Janet Kardon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 - PRINTER VERSION
>> RB: I'm talking about how he's speaking to the public, how we understand his work.
JK: I don't quite understand what you're saying.
RB: If I'm a furniture maker and I make this chair and we sit in it we understand it in the history and context of chairs.
JK: But isn't that sort of old-fashioned, that craft is going to serve a specific function? Aren't there marvelous craft objects being made today that are denying function?
RB: I wonder if they are still craft objects; that's my question.
JK: I believe they are, yes.
RB: So if a person cuts up a chair and hangs it on the wall, they're a craftsperson just like the person who makes a chair for use.
JK: If that person says they're a craftsperson, yes.
RB: Do you see any implications in that for the craft field? I'll go back to the NEA grants: Don't you think it is difficult for someone who works inside the traditional language of craft to compete with artists who have abandoned that language?
JK: I can't comment on the NEA process. I don't know enough about the NEA process or the information you have to make any kind of comment on that.
RB: In the context of the craft world and its survey exhibitions, what kind of work is rewarded? In other words, is the making of traditional craft objects, like a chair you sit in, a retrograde activity?
JK: I wouldn't say so. I think it all comes back to the individual object and to a body of work that a person has produced.
RB: I'm sorry to keep bothering you about this, but I get the feeling that you're suggesting that we use the same criterion for judging the chair that hangs on the wail and the chair that is made to sit in. It doesn't seem to me that you would. People want to know what the criteria are.
JK: I don't think that¼s important; I think it's irrelevant. Whether a chair hangs on the wall—the chair as idea—or sits on the floor—chair as actuality—is not as important as: Is it a good object? How does this object, for example, fit into the historical continuum of other objects that have been made?
RB: I understand that point, I'm just trying to figure out how you would decide that this chair that is
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© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
>> RB: I'm talking about how he's speaking to the public, how we understand his work.
JK: I don't quite understand what you're saying.
RB: If I'm a furniture maker and I make this chair and we sit in it we understand it in the history and context of chairs.
JK: But isn't that sort of old-fashioned, that craft is going to serve a specific function? Aren't there marvelous craft objects being made today that are denying function?
RB: I wonder if they are still craft objects; that's my question.
JK: I believe they are, yes.
RB: So if a person cuts up a chair and hangs it on the wall, they're a craftsperson just like the person who makes a chair for use.
JK: If that person says they're a craftsperson, yes.
RB: Do you see any implications in that for the craft field? I'll go back to the NEA grants: Don't you think it is difficult for someone who works inside the traditional language of craft to compete with artists who have abandoned that language?
JK: I can't comment on the NEA process. I don't know enough about the NEA process or the information you have to make any kind of comment on that.
RB: In the context of the craft world and its survey exhibitions, what kind of work is rewarded? In other words, is the making of traditional craft objects, like a chair you sit in, a retrograde activity?
JK: I wouldn't say so. I think it all comes back to the individual object and to a body of work that a person has produced.
RB: I'm sorry to keep bothering you about this, but I get the feeling that you're suggesting that we use the same criterion for judging the chair that hangs on the wail and the chair that is made to sit in. It doesn't seem to me that you would. People want to know what the criteria are.
JK: I don't think that¼s important; I think it's irrelevant. Whether a chair hangs on the wall—the chair as idea—or sits on the floor—chair as actuality—is not as important as: Is it a good object? How does this object, for example, fit into the historical continuum of other objects that have been made?
RB: I understand that point, I'm just trying to figure out how you would decide that this chair that is
>>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign