What Is Crafts For? 1 2 3 - PRINTER VERSION
>>If there is an underlying principle, a thread that runs through all crafts throughout history, it is use. The modern crafts establishment, however, argues that since we no longer need crafts to support our everyday existence, the only option available to the crafts is to become objects of aesthetic admiration. If crafts, as we have historically understood them, have been made "unnecessary" by the industrial revolution and the goal of crafts is now purely aesthetic (to only be looked at), then perhaps the logical thing to do would be to strike the word "crafts" from our vocabulary altogether. That, of course, would mean abandoning our special museums, magazines, arts funding and university departments devoted to crafts. I wonder how many people in the modern crafts movement take their beliefs that seriously?
There is no question that the role of crafts has changed, human beings, though, have changed very little. That is why even if all the ceramic sculptors and vessel maker's work commanded five figure sums, and was exhibited exclusively at the Museum of Modern Art, people would continue to want useful handmade objects. In spite of a glut of Tupperware and regardless of the contemporary crafts movement's insistence that useful objects cannot be considered as ART, people would still have the desire to seek solace and comfort at certain moments during their day and to celebrate special occasions in their lives with useful objects created by the hand of another human being. One cannot explain this phenomenon within the narrow parameters of modernist art criticism, it is much more consequential and far-reaching than that. Crafts are inexorably linked to our very development as a species and each of us, whether we appreciate the idea of "Art" or not, will probably always be drawn to a handmade cup, bowl or plate. In much the same way our technological advances have not curbed our desire to ride horses, sail boats, hike and sleep outdoors, hunt, play sports, grow vegetables and eat meat cooked over an open fire. These activities, like crafts, not only give us joy, but also console us and remind us of what it means to be human.
The rejection of use by modern crafts does more than cut crafts off from its history; it denies crafts access to the senses. The senses, after all, are the way we understand and participate in the world in which we live. The question then arises, though, as to what kind of meaning can touch and surface carry. When, for example, we wrap our hands around a mug and feel its surface, or put our fingers through the handle and admire the balance achieved by the maker as we bring it to our lips, is there the possibility for some kind of moral or aesthetic truth to be transmitted within this experience? John Dewey in his book Art As Experience, suggests that, "There is no limit to the capacity of immediate sensuous experience to absorb into itself meanings and values that in and of themselves that is in the abstract would be designated 'ideal' and 'spiritual'".3
Instead of exploring how and why we respond to certain aspects of useful crafts and thereby expanding crafts language, modern crafts has chosen to either mimic useful objects (resulting in the self-conscious caricatures of teapots, pitcher and cups that abound at crafts fairs across the country), or create sculptural work (found predominantly in university galleries) whose main message seems to be about clever and unusual uses of "crafts" materials and techniques. >>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
>>If there is an underlying principle, a thread that runs through all crafts throughout history, it is use. The modern crafts establishment, however, argues that since we no longer need crafts to support our everyday existence, the only option available to the crafts is to become objects of aesthetic admiration. If crafts, as we have historically understood them, have been made "unnecessary" by the industrial revolution and the goal of crafts is now purely aesthetic (to only be looked at), then perhaps the logical thing to do would be to strike the word "crafts" from our vocabulary altogether. That, of course, would mean abandoning our special museums, magazines, arts funding and university departments devoted to crafts. I wonder how many people in the modern crafts movement take their beliefs that seriously?
There is no question that the role of crafts has changed, human beings, though, have changed very little. That is why even if all the ceramic sculptors and vessel maker's work commanded five figure sums, and was exhibited exclusively at the Museum of Modern Art, people would continue to want useful handmade objects. In spite of a glut of Tupperware and regardless of the contemporary crafts movement's insistence that useful objects cannot be considered as ART, people would still have the desire to seek solace and comfort at certain moments during their day and to celebrate special occasions in their lives with useful objects created by the hand of another human being. One cannot explain this phenomenon within the narrow parameters of modernist art criticism, it is much more consequential and far-reaching than that. Crafts are inexorably linked to our very development as a species and each of us, whether we appreciate the idea of "Art" or not, will probably always be drawn to a handmade cup, bowl or plate. In much the same way our technological advances have not curbed our desire to ride horses, sail boats, hike and sleep outdoors, hunt, play sports, grow vegetables and eat meat cooked over an open fire. These activities, like crafts, not only give us joy, but also console us and remind us of what it means to be human.
The rejection of use by modern crafts does more than cut crafts off from its history; it denies crafts access to the senses. The senses, after all, are the way we understand and participate in the world in which we live. The question then arises, though, as to what kind of meaning can touch and surface carry. When, for example, we wrap our hands around a mug and feel its surface, or put our fingers through the handle and admire the balance achieved by the maker as we bring it to our lips, is there the possibility for some kind of moral or aesthetic truth to be transmitted within this experience? John Dewey in his book Art As Experience, suggests that, "There is no limit to the capacity of immediate sensuous experience to absorb into itself meanings and values that in and of themselves that is in the abstract would be designated 'ideal' and 'spiritual'".3
Instead of exploring how and why we respond to certain aspects of useful crafts and thereby expanding crafts language, modern crafts has chosen to either mimic useful objects (resulting in the self-conscious caricatures of teapots, pitcher and cups that abound at crafts fairs across the country), or create sculptural work (found predominantly in university galleries) whose main message seems to be about clever and unusual uses of "crafts" materials and techniques. >>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign