A few months ago after the Houston Craft Conference, where we figured everything out, settled the score on the art/craft debate and decided as a cohesive group to get on with our lives (NOT!), all of the points that I detailed, still need to be confronted. One of these points (see # 5) was that the postcolonial discourse was completely missed by the field of craft. Further, I suggested that we should reflect upon this fact and see what we missed in the process.

If you are still wondering what I meant by this, please allow me to provide an example:

On the left, is an image of the work of Canadian sculptor Brian Jurgen who had an exhibition last year at the Vancouver Art Gallery. On the right, is an image of the work of William “Billy” Morris of Seattle — Pilchucky glassblowing virtuosity famous-ness.

The reason that I have juxtaposed these two images is to demonstrate the glaring difference in the knowledge of visual semiotics within art and craft. It is true that these are both sculptural works that are derivative of traditional objects from native cultures used in daily life and ritual, which we later, as purveyors of “good taste” transformed into art objects through commodity fetishism, collecting and contextualization as art. The main difference between these two examples, however, is in the materials used and how these materials serve to confirm these works as art within the larger cultural context.

In the image on the left, Jurgen has constructed a Pacific Northwest Mask from parts of Nike Air Jordan tennis shoes. In this piece, Jurgen has re-contextualized a consumer product, which is filled with symbolic meaning, particularly with regard to status but also the notion of commodity fetishism, and gave it a new meaning which comments upon commodities, global consumerism and identity through its materiality.

In contrast, the image on the right is constructed from manipulated blown glass. In this example, Morris uses the cultural context of West African sculpture to provide us with an object that is fetishized because of its materiality and its mere reference to aura. Morris’ object essentially robs the tradition of West African sculpture and makes no effort to comment upon anything outside of itself.

This is where craft is at it’s worst. This piece is considered collectable due to a fetishism of technical virtuosity and the appropriation of culture, artifact, mythology and aura; all of which are put into the direct service of economic gain. As these objects go into the world and continue to give us nothing back, craft will continue on it’s downhill slide.

Here is where, if craft was sensitive to a post-colonial discourse, then perhaps we would recognize that Morris’s work is mere cultural thievery which is not ok. Since Morris is obviously not from West Africa then why is he making African masks? Why should this mask be made out of glass? How does the material the artist has chosen inform us about the object? Morris is using the most rudimentary mechanisms of visual semiotics and ultimately, for this reason, his work is doing the field of craft a large disservice.