Here’s the podcast from my call-in show experiment from Sunday April 8th, 2007. While no one called in explicitly to have a conversation about my topic, I did manage to test the platform. I also articulated what I think needs to happen to move this “redefining craft” conversation forward on this site and within the field(s) at large.

Feel free to shop the file around… let’s see what happens.

I look forward to your comments!

As an update, we remain on track for the call in talk show on:

Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 2:30-3:30 P.M. EST.

As a starting point, we will pursue the following questions:

• What does it mean to study craft in the twenty-first century?
• How are academic study programs for craft within higher education preparing students for the “real world”?
• Is craft within higher education transferring a form of valuable knowledge which is in danger of being lost in our technologically advanced society or is its study merely a form of escapism from the rigors of academia?

As a primer to this conversation, I suggest looking through the NASAD Handbook, particularly page 88 which addresses undergraduate B.F.A. craft studies programs. As a whole, this document is intended to clarify and outline the standards for art and design education in the United States.

This talk show endeavor will inevitably prove to be a technological feat, (assuming, of course, that I can pull it off), as I will be using no less than four programs simultaneously to make it work the way that I want. There may be a few wrinkles along the way but we’ll just consider this the test run and a learning experience for us all.

I look forward to hearing from everyone on Sunday!

I am hosting a call in talk show for Redefining Craft on:

Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 2:30-3:30 P.M. EST.

I am looking for interested parties to converse with, after all what good is it if I just talk at you? Anyone can listen in, but if you want to call in and make a comment or ask a question, you will have to register with the hosting company in advance of the scheduled show.

If you have any questions about the procedure or the protocol, please send me an email, use the contact form here or post a comment below.

I am hoping that this method will be a way to invigorate the national level conversation on the future of craft.

Lastly, here’s a short commercial that I hope will convince you to participate in this upcoming event:

Stay tuned!

The concept of Tabula Rasa suggests that we are born without innate content and our mind is like a blank slate. This theory suggests that the palimpsest of our brain is gradually enscribed with meaning via our socio-cultural experiences and interactions in the world. In essence, our mental development is congruous with our social development. In the following thirteen and a half minute audio interview, (inserted below in Quicktime video format), I speak with Tess, a 16 year old female, to get her responses to various images of works of craft.

Beyond the standard issues surrounding adolescent artistic development such as identity, ego, angst, body image, etc., in this piece, you can see that while she does not know exactly what she is looking at, she already has much insight, many assumptions and some complex interpretations about the objects that she is viewing.

In short, you can see that by age sixteen our subject is far from being a Tabula Rasa. If we want to understand where our subjective assumptions about art materials and processes orginate, we can see here that they certainly start well before age sixteen.

I have two more audio interviews in the queue which I will post when I can squeeze in the time.

As always, your comments are welcome. Enjoy!

On Sunday, February 18th, 2007, I was honored to be the emcee for the 2007 NICHE Awards in Philadelphia, PA. This annual event is organized and sponsored by NICHE Magazine and it’s purpose is to celebrate excellence and innovation in American and Canadian Craft. This awards ceremony coincides with the Buyers Market for American Craft, all of which is held each year at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadephia.

The following is an excerpt from my opening remarks:

I find it kind of funny to reflect upon my lower middle-class roots and the position in which I, quite ironically, find myself: enrolled in an “Ivy League” doctoral program while conducting research on and writing about a field that is inherently “blue collar”.

I have been called, at times, an academic snot… but in reality, I am just a guy from South Carolina, who was brought up southern. From my mother, I gained an appreciation for handmade things through our family’s collection of antiques and with an unusual artistic and creative aptitude, I merely pursued my interests. From my father I learned that it is important to stick up for the underdog, and I was taught that, whenever possible, it is necessary to confront the bully. Further, my experiences in high school and later in military service presented me with many situations in which I was confronted with struggles concerning class, status, social hierarchy and the general manner in which people organize themselves.

So knowing this about my background, it comes as no surprise that when I was faced with the puzzle of hierarchical struggles that are inherent in the art craft debate, I was determined to do something about it. I started writing on my blog site at redefiningcraft.com in June of 2004, shortly after attending a lecture at the Oakland Museum in which representatives of the Museum of Arts and Design, formerly the American Craft Museum, and California College of the Arts, formerly California College of Arts and Crafts, attempted to articulate the reasons behind their respective institutional name changes, in which they dropped the word ‘craft’ from their names.

