated, to help students locate the information and give them time to write their responses.
After Viewing
Begin a discussion of the video. What did students find interesting? Go through the questions on the Quilts Video Search worksheet and have students share their answers. Answers follow here:
Discussion
Video section 1
1. Victoria Findlay Wolfe states, âEvery time I make a quiltâŚI want it to look different than the last thing.â
2. She is working with the traditional quilt pattern called, âDouble Wedding Ring.â
3. She says, âOnce the whole quilt top is completeâŚI could still cut it apart and turn it into something else.â
4. Her grandmother, Elda Wolfe, inspired her. Elda Wolfeâs brightly colored quilts were made from scraps of double knit fabrics (thick knitted fabric made from acrylic fiber) from clothes she sewed for the family.
5. Victoria Findlay Wolfe states, âI call quilting an extreme sportâŚI kind of get a physical rush when Iâm creating something.â
6. One prominent theme in Victoria Findlay Wolfeâs designs is taking inspiration from old quilt patterns and making them new by altering them. She says, âIâm keeping the bones of a traditional pattern but really just trying to tell another story.â
Video section 2
7. Michael A. Cummings added African fabrics, Hawaiian fabrics, safety pins, and keys to his portrait quilt of President Obama.
8. He states, âI just visualize the imagesâŚI just⌠with chalk ⌠start drawing the forms with proportions I feel will work and then pin it down and sew.â
9. Michael A. Cummings says that he is â âŚtrying to tell the story of African American history.â
10. Since he was sickly, Cummings explains, âThat led me to be by myself a lot, it kind of allowed my mind to drift into an imaginary sort of world where I could draw.â
11. After watching: His theme is portraits, and more specifically, portraits of prominent African Americans. He says, âMy theme changed to more narratives or historical connections with people and places and events.â
12. Students may find connections on their own here: They are colorful; some paintings have similar themes, etc. Wolfe states she works on her design wall trying out patches of fabric âvery much the way I would push paint around a canvas.â Cummings says, âLike a palette of paint I have a palette of fabricâŚâ After he made his first fabric collage he thought, ââThis looks like something I would have painted.â
Revisit the idea of how these quilts are used as artworks on a wall or as images that may honor or educate more than as blankets. This may provide a good discussion on the topic of functional objects.
After Discussion
Explain that students will have the opportunity to investigate ideas and processes related to the two quilt artists as they prepare to create their own quilt patterns. Hand out the Studying the Art Quilts of Victoria Findlay Wolfe worksheet, followed by the Studying the Art Quilts of Michael A. Cummings worksheet. Allow students to look at the websites for each and to sketch designs.
For the Studying the Art Quilts of Victoria Findlay Wolfe worksheet, first remind students that Victoria Findlay Wolfe was working with the traditional quilt design called, âDouble Wedding Ring.â Show students examples of this traditional pattern online. Help students identify the units of repeating blocks in the âDouble Wedding Ringâ examples. Suggest that they look for quilts at the Smithsonian Museum that feature geometric repeating quilt blocks such as those found in the âDouble Wedding Ringâ example.
For the Studying the Art Quilts of Michael A. Cummings worksheet, help students locate prominent individuals and important events represented by some of the objects on the homepage of The National Museum of African American History and Culture (for example, Marian Andersonâs concert dress or Carl Lewisâs Olympic jersey.)
Studio Production
(three to four 45 minute class periods)
After students have investigated the websites and have created some sketched ideas of quilt designs, have them choose a design to finalize as a paper-patched quilt. Provide a backing paper. A large sheet allows students room to work and can always be trimmed later if not filled. Demonstrate some ways of working. For example, paper can be torn or cut and formed into organic shapes. Or, rulers and stencils can be used to make clean-lined geometric shapes. Students can glue the pieces to the paper to form an overall design. After creating their paper collaged quilt image, show students how to add hand stitching using needle and thread on paper. Or, they can make zigzag style lines to resemble Michael A. Cummingsâs zigzag stitching. Show students how to add small embellishments with stitching or glue if they choose.
CLOSING STRATEGIES
Reflection
Have each student compose an artistâs statement to accompany the display of the paper quilt designs. Suggest that they include their theme and their source of inspiration. Ask students to decide if their design would be better for a functional item or as an art quilt to be hung on a wall, and to note that on their statement.
Have students view their work as a class and choose themes that the different works seem to fit. They may choose groups by color, subject matter, style, etc. Encourage them to arrange the works and display them according to the themes they detect. Students may wish to include an introduction to the exhibition in which they describe the videos from Craft In America, the two artists who served as inspiration for their own work, and other aspects of their artistic process as a group.
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson; by examining the studentsâ worksheets; and by witnessing the studentsâ studio work, it should be evident that the student:
- Sketched a traditional quilt design and altered it to make a new one.
- Created a paper quilt design that results from the investigation of the two artists.
- Organized their paper quilt designs in groups with similar themes.
- Answered whether their design would work better as a functional quilt (or other item) or as an art quilt.
Extensions
Extend this lesson by having students make small-sized quilts, using their paper designs as patterns. Students also might work in collaborative groups to make a small quilt for which they each contribute a quilt square, again based on their earlier research and investigations. A six or eight inch square would be a reasonable size, expense and difficulty-wise. Materials needed include sewing needles, scissors, spools of thread, fabric for backing, flannel or quilt batting, and fabric for the patchwork top. Seeking donations of fabric scraps from faculty and parents can help defray expenses and provide plenty of variety.
Authors
The Education Guide for QUILTS was developed under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor Emerita of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Lead author for Painting with Fabric: How Two Artists Make Quilts is Dr. Amy Albert Bloom, December, 2019.
History and Improvisation: Making American Music
In this lesson, students will view the MUSIC episode from the PBS series Craft in America. The episode features the skilled craftwork required to make ukuleles, trumpets, banjos, guitars, and timpani mallets. Students will hear musicians playing each of the instruments. Students will also hear the musicians talk about their personal connection to their instruments. Additionally, the program illustrates how a study of American music is a study of American history.
We play the same songs but the solos are different every night. The form is the same, but the improvisations are what is really what makes that music what it isâŚJazz is about being creative, all the time.
â Scotty Barnhart
DOWNLOAD SUPPORTING MATERIAL
Music
Full Guide & Worksheets
Background Information
Lesson Overview
for Teachers
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for Teachers
Further Information
Resources for Teaching
Vocabulary
Vocabulary & Key Terms
for Students
Discussion Questions
for Students
Worksheet #1
for Students
Worksheet #1
for Students
Discussion Questions
for Students
Grade Level: 9-12
Estimated Time: Six to eight 45-minute class periods of discussion, research, design
Background Information
MUSIC focuses on finely crafted handmade instruments and the world-renowned artists who play them, demonstrating the perfect blend of form and function. By exploring how various instruments are perfected, MUSIC also offers viewers a unique journey through our countryâs past, detailing the contributions of jazz and Appalachian roots music to the American cultural landscape, as well as the intersection of the guitar and political activism, and how the legacy of West African instruments is embedded in the American banjo. MUSIC features interviews and performances from Joan Baez, Rhiannon Giddens, Director of the Count Basie Orchestra Scotty Barnhart, banjo master Tony Ellis, L.A. Philharmonic timpanist Joseph Pereira, and virtuoso ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro. Instrument makers featured are Martin Guitar, Hartel Banjos, Monette trumpets, Stelling banjos, and Kamaka ukuleles.
Key Concepts
- American music traces the history and politics of the nation.
- Musicians have a personal connection to their instruments.
- Musical instruments can be made from everyday materials.
- Hand crafting can be used to refine the function and beauty of musical instruments.
Critical Questions
- In what ways does American music trace the history and politics of the nation?
- How do musicians demonstrate a personal connection to their instruments?
- How can musical instruments be made from everyday materials?
- Why is hand crafting important in the creation of many musical instruments?
Objectives
Students will:
- Trace connections between American music and American history and politics illustrated in the MUSIC episode.
- Analyze the personal connections musicians have to their instruments.
- Experiment to design a musical instrument from recycled materials.
- Describe how handcrafting techniques can refine the function, beauty, and meaning of a musical instrument.
Vocabulary
Ukulele, banjo, timpani, minstrel show, context, decontextualize, diaspora, prototype, sound board, acoustics, fingerboard, fret, inlay, articulate.
Interdisciplinary Connection
- Music: The study of various aspects of music is embedded throughout the lesson.
- Technical Education: The maker space movement brings together art, design, and technology to form an interactive, experimental space in which creation can happen. Technical Education teachers may help to provide expertise about materials, equipment, and tools that make for a rich and productive maker space.
- History/Social Studies: This lesson contains an investigation of minstrel shows in 19th century America, and also looks at the history of the ukulele in Hawaii, the origins of jazz, and the role of the guitar in political protests.
- Science/Physics: Students will be experimenting with acoustics and the ways in which altering materials affects changes in sounds. A physics teacher can help students investigate the science behind those changes.
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
- Document the process of developing ideas from early stages to fully elaborated ideas. (VA:Cn10.1HS1)
- Use multiple approaches to begin creative endeavors. (VA:Cr1.1HSI)
- Appraise the impact of an artist or a group of artists on the beliefs, values, and behaviors of a society. (VA:Cn11.1HSIII)
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Resources
- Craft in America DVD, MUSIC. Also viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episode/music
- Craft in America website: www.craftinamerica.org
- Rhiannon Giddensâ website: www.rhiannongiddens.com
- History of minstrelsy on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
- Joan Baezâs website: www.joanbaez.com
- Jake Shimabukuroâs website includes video of his ukulele performances as well as more information: www.jakeshimabukuro.com
- The Martin Guitar site has downloadable magazines about acoustic guitars and other information worth exploring: www.martinguitar.com
Worksheets
- Musical History
- Innovative Instruments
Materials
- Access to online resources for research
- Drawing paper
- Pencils, erasers, rulers, and other drawing tools
Maker Space
A maker space is an area outfitted with tools and materials for experimentation and exploration with a design purpose. In this lesson, the maker space is inspired by Scotty Barnhartâs description of jazz, and the constant innovation within that musical form. In the maker space, students will innovate and transform recycled finds into instruments that produce sound. Developing a maker space, whether on a cart or in a devoted area of the art room, will prove continually useful. Consider hand tools and equipment such as glue guns, staple guns, hand drills, small saws, screwdrivers, a variety of fasteners, screws, nails, cords, twine, zip ties, awls, glues and tapes, and paints. Collect scrap materials including recycled scrap such as old CDs, pieces of wood, metal, plastic tubing, plastic parts, old toys that can be dismantled, construction materials, fabric and textile scraps, corks, clothespins, and similar materials.
Note: More materials are listed with the banjo instructions. For banjos, cardboard candy chocolate boxes, metal cookie tins, and wooden cigar boxes are all useful. There are examples online of each of these used to make banjos.
- References to the history and politics of instruments and music.
- Descriptions of musiciansâ personal connections to their instruments.
- Words and phrases used to describe how instrument make sounds.
- Hand decorating on instruments: Create quick sketches of these.
- History and Politics: Ask students if they noted stories about the heritage of the ukulele, the banjo, and jazz music in America. What stories do the Kamakas tell about the ukulele? How did the ukulele get its name?
Scotty Barnhart states, âJazz was created by African Americans in this country who were not even looked upon as full human beings by the constitution. And here they are creating something thatâs timeless; that had no precedent in western art.â From this quote, what can students determine about the place in society of African Americans in the 19th century? How does Barnhart define jazz music?
Musicologist William L. Ellis says, âThe African diaspora gave us the banjo in America. There are many prototypes of the banjo that come with the slave trade.â What kinds of materials do you imagine were used to make these early banjos?
Joan Baez shares a story about being called a âcommunist.â What is the dictionary definition of the word âcommunist?â What are the various social meanings of the word âcommunist?â Examine the lyrics from Joan Baezâs songs, available at her website. Find a song that you believe has political content, and share the lyrics. What are the words that give you the sense of Baezâ opinion on a particular issue?
Joan Baez says that, âPeople say that music changes the world. And it does. But the guitar and the songs have to be backed up by actionâŚâ What are some changes Baez attempted and attempts to inspire with her music? Can you think of a popular song today that inspires political or social change?
- Musicians and Instruments: Scotty Barnhart says of his new trumpet, âIt will tell my life story.â How will it tell his story? In what way do his choice of figures to decorate his trumpet refer to his statement about the history of jazz?
Barnhart also says of his Monette trumpet, âWorking with Daveâs instruments, Iâm not struggling with it, Iâm not fighting it. This is how itâs supposed to be. I just play, as if Iâm breathing.â How does the special crafting of the trumpet make that possible?
Casey Kamaka claims that the well-made ukulele âhas soulâ and that it âcomes alive.â Jake Shimabukuro says of the ukuleles that âTheyâre sensitiveâŚthey respond to everything you do.â What do Kamakaâs and Shimabukuroâs statements say about the connection of musicians to their instruments?
In what way is guitar designer Emily Meixellâs statement similar? She says, âGreat guitars will bring songs out of you, and I think the emotional part of that is what makes Martins so loved.â
What is Joan Baezâ favorite guitar, and why? What story does Joan Baez tell that proves her strong personal connection to her old Martin guitar? Do you think the hand crafting of the instruments plays a part in all of the musicianâs statements about them? If so, in what way?
- Sounds and Construction: Timpanist Joseph Pereira says, âI have a ton of mallets, but the more refined you get in thinking about sounds, the more you want to dig deeper into getting the sound that you want⌠Trying to get the right sound is endless.â Do the student musicians in the class feel the same way?
What other personal pursuits and art forms can you think of in which the process of perfecting might be described as âendless?â Do you think Pereira enjoys that pursuit? Pereira describes a timpanic sound as a âbig ringing dark sound.â
Mallet maker Jason Ginter uses words such as âarticulateâ and âbrightâ to describe a particular kind of mallet on the timpani. Can you think of any music that fits these descriptions?
Emily Meixell says of guitar construction, âIf this x-brace is moved up, itâs going to sound different. Even half an inch.â
Casey Kamaka says of building a ukulele that âas you lighten these braces up and you adjust the shapes of them, acoustically it starts to come alive.â
Geoff Stelling describes checking a finished banjo: âI have to tell if the neck angle is correctâŚthe bridge position has to be within a thousandth of an inch. The string height has to be correct.â
Meixellâs, Kamakaâs, and Stellingâs comments are all about proportions in construction. Do they give you ideas do about how you might experiment with materials to make an instrument? What kinds of processes do you think will make a difference in the sounds?
- Decorations: Tony Ellis says of banjos that they are âone of the most ornamented instruments. Itâs probably because of the old Dixieland bands, where they actually put lights inside the banjo to shine through the head⌠so the banjo became a really flashy instrument.â What other instrument decorations did you note, and how were they crafted?
How does Rhiannon Giddensâ banjo differ in appearance from the Stelling banjo? Why does she want this kind of banjo?
What iconic symbols will decorate Barnhartâs trumpet? Who would you feature on an instrument? How would you symbolize that person?
After Discussion: Investigation (one or two 45-minute class periods)
Worksheet: Musical History
American historyâs not all bad and itâs not all good. You know, itâs a mixture of things and thatâs what minstrelsy is.
â Rhiannon Giddens
The minstrel show in America is a complex history of racism and entertainment. However, Rhiannon Giddens values many of the minstrel show musical forms, particularly the extensive use of the banjo. But she is mindful of presenting the music with the history intact; of not âerasingâ the tragedies of racism of which the minstrel shows were born and the racist beliefs which the shows actually celebrated. Wikipedia has an extensive entry on the 19th century popularity of minstrel shows and its various forms. Examine the information ahead of time, and print out (or use online) this resource with students. Allowing students to work in groups will be helpful, so they may discuss their responses.
Introduce students to the topic by asking what they know about minstrel shows. Share some descriptions of minstrel shows. Share Giddensâ quote about studying minstrelsy and uncovering its musical forms that,
The history keeps me there⌠the desire to recast some of this music in a modern light, and figure out how to do it without completely decontextualizing it so that the music is not completely divorced from the context from which it came.
Help students to unpack that quote by defining decontextualize. Her song âJulieâ (also available on YouTube) is the story of a white female slave owner who is mystified by the slave Julieâs desire to leave her home. Have students listen to the song, and provide copies of the lyrics for study after listening. Place students in groups for completing the worksheets. Discuss the worksheet responses when students are finished.
Discussion
Have students share their answers to the worksheet Musical History in a group discussion. As a segue into studio work, share and discuss the four sketch prompts that students will consider on the next worksheet: Innovative Instruments.
Worksheet: Innovative Instruments
Students will brainstorm using the worksheet, followed by three or four 45-minute periods for studio exploration in the maker space.
Studio Production (four 45-minute class periods)
The soundboard is the main component⌠You still need the strength, but you still need the flexibility for the vibration to be able to traverse across the top. But as you lighten these braces up and you adjust the shapes of them up, acoustically it starts to come alive.
â Casey Kamaka, speaking about Kamaka ukuleles
As students prepare to have an inventive session of studio production, share Kamakaâs quote, and remind them of the measuring and adjusting quotes from the film (some are listed above under âsounds and construction.â) Students should start in the maker space to explore on their own or in teams, and to experiment with how to make sounds with different materials. How does the sound change when they move a part or stretch a string? Remind students to consider how they might decorate their inventions in aesthetically pleasing or meaningful ways. In a maker space, one important lesson is that failure is okay, and a path to discovery. Therefore, you may want to encourage students to embrace process over finished product. Such stories of process can also make an interesting video (see reflection activity.) Have students use the Innovative Instruments worksheet, throughout the process, and return to the worksheet to complete it when finished.
Students may also choose to make a box banjo using these instructions as a guide. This banjo can be made from a sturdy cardboard candy box, a wooden cigar box, or a metal cookie tin. The cardboard box is easiest to use for cutting the required openings, but the wood and metal versions are sturdier and produce a more resonant sound. General directions are given, but students should be encouraged to search online for variations on these homemade instruments, and to experiment with materials and measurements.
Materials for Candy Box Banjo
- A cardboard candy box such as one that holds assorted chocolates; 9âx11âx2.5â (2-pound size) works well, but the smaller 1-pound size also works. These boxes can provide two banjo bases by using the lid and the bottom separately.
- Piece of wood for the neck/fingerboard, 32âx2âx0.75â
- Piece of wood for the bridge, 3âx1.75âx0.5â Note: both wood pieces can vary in size; these are guidelines.
- Nylon fishing line (40 lb. is sturdy and works well; anything below 20lb strength is too thin.)
- 2 large screw eyes
- 2 small nails
- Hot glue gun
- Hammer
- Small hand saw
Use the lid of the candy box. (The base can make a second banjo.) The neck will be threaded through the box. On the short end of the box lid, trace and cut the outline of the short end of the wood neck piece. This should be placed directly next to the top of the box. Cut the exit opening for the neck at the opposite end of the box lid. Thread the neck piece through the box. Hammer two small nails near the lower end of the neck, about 1 inch apart. The strings will be tied here. Saw two 0.25â deep slots for strings along one long edge of the bridge piece, about 1â apart. Twist the screw eyes into the upper neck piece, about 1â apart, 2 inches below the top edge.
Cut two long lengths of fishing line for strings. Tie each to a nail at the bottom of banjo. Tie each tightly to a screw eye. Place bridge on the banjo box, beneath the strings. Stand bridge upright, arrange the strings in the slots. Glue the bridge in place on the box (but do not glue the strings.) To tighten strings, twist the screw eyes. Banjo may now be played.
CLOSING STRATEGIES
Reflection
If possible, have students shoot video of their classmates playing the instruments and talking about how they created, or tried to create them. Students may plan their performances and film each other, using a similar style to the Craft in America program they have recently viewed.
Some suggestions for video prompts include:
- What is the instrument you created?
- How did you get the idea?
- Did anything go wrong in making it? What did you learn by making this?
- Can you explain the decorations on the instrument?
- What did you find most memorable about the MUSIC episode we watched? Did any of the musicians or instrument designers inspire you?
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson; by examining the studentsâ worksheets; by witnessing the studentsâ experimentation and designing, and by viewing the reflection video, it should be evident that the student has:
- Delineated the connections between American music and American history and politics illustrated in the MUSIC episode.
- Researched and analyzed the emotional and physical connections musicians have to their instruments.
- Experimented and designed a musical instrument from collected and recycled loose parts.
- Used hand crafting techniques to refine the function and beauty of a musical instrument.
Extension
Students may decide to further refine their instruments, or try different constructions. There are many online sources devoted to homemade instruments, particularly banjos and guitars:
Authors
The Educators Guide for MUSIC was developed by art educators Dr. Amy Albert Bloom and Ms. Dolores Eaton under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Lead Author for History and Improvisation is Dr. Amy Albert Bloom, November 2015.
Documents of Democracy
In this lesson, students view two segments from the Craft In America DEMOCRACY episode. Students watch calligrapher Sammy Little inscribe a quote from the Declaration of Independence and curator Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D., of the National Museum of African American History and Culture shows a patchwork-lettered quilt, one of many museum objects that help to educate citizens about the history of African Americans and the past and present of racism in the United States. After considering the meaning and making of these works, students create a text-based work in calligraphy or stitched lettering that documents an event or commemorates an ideal about the United States.
Grade Level: 8â12
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Documents of Democracy
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Background Information
Lesson Overview
Vocabulary
Vocabulary & Key Terms
Discussion Questions
for Students
Further Information
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Teaching Tips
for Teachers
Worksheet #1
Looking at Crafts
Comparing and Contrasting American Experiences
Worksheet #2
Crafting as a Democratic
Practice
Worksheet #3
Curating as a Democratic
Practice
âFeeling that connection to those times is a wonderful way to appreciate our history; our democracy.â
â Sammy Little
LESSON OVERVIEW
Grade Level: 8â12
Estimated Time: three or more 45 minute class periods
Craft In America Theme/Episode: DEMOCRACY
Background Information
This episode contains numerous segments featuring various artists, curators, representatives of arts organizations, and viewers of artworks. The names listed here are featured in the lesson.
- Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D., Curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture ⢠Sammy Little, Artist (calligraphy)
- Robert L. Lynch, President, Americans for the Arts
- Timothy Matlack, Engrosser (1736â1829)
- Jessie B. Telfair, Artist (quilt) (1913â1986)
Key Concepts
- The history of the United States can be learned through its crafts.
- Artists can use craft as a means of political expression.
- Artworks can be documents of times and events.
Critical Questions
- How can crafts teach us about the history of the United States?
- How do artists use craft as a means of political expression?
- Why are some artworks documents of times and events?
Objectives
Students will:
- Describe a facet of United States history using a crafted item as evidence.
- Give an example of an individual using craft as a means of political expression.
- Create an artwork that documents a time or event.
Vocabulary
Democracy, juxtapose, document, illuminate, curate, letterform, engross, font, calligraphy, parchment, vellum.
Interdisciplinary Connection
- Social Studies: This lesson looks at how handcrafted artworks can become documents of times and events, and how political messages may take different forms. It specifically examines the Declaration of Independence.
- Language Arts: This lesson encourages: Examination of historic hand written documents, comparing and contrasting texts, comparing and contrasting the expressive qualities of fonts, various ways of crafting a powerful message, and articulating a point of view.
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
- Visual Arts/Creating #VA:Cr3.1.8a
Process Component: Reflect Refine Continue
Anchor Standard: Refine and complete artistic work.
- Visual Arts/Presenting #VA:Pr6.1.Ia
Process Component: Share
Anchor Standard: Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work. - Visual Arts/Responding #VA:Re7.2.IIa
Process Component: Perceive
Anchor Standard: Visual imagery influences understanding of and responses to the world. - Visual Arts/Connecting #VA:Cn11.1.Ia
Process Component: Relate
Anchor Standard: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
Resources and Materials for Teaching Resources
- Craft in America DEMOCRACY (viewed in this order):
1. Calligrapher Sammy Little
2. National Museum of African American History and Culture Curator, Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D.
Multiple images of the following for individual and group work:
- The Declaration of Independence. Look for a close up of the lines, âWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happinessâ: archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration
- Freedom quilt, artist Jessie B Telfair. Found here: nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2017.40
Useful websites:
- The National Archives site featuring the Declaration of Independence: archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration
- An online archive of letterforms and calligraphy with collections and essays: letterformarchive.org
- The home page of The National Museum of African American History and Culture website: si.edu/museums/african-american-museum
Worksheets
- #1: Looking at Crafts: Comparing and Contrasting American Experiences
- #2: Crafting as a Democratic Practice
- #3: Curating as a Democratic Practice
Materials
- Paper for sketching
- Pencils, colored pencils, and markers
- 12×18 inch (or larger) paper for calligraphy and lettering work
- Calligraphy markers (chisel pointed)
- Or, pen holders, nibs, and bottles of ink
- Another option: chisel-edged paintbrushes used with ink, tempera, or watercolor paints
- Embroidery option: 12 inch squares (or larger) of sturdy cotton fabrics, embroidery floss, embroidery needles, embroidery hoops for stretching fabric.
- Calligraphy and embroidery booklets with illustrations are helpful for studio work; also helpful are YouTube videos showing these techniques.
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
Information for the teacher: This lesson focuses on three important American artworks that serve as documents; that is, actual recorded material or responses to events:
- The original engrossed (calligraphic) Declaration of Independence (and a contemporary artistâs recreation of a line from the document)
- A patchwork quilt spelling the word âFREEDOMâ and made by an individual with a response to a personal life event.
Each tells students something about American ideals and about American history. All three feature words. The texts are hand written, carved, or formed from patchwork fabric squares. The Declaration records the founding ideals of the government of the United States. A citizen sewed the quilt as a protest against her unequal treatment when she tried to engage in her right to vote. When juxtaposed, these works can pro- vide context for the experiences of Americans and may inform and complicate studentsâ initial response to each work.
First, the students will view images of the works together and address some questions about them. Then students will view the videos. Students can then fill out Worksheet #1, which asks them to compare the works again and consider them more deeply. Worksheet #2 has students choose a direction for their own work, to be created in the studentsâ choice of calligraphy or embroidery. Worksheet #3 encourages students to curate their work as a cooperative practice.
(Video and discussion: one 45 minute class period)
Before Viewing
Introduce the scope of the lesson to students, sharing the key concepts, critical questions, and objectives. At this point it can be helpful for students to work in pairs or small groups to increase discussion and sharing viewpoints.
Have students examine the artworks. Three questions may be helpful for the class to think about:
- What do you think each work represents? Students will likely recognize the Declaration. Note: Students may be interested to know who actually hand wrote the Declaration. It is believed that The Declaration of Independence was drafted (hand written) by Thomas Jefferson and then finally engrossed (written in a large, neat hand) by Timothy Matlack, a Philadelphia brewer and an assistant to the Secretary of the Congress: archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration/how-was-it-made
- The Freedom quilt will likely be the least familiar. Ask, What do you think the quilt represents?
- Who do you think might have made the quilt? Why was it made? (Students will discover this when watching the episode segments.)
Have students view the segments in the Craft in America DEMOCRACY episode.
After Viewing
You may want to ask for studentsâ general responses to the segments. Note: Students may be curious to know additional information about the quilt. In the 1960s, Jessie B. Telfair was fired from her job as an elementary school cafeteria worker in Parrott, Georgia when her employers found out that she had registered to vote. In the 1970s she created the Freedom quilt as a response to what had happened to her. She later stitched two additional Freedom quilts, however the two later quilts have an additional line, repeating the word âFREEDOMâ seven times instead of six.
Distribute Worksheet #1: Looking at Crafts: Comparing and Contrasting American Experiences. Students may wish to work alone, with a partner, or in small teams so they can discuss their responses. Responses will likely be based on opinion rather than having a single correct answer. After students respond individually or with others, hold a large group discussion in which students share their ideas.
Studio Investigations
Worksheet #2 leads students towards their own design. They look closely (again) at the lettering on the artworks. They think about what they want to say that documents an event or commemorates an ideal about the United States in their studio project, and then plan their project.
Inform students that they will have the opportunity to create their own text-based artwork to document an event or commemorate an ideal about the United States. Explain that Worksheet #2: Crafting and as a Democratic Practice, will assist them in thinking about and planning their artwork.
Studio Production
(two or more 45 minute class periods)
Help students make decisions and refine their ideas. A demonstration of basic calligraphy and of basic embroidery would be helpful for students; they also can find interesting tutorials on YouTube for either approach. It may be useful to spend some time as a whole class practicing both techniques. This will allow students to get a feel for both, and to choose the one they find workable.
For calligraphy, students should grid their paper with very light pencil, making lines on which to place the lettering. They can achieve better results if they also very lightly draw their letters in pencil before inking or painting them.
For embroidery, separating 6-strand floss into 3 strands works well as a thread thickness. Students can draw their work out first on paper, and then use a light table to trace the letters lightly on the fabric. Show them how to stretch their fabric in the hoop. Backstitch, chain stitch, or running stitch all work well for lettering.
Finished embroidery may be lightly pressed on the wrong side. It may be carefully wrapped neatly around a suitable size of mat board. The raw edges can be taped to the back of the board.
CLOSING STRATEGIES
Reflection and Display
Allow students to examine each otherâs artworks. Introduce students to Worksheet #3, Curating as a Democratic Practice. On this worksheet, students consider curating and how a work they create might be part of a museum exhibit someday.
Ask the class to imagine a show of all their works at a Smithsonian museum: Do they see certain works having a big impact on viewers? Why or why not? Ask the class to imagine themselves fifty years from now. How old will they be? What do they imagine about the importance of the works in that time? Might they be more or less important or relevant? What will the works say about this moment in time? Have the class work together to curate a show of the projects. As they arrange the works, do some works seem to complement each other? Are some in opposition to each other? What do they want the show to be titled?
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson, by examining the studentâs worksheets, and by witnessing the studentsâ studio proposal, it should be evident that the student:
- Described a facet of United States history using a crafted item as evidence.
- Gave an example of an artist using craft as a means of political expression.
- Created an artwork that documents a time or event.
Extensions
The DEMOCRACY episode features more content that students may wish to explore. You may choose to show the entire video for further exploration and inspiration.
The Craft in America QUILTS episode features quilter Michael A. Cummings, who creates patched portraits of famous African Americans as a way to document and commemorate their achievements.
Authors:
The Education Guide for DEMOCRACY was developed under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor Emerita of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Lead author for Documents of Democracy is Dr. Amy Albert Bloom, July, 2020.
Worksheet #1: Looking at Crafts: Comparing and Contrasting American Experiences
Thinking about the video you watched, and examining the packet of images, respond to the following questions:
- A document is a recordâa noun. To document also can be a verb, meaning to record. Consider each artwork: Is it a record of something? If so, what? Who does the ârecordingâ for each artwork?
- To illuminate means to shine a light. It also can mean to decorate or highlight, as in a fancy lettering style. Consider each artwork: Does it shine a light on something? What distinguishes the design of the artwork?
- Imagine any of the artworks in a different lettering style. Can you imagine a font that would change the feel of the work?
- To juxtapose means to place things side by side. Juxtapose the image of the Freedom quilt next to the engrossed quote beginning âWe hold these truths…â Consider the meaning of each viewed individually. How does the meaning shift when the two are placed next to each other?
- What does each artwork say about democracy? Do you think it might mean something different to different people? Does it say something that can be hard to describe or talk about?
Worksheet #2: Crafting as a Democratic Practice
Thinking about Letterforms:
âSometimes I want to get various edges, and shading. It kind of breathes a different life into the ink, into the letter.â
â Sammy Little
In each of the three artworks you examined, the letters were created using a different process and in a different style. One was drawn on parchment, one was carved in stone, and one was stitched together from cloth patches. Look closely at the artworks and sketch one letter from each below:
- A calligraphy letter from the Declaration of Independence, or from Sally Littleâs recreation of the line beginning âWe hold these truths…â
- A patchwork letter from the Freedom quilt (For this, look carefully at the patched letter to find the seams. It is made up of squares and triangles.)
What mood or feeling does the style of letter seem to express?
How does the style of the letter suit or âfitâ with the artwork?
What font or lettering style is your favoriteâone that you enjoy using? Do you think it would be suitable for the project of a text-based artwork in calligraphy or stitched lettering? Keep in mind that your project is meant to document an event or commemorates an ideal about the United States. How might the style of your lettering affect the impact of your message?
Crafting a work about Democracy:
âIn a participatory democracy in my opinion itâs a citizen obligation to understand what you value for yourself, your family, your community, and to talk with your elected decision makers because youâve got some ideas and input.â
â Robert L. Lynch
Imagine an artwork you will create, informed by what you have examined; a crafted document. What will you document? Think about some words, messages, or phrases that you might like to depict. You could be inspired by what you have examined and thought about in this lesson. Maybe a moment in U.S. history interests you. Your words or phrases could be a memorial, or a political expression such as the quilt. Sketch what you might do here and on the back of the paper.
Would you like to use calligraphy or embroidery to create your work? How will your design and letter choices affect or enhance the strength of your document? What meaning are you hoping to convey?
Worksheet #3: Curating as a Democratic Practice
Thinking about curating:
âThe National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the places where we help people grapple with the legacy of race that started with enslavement of black people in this country.â
â Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D.
Curating involves selecting and arranging objects; for example, choosing what to display and how to display it
in a gallery or museum, or arranging one of your collections on a bookshelf. It also involves providing context or descriptions for what is displayed. Think about the artwork you are planning. Can you imagine it in a Smithsonian Museum? What might viewers think of your idea fifty years from now?
- Working with your classmates, decide on a title for your exhibit.
- Decide where you would like the exhibit to be: A hallway? The cafeteria? Online?
