The Future of Craft

[Gabriel Craig]

This discussion group will focus of the future of craft. Please feel free to post comments about your vision for the future, about the implications of current practices and trends, your thoughts about sustainability, etc. Basically, this is a space to talk about where we are going individually and collectively. It is also my hope that this discussion might lead to some pragmatic steps rather than just postulation. I would also like this to be a safe space, meaning keep the discussion civil if you want to participate. Of course all view points are welcome.

[Sean W Scully]

The corporate model with which they have framed our public schools have no room for creativity - considered dangerous. Teaching to the test makes room for videogames in the classroom (consumption) but no constructive/productive outlet.
Tactile creativity has yet to return to the curriculum. However, artistic productivity is expressed though various channels and fundamentally feeds into every discipline. So we simply need to properly package that to those around us and form our own think tanks/braintrusts on how to do that efficiently.
The art education degree focuses more on learning theory than actual skill and therein lies its downfall. Enhanced curriculum development and aesthetic theories are great endgame but always fly out the window once someone steps into the classroom and has to focus on the manual action of creation. My art ed friends only find this out in their last year when they walk into actually teaching students. Reform there could mean real change.

[Ana M. Lopez]

I have wanted to add something to this discussion for a week now but felt like I should at least look at Gabriel’s blog so as to avoid any possible redundancy. I will admit right now that I did not get through all of the archived postings. This is because:
1. there were so many good links to outside information that each blog post potentially involved an hour of outside reading/listening/viewing to go with it and
2. I have a baby and a job and all that stuff
So please forgive me if the following thoughts are less efficacious for not having done the homework ☺

I think a lot about the future of craft and I have several theories, which I variously ascribe to depending on the nature of recent interactions and my level of optimism. They revolve around the future of craft programs in schools, particularly metalsmithing programs, as that is where my heart lies.

1. Maybe the closing of programs is just the field finding its level again after the explosion of interest in the 60’s and 70’s, and programs will survive in the schools with the strongest, largest art programs
2. Maybe we will loose the middle ground of craft and what will be left are the high end superstars and the low end democratic revolution
3. Maybe history will see us as liminal curiosities

Of course the future of craft may be entirely outside the educational system. Although its hard to imagine any healthy enterprise not having some representation in academia. Garth Clark might have something in his suggestion of hitching our wagon to the Design horse. When I look at Crafts magazine from the British Crafts Council I see a lot of things that would belong in an American design magazine. Of course, those are also the kinds of partnerships that their government appears to be sponsoring.

Something that gives me hope is the number of good books and collections of essays that are available now about craft that were not around fifteen years ago. Perhaps, as Clark suggests in his presentation (http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/programs_podcasts.php), these are all just the easy dissections of a lifeless body. Then again maybe they are a starting point to better criticism and understanding.

Something that has been holding us back, I believe, is the absence of a historical perspective. It would be unthinkable for a painter to operate without an understanding of what has gone before, but so often that is the case in the craft fields. Too often some bit of media-specific history has to be jammed in alongside all the other things a studio faculty member has to impart. To really make craft history a viable field requires persons schooled in craft or decorative arts history, and only recently have such degree programs developed. It also requires that the customers (students) demand such a history from their educational institutions. As an added bonus, such programs might result in more consumers, critics and historians of craft.
{side note: the new book “Makers: A History of American Studio Craft” due out in April 2010 will be available with teaching resources so that most any interested faculty could offer a decent craft history class}

Craft as we know it began as a reactionary position and I don’t think that the stimulus has gone away. But the new tools of revolution are digital and pervasive, which makes me think that #2 above is the most likely result.

Okay, this has gotten very long, so I will leave it at that for now.

[Gabriel Craig]

Ana,

Thanks for weighing in. I agree very much with your sentiments about the importance of learning the history of craft (or whatever field you happen to be in).

Two questions:

1. Do you think the health and vitality of craft in the UK is a result of craft history being compulsory in the university curriculum for craft students?

2. As far as craft history being taught in America, one text book and some teaching resources can hardly replace dedicated specialists on the subject. While there are numerous art historians who specialize in craft or the decorative arts, I feel the absence of craft history in university curricula must be at least partly attributed to the fact that there are no craft history programs, or a craft history track in art history departments. Of course this is a chicken and egg situation, and it seems like the extraordinary efforts of a few people have moved studio craft history forward as a discipline, but one does still goes wanting for more.

Ok a third question:

3. What will happen if makers begin to have and apply historical knowledge to their work? What are the implications for American Craft?

[Sean W Scully]

We forget the GI Bill sent the influx of new interest and government monies into the arts in the forties and fifties. Currently we have a significant number of troops who have yet to return, where will they go in this economy and what will that mean for academia?
As the culture of consumption has been forced upon an industrialized nation and the service economy gives way to the attention/knowledge/information economy people are returning to local productive measures for economic if not ecological reasons. I do agree that there is a definite institutional strata that faces a rising threat, but such terms lend themselves to hyperbole. As far as the digital revolution is concerned I hope what libraries are left remain open and the internet retains its egalitarian lustre, but ultimately we who have any knowledge of this field are already on top.
That being said, as the divided arts grow more integrated an overarching framework of hope will hopefully emerge from all the recent scholarship (esp. Sennett The Craftsman).
I see what has become of the sciences and weep as government sponsorship bows out and corporate reductive science slowly surreptitiously takes all. Art can fight back but to follow suit (stepping from academia into business realms - unless there is still a "public") seems a step backward.

So ultimately I hope reform infiltrates academia rather than retreats from it. Unless we can reenact France in '68, that would be wild.

[Philippe Di Benedetto]

Hello to all.
I think the craftsmanship is our future. because people are tired of the industrial age and its products formatted, antiseptic, dehumanized, empty. The artifact carries the strengths and weaknesses of those who shaped it. It is implicitly the story of an individual, the realization of a passion, patience, know how innate or acquired over the years. The craft is the vibrant living tissue which, as there are thousands of years of united nations forged the respect of everyone in his field and admired. I am a strong believer in human values and Crafts is an exchange of these values.
Thanks for this add

Philippe

[2Roses]

We think you're getting closer to the heart of things Gabriel. Harriete Estel Berman is bringing this discussion into sharper focus with her vision of mainstream political advocacy and business organization. Our major industry institutions (ACC and SNAG) have failed us by making themselves (and us by extension) completely irrelevant to the fabric of modern life. We have failed ourselves in our inability to organize in any meaningful way. This is a particularly American shortcoming we must point out, as we have seen quite the opposite in Canada, Mexico, Europe and many other places around the world. The short answer to your original question is, The Future of Craft - is US. It will be what we make it. At the moment we are adrift without a rudder.