During the short time that I have been writing about craft, I have developed a few slogans that attempt to summarize or describe what it is that I do. A few of these slogans include:

* Unravelling the messy web of vernacular misnomer that we call craft

* defying categorical distinctions since 2004

* a discussion regarding the status and future of craft

* one of my favorites, “serving as the pebble in the toe of the craft leadership’s stiletto”

* and finally, a catch phrase, which is lifted from a Dr. Dre/Snoop Doggy Dog lyric,“Don’t get mad, I am only being real.”

So, it is with these phrases in mind that I write about the field of craft.

I am in an interesting position because I comment upon both sides of the equation. I speak out about how the folks on the art side use their own taxonomic structures to construct a reality that appeals to their interests, and at the same time, how the craft field sometimes subverts it own best interests by holding on to a perspective that is often viewed by outsiders as romantic and idealistic and which often operates in contradiction to the socio-cultural and economic realities of the twenty-first century. So, as one might imagine, my position as a critic is often a lonely place because it is difficult for anyone to critique their own field of practice from within, as in doing so, they risk being ostracized by the very community that they rely upon for support.

Back in October 2006, I attended the Craft Leadership Conference in Houston, Texas hosted by the American Craft Council. For those that have not heard about it, the best summary that I can provide is that a lot was discussed, and nothing was resolved. In Houston, it became painfully apparent that the field of craft is changing in ways that many people have not anticipated. One such change is the degree of hybridization that we are now witnessing across the disciplinary boundaries of art, craft and design. I like to call this the re-mix, as it takes the best of the old and blends it with new ways of approaching object making. With craft, an appreciation for skill and the hand-made remains, as do many methods of production, while at the same time, new methods and new contexts are emerging.

For example, the DIY craft movement is a form of domestic creativity that on the surface looks quite similar to the seventies craft movement, but in substance it is radically different. It emerges from a do-it-yourself ethos that seeks to confront mass market consumerism and the homogenization of culture as a result of the aggressive expansion of big box retailers. The D.I.Y. craft movement makes a very conscious effort to avoid being crass but unquestionably, DIY craft is about style, irony and sometimes a touch of kitsch. It’s about wit and humor and it is about being in the know; but also, without question, it is about the choices that we make as consumers.

However, the work does not always seek validation within the traditional methodologies of the museum, the media or the market, but rather it is motivated by a desire for creative and economic freedom. In contrast to the structure of the studio craft movement, the products of the human hand within D.I.Y. craft are produced generally through social activities that are related to community activism.

One example of this form of social activism is Knitta, a clandestine crew of eleven knitters based in Houston, Texas who have taken their work to the streets in an effort that is the confluence of craft and graffiti. According to their website, they are ‘bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings.’ Knitta’s work ‘intervenes’ in a manner similar to graffiti as it is a form of social resistance. While knitting is considered a low-brow activity that is largely dominated by females, Knitta’s activities function in many ways similar to the act of “tagging” in graffiti and it similarly co-exists in public spaces but, in a less damaging and intrusive way that is certainly ironic.

While this is just one example, it is becoming increasing clear that the craft world is changing and everyone is trying to keep up and feeling increasingly uneasy about where things are moving. The deep seated anxieties are exemplified by the institutional name changes that I mentioned earlier, but also in changes in the leadership of other institutions. In December of 2006, the director of the Long Beach Museum of Art, was recently “pushed out”. His departure was partially attributed to the trustees’ apparent displeasure with his emphasis upon craft exhibitions during his 17 1/2 year tenure.

In response to the changes within the field, American Craft magazine has brought in a new editor, formerly an executive editor at Dwell magazine, a publication that covers modern residential architecture and design. In his departure email while still at Dwell, American Craft’s New editor Andrew Wagner stated that he couldn’t be more excited to join American Craft Magazine “to begin to cull the connections between craft, art, architecture, design, fashion and industry that have been germinating for years”.

Therefore, if this is any indication of the future vision of where craft is headed, I believe that we are in for a really bumpy ride before we arrive at our destination, if there can be such a thing as a new destination for craft.

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.

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 Jungen 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, Jungen has constructed a Pacific Northwest Mask from parts of Nike Air Jordan tennis basketball shoes. In this piece, Jungen 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 its 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 its 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.

Thanks to a funny series of recent events, I am posting this light-hearted yet entertaining post about myself.

On Friday afternoon, I noticed that my craft blogging colleague over at ExtremeCraft.com, Garth Johnson, had posted an update on the work of textile artist, Ai Kijima, whose work I wrote about a few months ago.

