Tradition and the Modern Crafts Establishment 1 2 3 - PRINTER VERSION
>> and communicate feeling inside the constraints of a language is precisely what keeps a tradition alive and makes it viable. A craftsperson should not be discouraged by the argument that the craft language is limiting. All arts, as Michael Cardew indicated, are limited in the sense that their apparatus of communication is inadequate for the content, which seeks expressing, and they are all engaged in squeezing eloquence out of their own inarticulate dumbness.
Those who represent the rather narrow and perverse view that modern craft should be judged by its eccentricity, pursuit of novelty, and rejection of history will continue to insist that anything recognizable as traditional crafts cannot be significant. This perspective not only makes one blind to the work of the craftsperson who makes deliberate and subtle use of crafts' language to create emotion and feeling that can be communicated in no other way, but also severely limits craft to expressing little more than fashionable trends in popular culture. The serious expression and communication of ideas and feelings can only be realized when a craftsperson exploits, not perverts, the craft language and uses it to full potential. To achieve this, artists have to be as aware and familiar with what has been said before as they are with what is being said at the moment.
But that is still not enough. To paraphrase Virginia Woolf: "The thing that really matters, that makes a craftsperson (writer) a true artist (writer) and his work permanent, is that he should really see. Then we believe, then there arise those passionate feelings that true crafts (books) inspire. It is possible to mistake crafts (books) that have this life for craft without it, hard though it is to explain where the difference lies. Two figures suggest themselves in default of reasons. You clasp a bird in your hands; it is so frightened that it lies perfectly still; yet somehow it is a living body, there is a heart in it and the breast is warm. You feel a fish on your line; the line hangs straight as before down into the sea, but there is a strain on it; it thrills and quivers. That is something like the feeling which live crafts (books) give and dead ones cannot give; they strain and quiver. But satisfactory works of art have a quality that is no less important. It is that they are complete."
The kind of completeness Woolf describes cannot be achieved by a craftsperson with a myopic view of craft based on the chauvinistic belief that to be modern and therefore relevant, craft has to be explained in the narrow cultural context of Western modernism. It can exist only in the work of craftspeople that have immersed themselves in crafts¼ language and drawn on their knowledge of that language to transform mundane domestic objects into uncommonly poetic statements that cause us to reflect on the tenuousness of our existence. This is what makes traditional craft both modern and historical ‚ in a word, complete.
References:
1. T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent", Selected Essays, London, 1932.
2. Marcia and Tom Manhart, The Eloquent Object, The Philbrook Museum of Art, 1987.
3. From an essay written in 1912 included in The Essays of Virginia WooIf, Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich.
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© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
>> and communicate feeling inside the constraints of a language is precisely what keeps a tradition alive and makes it viable. A craftsperson should not be discouraged by the argument that the craft language is limiting. All arts, as Michael Cardew indicated, are limited in the sense that their apparatus of communication is inadequate for the content, which seeks expressing, and they are all engaged in squeezing eloquence out of their own inarticulate dumbness.
Those who represent the rather narrow and perverse view that modern craft should be judged by its eccentricity, pursuit of novelty, and rejection of history will continue to insist that anything recognizable as traditional crafts cannot be significant. This perspective not only makes one blind to the work of the craftsperson who makes deliberate and subtle use of crafts' language to create emotion and feeling that can be communicated in no other way, but also severely limits craft to expressing little more than fashionable trends in popular culture. The serious expression and communication of ideas and feelings can only be realized when a craftsperson exploits, not perverts, the craft language and uses it to full potential. To achieve this, artists have to be as aware and familiar with what has been said before as they are with what is being said at the moment.
But that is still not enough. To paraphrase Virginia Woolf: "The thing that really matters, that makes a craftsperson (writer) a true artist (writer) and his work permanent, is that he should really see. Then we believe, then there arise those passionate feelings that true crafts (books) inspire. It is possible to mistake crafts (books) that have this life for craft without it, hard though it is to explain where the difference lies. Two figures suggest themselves in default of reasons. You clasp a bird in your hands; it is so frightened that it lies perfectly still; yet somehow it is a living body, there is a heart in it and the breast is warm. You feel a fish on your line; the line hangs straight as before down into the sea, but there is a strain on it; it thrills and quivers. That is something like the feeling which live crafts (books) give and dead ones cannot give; they strain and quiver. But satisfactory works of art have a quality that is no less important. It is that they are complete."
The kind of completeness Woolf describes cannot be achieved by a craftsperson with a myopic view of craft based on the chauvinistic belief that to be modern and therefore relevant, craft has to be explained in the narrow cultural context of Western modernism. It can exist only in the work of craftspeople that have immersed themselves in crafts¼ language and drawn on their knowledge of that language to transform mundane domestic objects into uncommonly poetic statements that cause us to reflect on the tenuousness of our existence. This is what makes traditional craft both modern and historical ‚ in a word, complete.
References:
1. T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent", Selected Essays, London, 1932.
2. Marcia and Tom Manhart, The Eloquent Object, The Philbrook Museum of Art, 1987.
3. From an essay written in 1912 included in The Essays of Virginia WooIf, Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich.
<<
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign