The NEA and Pottery   1      2      -      PRINTER VERSION

>> eager to maintain their positions within the crafts field by applying for NEA fellowships in the crafts category, accepting exhibitions in the field's museums and seeking to publicize their work in the field's magazines? While the answer to that question might be obvious, the answer to the question of why this shell game has been allowed to continue, especially at the NEA, is far more difficult.

There are two basic untruths that seem to be operating in the modern crafts. The first—a premise so flawed that it is hard to believe it is tolerated—is that crafts are not defined by or seen in their historical context, but rather are determined simply by material. The second—an idea abandoned in the fine arts over 30 years ago—is that some forms of expression are inherently more capable of conveying serious thought than others. By fostering these two specious notions, the modern crafts establishment and the craftspeople who support it have been able to not only cling to the title of crafts and its support structures, like NEA fellowships, but also have been able to create the illusion that the very abandonment of that language—the rejection of pottery, for example, in favor of ceramic sculpture and the "vessel"—is actually a progression in crafts' history (an illusion designed, it seems, to make the crafts palatable to the more affluent and prestigious fine arts).

The old question of "art versus crafts"—a euphemism for ceramic sculpture and the "vessel" versus pottery—has little to do with the sum and substance of aesthetic expression and everything to do with the politics of power and self-interest. There is a statistic that demonstrates this point dramatically. Of the $2,250,000 awarded by the NEA [prior to 1990] to ceramists in the crafts category, only $179,000 was given to those who make pottery. Potters have gotten the message; few now bother to submit grant applications. But what is worse and has a more far-reaching effect on pottery's survival in American culture is that young students drawn to pottery have also gotten the message and have abandoned their aesthetic investigations of pottery early in the educational process. How pottery can be expected in our culture to be the potent and vital form of expression that it has always been through human history is a question that the NEA and the powerbrokers in the modern crafts establishment on whom they rely seem unconcerned with.

Rudolf Arnheim, in a keynote address to the 1961 conference of the American Crafts Council, gave a definition of art that I tend to apply more and more to objects and situations I encounter daily: "I had better confess at this point that when I think of art I think of what makes the nature of things visible. I don't much care whether it is made by nature or by man, by hand or by machine, intentionally or unintentionally. All that matters is whether or not shape makes my eyes understand what they see. If it does, I call it art, whether it be a waterfall or a flower, a human face, a spoon, a pair of shoes, a statistical chart, a pitcher, or a picture."

This is a view one might suspect the NEA and the modern crafts establishment, who have always portrayed themselves as progressive and liberal in their approach to art, have embraced. It is ironic, however, that in practice their position turns out to be more restrictive and conservative. Simply put, their attitude seems to be anything can be art except pottery.
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