In his post, Garth gave me props for my review of Ai’s work, so naturally, I followed up with an email thanking him. However, in the process of sending this email, knowing that Garth has a diverse and eclectic background in the music business (which makes his iPod naturally diverse), I attached the following meme to my message, which I had picked up over at Screaming and Punching (a celebrity gossip blog).

Here’s the instructions:

Take a list of scenes within a pre-determined storyline outlined from opening credits to end credits and assign a song to each section of the narrative using the shuffle feature on your iPod or via iTunes on your computer. Once the narrative is described for you by your own music, you get to make up a title and assign a cast.

I forwarded this meme to Garth as an intentional challenge to his creative writing ability knowing that out of the process, something interesting, twisted and pithy would emerge. So to make a long story short, he delivered (quite hilariously, I might add) and I am now obliged to reciprocate.

So, here’s my version:

Treatment

Set in the near dystopic future, as predicted, the world has run out of gasoline and Lamar is the mayor of a small agrarian craft community in Western North Carolina. The evil villain, Nepheline Syenite, a former petroleum profiteer from Texas, seeks to take over the landfill methane source that the community uses to run their ceramics and glass studios. Lamar is the only one who can save the community and ultimately preserve the laid-back, creative, bohemian lifestyle in the lush countryside that they all have come to love.

The fate of the community now hangs in the balance and if Lamar fails, they will all be forced to return to the sprawling suburbia from which they migrated and take graphic design jobs in architect offices, working in small cubicles in large windowless rooms with bad fluorescent lighting, surrounded by fake plants, while being forced to drink weak coffee from styrofoam cups. Ewwww…

The Cast

Robert Downey, Jr. as Lamar

Natalie Portman as his lovely wife, Robin

Demi Moore as his Mom

Danny DeVito as his Limoncello sipping sidekick

Marilyn Manson as the Antagonist

Patrick Stewart as the Wise Old Man

Opening Credits

Body Movin’ by Beastie Boys, Biz Markie, Redman and Erik Sermon

Oh yeah, I am going to like this movie already. A sweet tune to get the party started, just cheesy enough to start things off on an upswing.

Waking Up

Hombre by MIA

Nice. I would like to wake up to this tune. In any case, here you can easily envision our protagonist rubbing his eyes and yawning as the beat thumps “Oi Ga-Ra-To Pi-qa mine nu-mu-ro…”

First Day at School

SupaHero by Aceyalone

This is my kind of movie. Here I can see our “hero” strutting to class lipsyncing the lyrics “Yeah, you know, I could do it but right now my cape is in the cleaners, but as soon as I get it out… I’m a gonna get at you.” The best part of this song is where he says “I am perfectly flawed.” I like it, that’s our boy.

Falling in Love

Orozco by Tosca

This is a pretty chill song. It reminds me of falling in love, life is great, everything is beautiful. By this point, my little narrative is unfolding through my iPod like the Tao te Ching, it’s like everything was meant to be this way. Life is good.

Fight Song

There’s a Riot Going On by The Roots

No freaking way! I blinked a bit, but it really happened. Although in reality, the tune starts out with snoring and ends about six seconds later. There is no riot. It is supposed to be ironic, I guess. In any case, what is a storyline without a good argument or at least a misunderstanding? I guess our narrative starts to go south at this point.

Breaking Up

To All of You by RJD2

Opens with cymbals and rolls into a slow seventies groove, sad enough, I guess. Breaking up is hard… this song reinforces it.

Prom

J’ai Dormi Sous l’ Eau by Air

I would say that this is a pretty laid back tune. Our narrative here goes something like this: they miss the prom in lieu of a nice turkey dinner and an after party with a handful of Xanax. So much for fighting the villian tonight, it ain’t gonna happen.

Life

Addiction by Kanye West

Ouch… It looks as if all of that Xanax got the best of our Hero.

Mental Breakdown

Polkamatic by Vitalic

Polka music will push anyone over the edge. Although, this song is not as bad as the title makes it sound, there is hope for our hero. He’s just on edge for a bit as the music tells the story.

Driving

I’m with Pilots by Ladytron

This tune is a little eratic for driving but our hero is on his way back up. It is a long road to recovery but there is hope. Perhaps here he should drive himself over to a rehab clinic.

Wedding

Orisun Lye (The Creator) by King Sunny Ade

I am not sure what this song is about as the artist is Nigerian. It sounds happy and upbeat enough. Good wedding, nice looking couple… We all hope that they last.

Birth of a Child

A Wolf at the Door (it Girl, Rag Doll) by Radiohead

I am not sure how this works considering the lyrics go something like… “help me call the doctor put me inside, put me inside, put me inside, put me inside, put me inside…” Maybe my iPod is being ironic?