- Create a form for each work: An index card could work well. Decide on a format, for each artist in the class to use as to fill out their information. You might want to include:
1. Name of artist
2. Title of work
3. Description of materials (for example, Ink and paper; cotton) 4. Size of work
5. Date of creation (This is usually just the year.)
6. Anything else? You could also add an artistâs statement.
Julie Chen: Thinking Outside the Book
In this lesson students will view the work of contemporary book artist Julie Chen. Through investigating Julie Chenâs non-traditional approach to bookmaking and the process she employs, students will contemplate and discuss the definition of a book, consider how books are made, collaborate and brainstorm ways to push the boundaries of books, and explore books as sculpture. Students will create their own artist books that have personal meaning and go beyond the confines of a traditional book.
In my mind, I’m trying to give the viewer/reader an experience that has to do with reading, that has to do with a one-on-one physical experience with the object.
– Julie Chen
Even though I’m getting more and more away from physical book structures, it’s still solidly in my mind, a book.
– Julie Chen
DOWNLOAD SUPPORTING MATERIAL
PROCESS: Julie Chen
Full Guide & Worksheets
Background Information
Lesson Overview
Teaching Tips
for Teachers
Further Information
Resources for Teaching
Vocabulary
Vocabulary & Key Terms
Discussion Questions
for Students
Worksheet #1
for Students
Worksheet #2
for Students
LESSON OVERVIEW
Grade Level: 8-12
Estimated Time: Seven 45 minute class periods
Background Information
People have long found ways to record and communicate information, from writing on stone, wood, and clay tablets in the earliest times, to using papyrus and parchment for scrolls. Scrolls evolved into early forms of books. Rare and valued for their exquisite beauty, books were written and constructed by hand with handmade materials, and each book was a unique creation or a copy of an existing book. Multiple copies were handmade prior to the invention of the printing press in about 1440, which has evolved into the production methods we know today.
Despite available technology that allows for multiple copies and wide distribution, some artists still craft books by hand. Most handmade books fall within a continuum where, at one end you find more traditional forms and, at the other end, are structures that push the boundaries of what it means to be a book.
Julie Chen playfully pushes the conceptual limits of books. Always mindful of the reader who will interact with her structures, she selects papers to delight the eye and appeal to the touch, while creating forms that function as âvesselsâ for text, images, ideas and meaning. The element of surprise is integral to her booksâwhat might be anticipated as a âpageâ emerges as three-dimensional sculptural space. In one work, Bon Bon Mots, a superbly crafted âcandyâ box opens to reveal five small sculptural forms; each is a book in its own right, albeit a book that seems much more like a toy than a book. Despite the nontraditional forms, the text in Chenâs creations is letterpress printed. Even as she explores unconventional structures, Julie Chen maintains the longstanding bookmaking tradition in which exquisite craftsmanship is the norm.
Key Concepts
- Artists sometimes explore conceptual boundaries of art forms.
- During the process of making art, artists often consider how the viewer will experience the artwork.
- A book can be considered a three-dimensional artwork – a sculpture – that has both content and form.
- Some artists allow for new ideas and directions to gradually enter into the art-making process.
Critical Questions
- What is a book?
- When is a book a work of visual art?
- Why might it be important for the artist to consider the viewer when planning and creating an art book?
Objectives
Students will:
- Explore the parts and defining characteristics of a book.
- Compare and contrast traditional books with the books of Julie Chen.
- Investigate nontraditional structures for books.
- Create a book with personal meaning that goes beyond the confines of a traditional book.
Vocabulary
Artistâs Book, Prototype
Interdisciplinary Connection
Language Arts, History/Social Studies
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
Content Standard:
1. Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes
2. Using knowledge of structures and functions
3. Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas
5. Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Resources
- Craft in America DVD, PROCESS episode DVD. Also viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episode/process
- Craft in America website, www.craftinamerica.org
- Julie Chenâs website, www.flyingfishpress.com
- Vamp and Tramp Bookseller: www.vampandtramp.com
Worksheets
- Amazing Books
- From Prototype to Final Book
Materials for Studio Production
- Various packaging materials for students to consider as book structures
- Old hardbound books to be âguttedâ and used for structure
- A variety of colors, textures, and weights of paper
- Pencils, rulers, compasses
- A variety of color writing implements
- Paints, brushes
- Newspapers, cardboard
- Collage materials
- Glue, rubber cement, double sided tape
- Exacto knives and scissors
What makes a Book a Book? (one 45 minute class period)
Invite students to discuss the parts and defining characteristics of a book. Make use of these and similar prompts: Must a book have pages, a cover, or a spine? Is there an optimal size or shape? What about how it âworks?â Should it open and close? Does it need to tell a story or communicate ideas and/or information? Can something be a book without having text? Can something be a book without having images? What about materials? Are there certain materials out of which books must be made? As students address these and other questions, urge them to provide examples that they have seen or that are in the classroom.
Prior to viewing the DVD, tell students that they will view a visit with Julie Chen, a contemporary book artist living in California. Explain that Julie Chenâs work challenges traditional definitions of books and bookmaking. Suggest that students keep in mind their discussion of the defining characteristics of a book as they view the video segment.
View the segment on Julie Chen on the Craft in America: PROCESS DVD or online at www.craftinamerica.org/short/julie-chen-segment and then discuss the following:
In what ways are Julie Chenâs books traditional? In what ways do her books challenge traditional definitions of books and bookmaking?
How are Books Made? (one 45 minute class period)
How does Julie Chen make her books?
Review the bookmaking materials, tools and techniques observed during the video segment. (The artist uses paper of different colors, weights, textures, and patterns; works with hand-operated and computer-generated cutting tools; a computer, and printing press).
Review the process the artist engages in when creating a book. (While planning and designing, she allows her ideas to evolve and change; she creates a mock-up, prints the separate pieces and then puts them together for the final book, making 100 editions of each book.)
Refer to what the artist says about how she works with ideas. Help students understand that the artist often begins with an idea, but allows her ideas to change during the process of working.
What seems to be important to the artist in creating her books?
Return to the DVD and view segments where she describes her books. Consider her book, Panorama. Ask, How is it made? (three folded sections, alternates informative text with pop-ups for âmeditations on the beauty of the planetâŚ.a break.â) How did the artist incorporate text in Panorama? (She added text to folded sections that alternate with pop-up pages.) How does she incorporate text in True to Life? (She created sliding pages, allowing the text to appear as the reader slides them up or down.)
Julie Chen says that it is important that every detail of the book contributes to the overall meaning. Ask students to talk about where they see evidence of this approach in the artistâs books.
Students will find other books by the artist at the Flying Fish Press website. Suggest that they pay attention to the construction of each book as well as how the artist incorporates text and images.
Julie Chen says that an artistâs book âis a book made by an artist with the intention that the book itself is the work of art.â Do you agree with this definition? Why or why not?
How Do Other Artists Make Books?
Explore different book forms. Do an online search. For example, students can view a large collection of artistsâ books at Vamp and Tramp Booksellers
Have students use the Amazing Books worksheet as they engage in an online image search for the following book forms: accordion or concertina books, fan books, tunnel books, scrolls, altered books, miniature books, venetian blind books, and pop-up books. Students can also search online to find âhow-toâ sites for various book forms.
How can we push the âboundariesâ of the book?
After students have viewed many different examples of artistsâ books, suggest that they brainstorm answers to the following questions:
What can one do with the overall book? Think about shape, size, form and materials, for example. Possible answers include:
- Experiment with shape; for example, round, square, oblong, organic shape, geometric shapes, recognizable shapes such as a boat.
- Experiment with size; for example, very, very large, very, very small, and everything in between.
- Experiment with form; for example, a standard form (that is, it looks like a âregularâ book) or all sorts of sculptural forms.
- Use different materials; for example, cardboard, corrugated cardboard, paper of all weights and textures, fabric of all weights and textures, leather of different thicknesses, wood of different types and thicknesses, foam-core, metal foils such as copper or aluminum, etc.
What can one do with a page? Possible answers include:
- Draw, paint and/or print on it. Make a collage of it. Create one or more pop-ups. Cut out windows to the page behind or before it. Emboss it. Make it an unusual shape. Fold it. Sew into it.
Finally, to help students push the boundaries of ordinary books even further, have them use objects from daily life as catalysts for ideas. For example, suggest that students consider the packaging that comes with cameras and other electronics, with CDs, toys, tools, kitchen matches and even certain foods. Suggest that they look to the packaging to find a framework for a book. If the class has created a collection of such items, have students select from the collection and work in small groups to brainstorm different ways these objects might be altered to create a book.
Studio Production (five or more 45 minute classes)
Have students create their own art books that have personal meaning and go beyond the confines of a traditional book. Remind students that their work should still retain the characteristics of a book and a cohesive theme. Students will need to identify an idea or theme with which they will work.
Finding Ideas
Remind students that their book might feature something they care about deeply, like the environment, animal rights, music, dance, athletics, politics, etc. The book can tell a story or engage the reader in a game. A student might take one favorite quote or statement and show it in many different ways, create separate âpagesâ to respond to the lines of a favorite poem, or create a poem or short essay that reveals itself within the book. Students could celebrate a local hero or someone in their family or community. Suggest that they return to Julie Chenâs website and pay attention to the ideas she has explored in her books. As they brainstorm for ideas and themes, they should also recall ideas that were the focus of the books they found during their web search for different book forms.
Once theyâve settled on an idea, have student sketch the form of their books with notes about how they will construct them.
Making a Prototype
Remind students that Julie Chen always creates a prototype before she creates her finished book. Why might a book artist create a prototype? (To try out different ways to create the structure, to identify potential construction problems, and/or to decide how the parts of the book will look when combined.)
Have students create a prototype. Remind them that the prototype need not be carefully crafted; its purpose is to explore possible ways to construct the book and to see how the parts will fit together. Provide paper and cardboard scraps, tape, glue, paperclips, wire, etc.
As students work on their prototypes, ask, Do the elements of the book support the meaning? Remind students that they need to be consistently aware of how the reader/viewer will experience and move through the book.
Provide students with the worksheet, From Prototype to Final Book, to create a construction guide to follow as they craft the final version of the book.
Constructing a Book
Have students gather the materials they will need to complete the construction of their books. Remind them to refer to their individual construction guides as they proceed. Remind students that exquisite craftsmanship should be their goal. Suggest that they prepare a workspace with several layers of newspaper and as they drip or splatter glue or paint, they should remove the top layer and dispose of it. Provide waxed paper and/or foil to protect separate pages, if need be. Remind students to measure and cut carefully, etc.
The process for constructing the books will vary from student to student, so their needs for assistance will vary as well. In addition, each student will complete the book at a different pace.
CLOSING STRATEGIES
Reflection
Engage students in a discussion or have them write in their sketchbooks about their results. Are they pleased with how they turned out? What surprised them? Do they feel that every aspect of the book contributes to its meaning? In retrospect, what improvements do you think could be made?
Invite students to work in pairs to âreadâ each otherâs books. Pairs should discuss what it is like to âexperienceâ the artworks. In what ways did the viewerâs experience meet your expectations? What were you hoping for that did not happen?
Assessment
By the end of this lesson students should be able to:
- Articulate the parts and defining characteristics of a book.
- Discuss the similarities and differences between traditional books and the books of Julie Chen.
- Understand that nontraditional structures can form books.
- Create a book with personal meaning that goes beyond the confines of a traditional book.
Additional Resources
- Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan, Sculptural Bookmaking. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.
- Jean Kropper, Handmade Books and Cards. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.
- Alice Sprintzen, Crafts: Contemporary Design and Technique. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.
Extensions
To continue the concept of artists âpushing boundariesâ as part of their process, take a look at Craft in America Education Guide, Community: Continuity And Change.
Authors
The Educator Guides for PROCESS were developed by art educators Dr. Amy Albert Bloom, Dolores E. Eaton and Kathleen Walck under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor of Art Education at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Lead Authors for Julie Chen: Thinking Outside the Book are Dolores Eaton and Marilyn Stewart.
Crafting a Tale of Ecology
In this lesson, students will view the Preston Singletary segment from the NATURE episode of the PBS series Craft in America. Students will hear from the artist, the team of assistants that help with his glasswork, and independent curator Miranda Belarde-Lewis, who is curating a show of Singletaryâs work. The program features the Tlingit origin story Raven and the Box of Daylight as well as information about traditional Tlingit art, customs, and philosophy. After viewing the episode, students will discuss Singletaryâs work and the Tlingit peopleâs connections to the natural world. Students will also examine the ecology of art materials. In the studio portion of the lesson, students will choose a traditional tale and rewrite it as an ecological fable. Students will share the tale by crafting a diorama that includes found materials.
SUPPORT MATERIALS
Crafting a Tale of Ecology
Full Guide & Worksheets
Background Reading
Lesson Overview
Teaching Tips
Teaching Tips for Teachers
Further Information
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Vocabulary
Vocabulary & Key Terms
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions for Students
Worksheet #1 for Students
The Ecology of Art Materials
Worksheet #2 for Students
Crafting a Tale of Ecology
Native people are the best storytellers in the world because our stories carried knowledge. And that knowledge was needed to survive in a particular environment.
â Miranda Belarde-Lewis, Independent Curator
Grade Level: 9-12
Estimated Time: Two 45 minute class periods of discussion and research, Four 45 minute class periods of sketching and studio production
Background Information
Preston Singletary (b. 1963 in San Francisco, CA) is a Tlingit glass artist. He studied at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Singletary transfers Tlingit designs, traditionally carved in wood, onto glass. Light is integral to his work, and he uses it to add dimension to the glass and his design. Singletary is surrounded by the wild natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest Coast. He captures the motion and magnificence of wild creatures in molten glass, then embellishes the cooled and hardened sculptures with symbols and designs from Tlingit culture. He is a pioneer, one of only a handful of Native American artists working in glass today. He explains as he works in his Seattle, WA studio, âWhen I began working with glass, I had no idea that Iâd be so connected to the material in the way that I am. It was only when I began to experiment with using designs from the Tlingit cultural heritage that my work took on a new purpose and direction.â His work is in the collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, the Heard Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, and Seattle Art Museum.
Key Concepts
- Connection to environment and place can be a theme for artistâs work.
- The art materials we choose have ecological significance.
- We understand our world through stories.
Critical Questions
- Why is connection to environment and place an important theme for some artistâs work?
- What is the ecological significance of the art materials we choose?
- How can telling stories enable (or limit) our understanding of the world?
Objectives
Students will:
- Understand that connection to environment and place can be a theme for an artistâs work.
- Research the sustainability and ecological significance of their chosen art materials.
- Develop an artwork that teaches the school community about an important family member or figure in the studentâs life.
Vocabulary
Tlingit, Zuni, sustainable, stagecraft, environment, indigenous, transformational, bounded space, curator, aesthetics, ambiguous.
Interdisciplinary Connection
- Technical Education: Students may choose to add to their story with video, special lighting of objects, and/or sound recordings, as Preston Singletary does in his show. Technical Education teachers may help to provide expertise and equipment for these plans.
- English/Literature: Origin stories may be a topic to explore with an English teacher, perhaps comparing origin stories from various books, cultures, and places.
- Science: Science teachers may help with determining the sustainability of artistsâ materials in the classroom. This topic could provide several lessons in itself: looking at the origin and ecological aspects of art materials.
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
This lesson addresses the following standards. The performance standards listed here are directly related to the lessonâs goals.
- Visual Arts/Connecting #VA:Cn10.1
Process Component: Interpret Anchor Standard: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art. - Visual Arts/Creating #VA:Cr2.2
Process Component: Investigate Anchor Standard: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work. - Visual Arts/Presenting #VA:Pr.4.1
Process Component: Relate Anchor Standard: Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation. - Visual Arts/Presenting #VA:Pr6.1
Process Component: Analyze Anchor Standard: Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work. - Visual Arts/Responding #VA:Re8.1
Process Component: Perceive Anchor Standard: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Resources
- Craft in America DVD, NATURE. Also viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episode/nature
- Craft in America website, www.craftinamerica.org
- Video of Preston Singletary on his childhood friendship and working relationship with Dante Marioni: www.craftinamerica.org/short/dante-marioni-preston-singletary-on-their-friendship
- Preston Singletary on his heritage and Tlingit mythology:
www.craftinamerica.org/short/preston-singletary-on-his-heritage-and-tlingit-mythology - Curator Miranda Belarde-Lewis on the importance of traditional ecological knowledge:
www.craftinamerica.org/short/miranda-belarde-lewis-shows-us-a-bowl-and-the-importance-of-traditional-ecological-knowledge - Preston Singletaryâs website, www.prestonsingletary.com
- Museum of Glass (Tacoma, WA) website: www.museumofglass.org
- To research and see a vast selection of American Indian art, start at this map for locating cultures at the National Museum of the American Indian: www.nmai.si.edu/searchcollections/peoplescultures.aspx
- Download a full color PDF of a Pacific Northwest Coast Native Art Guide from the University of Alaska: www.uas.alaska.edu/library/pdfs/Northwest%20Coast%20Native%20Art%20Guide
Additional resources for worksheet: The Ecology of Art Materials
- Find extensive information on artistsâ paint at this site, Pigments Through the Ages: www.webexhibits.org/pigments
- Information from Green America about potential toxicity of art materials: www.greenamerica.org/livinggreen/toxicart.cfm
- A look at the use of ledger paper and hide-made garments as found materials for narrative depictions from the Smithsonian (historic and contemporary examples from Plains tribes):
www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/these-native-american-artists-material-message-180958567
Worksheets
- The Ecology of Art Materials
- Crafting a Tale of Ecology
Materials
- Access to online resources for research
- Sketchbooks
- Pencils
- Art materials of studentsâ choice
- Found materials: boxes and containers of all kinds for dioramas
- Safety glasses
- Additional found materials: Encourage students to use recycled materials, including old worksheets and notes from schoolwork, scrap wood, fabric, scrap metal, scrap glass, cardboard, and packaging materials. Discarded objects from home and thrift store finds can be useful in diorama crafting.