Final Battle

Honest by Nuspirit Helsinki

Now we are ready to throw down, protagonist vs. antagonist, mano y mano, gloves off and my iPod comes out with a tune that is about as laid back as our fight song. There are no french horns in Bruce Willis movies… but noooooo, my iPod has a sense of humor. I guess our hero is back on the stuff again… just recall his life theme, this sums up our story line.

Death Scene

Voyager by Daft Punk

Now we are getting into it. A least he goes out in glory… with a funky bass line and flames. In death, things are looking up for our hero. The bad news is it’s back to the suburbs for the rest of our craft community; Marilyn Manson is pulling the plug on Utopia.

Funeral Song

“M.I.A.” [Diplo’s Mix]

Another MIA tune, this one from Piracy Funds Terrorism. Our protagonist goes out with a proper send off. He wasn’t much of fighter but he sure knew how to party.

End Credits

Litli Tónlistarmaðurinn by Björk

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate ending to such a quirky movie. Björk’s Gling-Glo album is about as strange as it gets… there’s something about her singing jazz in Icelandic that just wraps this all up so well.

It seems our hero failed us, but we are OK about it. In the end, we were entertained and intrigued. You have to admit though the guy had charisma.

I guess Robert Downey, Jr. was a great casting choice after all.

I have something revealing to talk about today. This is not something that I normally do here, but it is only because I possess a strong idealistic streak with a slight tinge of deeply embedded nostalgia, that I am writing this post.

What I am going to reveal digs to the very core of my ontogeny, the experiences that have formed me, the basis of my efforts over the past ten plus years within the field of craft, and perhaps, much of the reason that I care so much about the field of craft.

My sister, who still lives in our hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, emailed me this morning with a link to this real estate posting. This is not just any ordinary real estate posting, but a link to the lodge of the summer camp where my sister, cousins and a younger uncle of mine, spent the majority of our summers as children. As one might expect, I have very fond memories of this place and I am certain that many other people do as well.

The camp was called Camp Skyuka and it was situated on White Oak Mountain, just a few miles above Tryon, NC. In the late 1980’s the camp was closed by the YMCA who had owned and ran it since the mid-1950’s.

Consequently, the real estate, the lake, the cabins, the craft hut and all, were sold off in separate parcels to private owners, who essentially ruined the place by turning it into a tacky, mountainside, zoning free neighborhood. It seems that no one in the Southern United States could find it financially sustainable to run a summer camp for kids, yet many camps continue each summer thoughout upstate New York and Maine.

In any case, I digress… my point here is this: fast forward ten years after my summer camp experiences ended as a fifteen year old and I find myself at Penland School of Crafts, as a twenty-five year old. Suddenly, while at Penland as a young art student, I am immediately enamored with the idea of a summer camp for adults where they can learn about craft and there is something inherently familiar about the experience. At that moment, I realized that running a place like Penland (my way) would really be my dream job.

In fact, my experiences at Camp Skyuka and my time at Penland as a young artist, are what later drove me to start a ceramic artist-in-residence program at 1306 Third St. in Berkeley, CA called The Sebastian Ward Center for the Ceramic Arts.

The short story here, is that this morning, looking at this real estate listing, the idealist in me can’t help but think that this would make a great center for the study of craft. So if anyone has a spare couple million lying around and the desire to make something happen, email me. From my current perspective in NYC and having lived for five years in California, $1.2 million really is not that much money in terms of a chunk of real estate, but unfortunately as a doctoral student with major league tuition bills, I just don’t have that kind of change.

At the very least, this place could make someone a really sweet studio… of course, the artist that buys it has to invite my wife and I over for dinner.

–

Added July 2, 2007: Due to a high level of interest in this post and my Google rank on the topic, I built a reunion website for formers campers and staff at: http://www.campskyuka.com

The Winter 2007 edition of Wendy Rosen’s NICHE magazine features an article with quotes from “yours truly” and several other craft experts, as we offer our suggestions and insights pertaining to the future of American Craft, speaking mostly in terms of the retail market.

In this article, I offer up a few thoughts on the growing relevance of the DIY craft movement and the need for craft object makers to reconcile their expectations for validation within the larger art world.

The magazine, whose more formal title is NICHE: The Magazine for Progressive Retailers is a trade publication for craft retailers and is available only through subscription, so unfortunately you won’t be able to find it on your local newsstand. In any event, the article is titled The Times They Are A Changin’ and it can be found on page 83.