- Glue
- Optional: video, recording, and playback equipment for recording and displaying dioramas
- How does Singletary describe his position as an artist?
- Why does he work in glass?
- What is a curator? (Students may look this up afterwards.) ⢠What does storytelling provide for the Tlingit people?
- What is âbounded space?â
- Is each piece of the show an artwork on its own? What does studio assistant Joseph BenVenuto say about the pieces?
- How important is environment to the artist and the curator? To the Tlingit people?
- What are the jobs of Singletaryâs studio production team?
After Viewing
Begin a discussion of the video. What did students find interesting? What questions do they have? Using studentsâ notes, discuss the information they gathered about the listed categories. Following are discussion ideas and potential answers to the questions above.
Discussion
- How does Singletary describe his position as an artist? Singletary considers himself a bridge joining traditional Tlingit culture with new ways of sharing the stories and knowledge.
- Why does he work in glass? The artist notes that many traditional northwest materials are gone or in short supply. Introducing glass provides a new, plentiful material but also a new way of creating traditional art.
- What is a curator? After entertaining guesses, have students look up this word in several sources. Curators may be responsible for planning art shows, acquiring art for institutions, deciding what to exhibit, and caring for artworks.
- What does storytelling provide for the Tlingit people? Miranda Belarde-Lewis states that âNative storytellers are the best storytellers in the world because our stories carried knowledgeâŚthat was needed to surviveâŚâ Also, environmental knowledge was passed along through storytelling.
- What is âbounded space?â Miranda Belarde-Lewis shares this definition from Apache philosopher Viola Cordova: âIn Native American philosophy, bounded space is the natural environment one exists in; and the relationships one has with that space. Cordova believed this space affects everything about a person: their language, culture, spirituality, and their aesthetics (how they believe something should look, or their ideas of beauty.) What do students think of this philosophy?
- Is each piece of the show an artwork on its own? What does studio assistant Joseph BenVenuto say about the pieces? BenVenuto remarks that âOne piece of his (Singletaryâs) work is merely one line in a story.â This is a different view of art objects than the western view of each crafted object being precious in itself. This topic could be interesting to discuss with students. Have they ever crafted a piece that was part of a whole, and not complete in itself?
- How important is environment to the artist and the curator? To the Tlingit people? Preston Singletary and Miranda Belarde-Lewis each comment on sustainability. For example, the preservation of natural species such as the cedar trees, used for canoes, baskets, and more was (and perhaps remains) essential to survival.
- What are the jobs of Singletaryâs studio production team? Encourage students to describe how they see studio glassworking assistants Sean Albert and Joseph BenVenuto, master cutter Brittaney Shanta, and sandblaster Terri Rau working.
- What is the story of Raven and The Box of Daylight? Have students tell the story. Ask them to look up versions of the story online. Does the story remind students of other stories they have heard? Discuss the term origin story and ask students to name other examples of origin stories.
After Discussion: Investigation
Worksheet: The Ecology of Art Materials
Have students research and share information in small groups. Then have the class share as a whole. Have each student responsible for creating one information card (such as a large index card) about one material that can be posted on a bulletin board for the education of all.
Worksheet: Crafting a Tale of Ecology
This worksheet introduces the story and diorama project
Studio Production (four 45 minute class periods)
The salmon is going to play a part sort of like stagecraft. Iâll have glass on the ground that looks like the river and these salmon are going to be kind of floating above the top.
â Preston Singletary
After using the worksheets, students should have ideas for stories they intend to rewrite and dioramas they can create. Story ideas could start with fairy tales, such as retelling Goldilocks and the Three Bears as Goldilocks wreaks havoc in the bearâs environment. Students may have stories that already include an environmental component, such as from blockbuster disaster films or from comics. Have students write the story in their sketchbooks and embellish the tale with sketched ideas for their dioramas.
The diorama projects can vary according to studentsâ ideas. Some students may have traditional crafts practiced in their family that can become part of the scene and add more meaning; for example a knitted landscape. Students who camp, fish, hunt, or practice outdoor sports might want to include references to those family traditions in their story and their diorama.
To make a diorama, begin with a box set on its side to form a small âstage.â Prime the box by covering it with paint, paper, or fabric inside and out. Set the scene: Like stagecraft, add a background, and flooring base. Position characters and props by gluing found or crafted pieces in place. Consider the outside of the box as well as offering several surfaces for further treatment and visual embellishing of the story.
Reflection
It will also be enhanced by video, projecting onto glass and creating sort of a backdrop. I wanted to create this atmosphere of the northwest coast, with this mist rising out of the trees. It would transform the viewer into another place.
â Preston Singletary
Encourage students to work with each other to curate a show of what they have produced. They can decide on whether the exhibit should be brief or extended, where it should be placed, how it should be arranged. Do they think there should be video or recordings to accompany the show? Singletary talks about stagecraft and theatrics as a way of telling stories. He mentions having the story told in the Tlingit language playing in the background of his show, adding a layer of ambiguity for those who do not speak the language, yet adding to the âauthenticâ experience of the northwest. Students may want to consider these ideas in their own show planning.
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson; by examining the studentsâ worksheets; and by witnessing the studentsâ studio work, it should be evident that the student:
- Understands that connection to environment and place can be a theme for an artistâs work.
- Researched the sustainability and ecological significance of their chosen art materials.
- Rewrote a traditional tale including an ecological metaphor and presented the story in a diorama.
Extensions
Glasswork: Setting up a lampworking studio in the classroom is not inexpensive but a possible option with fundraising. Lampworking allows students an experience sculpting small projects (such as beads) with molten glass.
Authors
The Education Guide for NATURE was developed under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Lead author for Crafting a Tale of Ecology is Dr. Amy Albert Bloom, April 2017
Look and See: Who is in the Photograph?
In this lesson, students will watch the segment from Craft in Americaâs IDENTITY episode featuring photographer Cara Romero. Romero states that when she went to college at the University of Houston she discovered, âI was the only Native American and everyone around me was completely unaware that we existed⌠And I knew almost instantly that I wanted to be able to communicate visually, through photography, modern native life.â Students will look closely at Romeroâs Naomi from the First American Dolls series; the Jackrabbit, Cottontail and Spirits of the Desert series; and the portrait of Cara Romero with her father. Students will look for the stories about the people in the images and draw the people in their sketchbooks. Finally, students will plan and practice telling a story about someone special using photography.
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Look & See: Who is in the Photograph?
Full Guide & Worksheets
Background Reading
Lesson Overview
Teaching Tips
Teaching Tips for Teachers
Further Information
Resources & Materials for Teaching
Vocabulary
Vocabulary & Key Terms
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions for Students
Worksheet #1 for Students
Look & See: Who is in the Photograph?
Worksheet #2 for Students
Who will you be in your Photograph?
âWith a photograph you get one frame to tell a story so how can you create a story that communicates as much as you possibly can in one moment.â
â Cara Romero
LESSON OVERVIEW
Grade Level: Kâ4
Estimated Time: two 45 minute class periods
Craft in America episode: IDENTITY
Background Information
Cara Romero, a contemporary photographer and member of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation (a branch of the Southern Paiute) of the Mojave Desert, CA, is a passionate spokesperson for indigenous cultural and environmental issues. Her complex and nuanced images combine traditional iconography with a contemporary perspective, bringing past, present and future into consideration. The artist orchestrates a balancing act in her photography by rewriting stories of Indian identity, battling cultural misappropriation, and confronting stereotypes, particularly of Native women, all the while preserving tradition and maintaining cultural sensitivity.
Key Concepts
- We take photographs of people for many different reasons.
- We can tell a story about someone by taking a photograph.
- You can become a character in a photograph.
Critical Questions
- Why do we take photographs of people?
- How can we tell a story about someone by taking a photograph?
- How can you become a character in a photograph?
Objectives
Students will:
- Describe reasons we take photographs of people.
- Become a character in a photograph.
- Tell a story in the photograph about the character represented.
Vocabulary
Chemehuevi, Chumash, identity, ancestor, character, regalia, indigenous
Interdisciplinary Connection
Social Studies: This lesson explores aspects of Native American cultures through examining Cara Romeroâs photographs. In the episode, Romero talks about her father wearing his Vietnam Veterans cap in his photographed portrait, and how it is important to him to represent himself that way. The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is raising funds to build a National Native American Veterans Memorial on museum grounds at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Students can learn more about Native Americansâ extensive contributions to U.S. military service since Colonial times. The website includes stories of Native American veterans and their military service. americanindian.si.edu/nnavm
National Standards for Visual Arts Education
This lesson addresses the following standards. The performance standards listed here are directly related to the lessonâs goals.
- Anchor Standard #1, CREATING: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #2, CREATING: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #4, PRESENTING: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
- Anchor Standard #8, RESPONDING: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
- Anchor Standard #11, CONNECTING: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.
Resources
- Craft in Americaâs IDENTITY episode is viewable online at www.craftinamerica.org/episodes/identity
- The National Museum of the American Indian website: Cara Romeroâs work brings together the past and the present of Indian life. The National Museum of the American Indian provides abundant content, historic and contemporary, for potential exploration by your students. For example, they may decide to tell a story about an Indian artist of yesterday or today. Many contemporary Native American artists are featured on the site. americanindian.si.edu
Worksheets
Materials
- Sketchbooks
- Pencils and colored pencils
- Copies of images of Naomi from the First American Dolls series, the Jackrabbit, Cottontail and Spirits of the Desert series, and Cara Romeroâs self portrait with her father for students to examine closely
- Materials for story and scene creation: Two possible ways of working include students dressing as a character, setting a scene to pose in, and taking each otherâs pictures. Another way is to take the studentsâ photos, print them out, and allow them to place their cutouts in a miniature setting or scene. For both, the following materials are useful: dress-up clothes, masks, lengths of fabric, bulletin board paper for costumes and capes are examples of costumes. To make miniature scenes or settings, collected random objects, toys, and all sorts of art materials will help with creation. Drawing paper and media, paints and brushes, small boxes, glue, scissors, and magazines for cutout images will provide for detailed scenery settings.
- Digital cameras and color printer
- Construction paper, poster board, or mat board for mounting studentsâ photographs
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
Students will watch the segment on photographer Cara Romero in the IDENTITY episode. Students examine Romeroâs Naomi from the First American Dolls series, the Jackrabbit, Cottontail and Spirits of the Desert series, and the photo session of Cara Romeroâs self portrait with her father, in which he wears his Vietnam veteranâs cap. Students will examine the photos closely to look for the stories the characters seem to be telling. Students sketch the images in their sketchbooks. Finally, students decide on a character they would like to represent, what scene they will create, and then capture their work with a photo.
(Video and discussion: one 45 minute class period)
Before Viewing
Preview the video (13:48-23:20). The sections are outlined here as you may want to start and stop the video to clarify points and answer studentsâ questions:
- The introduction; and Cara Romero photographs a mother and daughter (13:48-15:47)
- Cara Romero and curator Kristen Dorsey discuss the large photograph Naomi from the First American Dolls series (15:48-17:03)
- Cara Romeroâs photography session with her four young nephews for the Jackrabbit, Cottontail and Spirits of the Desert series (17:04-17:55)
- Romero talks about using Photoshop to combine images (17:56-19:15) ⢠The boys are shown in their everyday clothes, and then dressing in their traditional wear for another photo session (19:16-21:32)
- A portfolio of Romeroâs photos is shown (21:33-21:53)
- She talks about her family (husband and ceramic artist Diego Romero is also featured in IDENTITY) (21:53-22:17)
- Cara Romeroâs self portrait photography session with her father (22:18-23:21)
Introduce the scope of the lesson to students, sharing the key concepts, critical questions, and objectives. Share a bit about what they will see. Show the video, stopping and starting where needed so you may clarify studentsâ understanding, and answer any questions they may have. You may want to hand out the Look and See: Who is in the Photograph? worksheet so you can stop the video after each section.
After Viewing
Hand out the Look and See: Who is in the Photograph? worksheet. Have students take out their sketchbooks and pencils. Begin a discussion of the video. What did students find interesting? Go through the questions on Look and See: Who is in the Photograph? worksheet, letting students work with a partner to share their ideas and answers, and then share their answers as a group.
Discussion
1. It is titled Naomi. She is Northern Chumash and she wears traditional dance regalia.
2. One possible story is: âNaomi is a woman who got dressed in traditional clothes and a headdress of dove and goose feathers. Then she pretended to be like an American Girl Doll in a big doll box, with special accessories all around her. She has dance sticks in her hands.â Cara Romero says that the image â⌠is a way to create visibility for those things that are still here against all odds; to be a powerful story of resilience.â Remind students that many of the American Girl dolls represent girls who lived in the past. Help students understand that the Naomi âdollâ represents a person living in the present and who has strong connections with the people and traditions from the past.
3. Encourage students to add the feathered headdress; later they can consider all the different headgear within the photographs.
4. The four young boys are Romeroâs nephews, and they are cousins. Kiyanni introduces his cousins as he points to them: âHis name is P.J. but we call him Curtiss; John; and Winka.â
5. When they come to Cara Romeroâs studio, the boys are wearing caps and shorts and tee shirts; familiar contemporary clothes.
6. Kiyanni replies to a question about what the boys are wearing: âWeâre wearing the Indian stuff.â He then replies to the question of why they are wearing the Indian stuff: âBecause we are!â Ask students to share their ideas about why the boys are wearing the âIndian stuff.â
7. The boys represent characters in the series Jackrabbit, Cottontail, and Spirits of the Desert; Romeroâs series based on traditional fables. She presents them as ââŚfour little mythological characters [who] came back to visit Coachella Valley and responded to the landscapeâŚtime travelers from Chemehuevi.â
8. Encourage students to think about the different clothes and the boysâ connection to the old and the new. Help students understand the importance of props and costumes when telling a story.
9. He wears a U.S. Navy Vietnam veterans hat.
10. Cara Romero says, âItâs important for my dad to let people know heâs a Navy veteran. I know by him wearing his veterans hat it really frames what era he grew up in, and what made him the man he is today.â
11. Ask students to share their ideas about what the hat adds to the story.
After Discussion
Hand out the Who Will You Be in Your Photograph? worksheet. Help students to think about why we make photographs of people, about photographs as a storytelling device, and help them to think about who they would like to be in their photograph. How will they show a story about the character by what they add to the photograph? Several possible themes for telling a story that relates to Romeroâs work include those below. However, practicing setting scenes and acting out roles may get students excited; as ideas multiply students may take many different paths. They might:
- Take a photo as the artist Cara Romero, or of themselves as artist/photographer
- Take a self portrait set in a scene that represents the place where they live or their connection to environment (whether natural or manmade)
- Represent oneself as someone they are fond of, or a character in a movie, book, or story, or as an ancestor.
Studio Production
Help students experiment with the materials available, and to try out different ideas. With a digital camera, they can take several pictures and look at them to change their idea and to eventually choose their favorite (like Cara Romero does.)
CLOSING STRATEGIES
Reflection
Print the photographs for students. Mount the photos on poster board or mat board, or help students to do so. As a class, allow students to present their work and share their stories. You might talk about: Is their work like Cara Romeroâs in any way? (Perhaps it is alike in that it features a person and suggests a story.) How is their work different from the photographs they examined?
Assessment
In discussions with the class and with individual students throughout the lesson; by examining the studentsâ worksheets; and by witnessing the studentsâ studio work, it should be evident that the student:
- Can describe several reasons we take photographs of people.
- Decided on a character to represent and created a photograph in that character.
- Added details to tell a story about the character they represented in the photograph
Extensions
The National Museum of the American Indian features images and information from a past exhibit: Circle of Dance. Within this section is a menu tab that connects to images of varied traditional Indian dance regalia (as Romero describes when discussing the photo Naomi) and contemporary images of the dances performed today. An additional lesson could feature looking at these elaborate garments, and finding out about the materials used in their construction and the meaning behind the materials and designs. americanindian.si.edu/static/exhibitions/circleofdance/#introduction
Authors
The Education Guide for IDENTITY was developed under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Stewart, Professor Emerita of Art Education, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA. Lead author for Look and See: Who is in the Photograph? is Dr. Amy Albert Bloom, December, 2019.