I am also including a .pdf copy of this essay below so, feel free to download and share this work with others but if you use it, please attribute it to me and link back to Redefining Craft, where applicable. As implied in the Creative Commons license of this essay, this work cannot be modified or used commercially without my permission.

Enjoy,

~ Dennis

View a Copy of Redefining Craft: From Front, Back and Side to Side in .pdf here.

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Redefining Craft: From Front, Back and Side to Side

Craft in the twenty-first century is a nebulous and slippery topic.  This essay sets about the difficult task of outlining a few transverse and lateral sociological tangents which are related to making things by hand in the early twenty-first century.  As craft today is the confluence of several different generational interpretations of a single term, this term presents us with a series of distinct, yet related, sets of knowledge and values which converge and relate back to a single word, which I have previously described as a vernacular misnomer.[1]  Although, each meaning of the term is derived from a reference to the production of objects by hand, a common definition for craft remains elusive. 

Today, while the American studio craft movement values skill, connoisseurship and tradition, in contrast, D.I.Y craft values the social nature of creative acts and seeks to gather like-minded people together to celebrate the act of making by hand and often does so in protest to mass-consumerism.  While this celebration of the handmade similarly occurs within the studio craft movement, the two fields remain distinct from another due to the barriers to creativity presented by the value that the studio craft movement places upon skill and connoisseurship.

Commonly, practitioners within D.I.Y craft seek to apply their creativity for the sake of individual expression with little regard for the hierarchies of the past.  Perhaps this is a Gen-X [2] trait, but nonetheless, DIY practitioners commonly prefer to explore technique in place of the development of a highly-refined set of skills. If there is anything that prevents the two from joining ranks it is the differences in generational perspectives and the hierarchy that is apparent within the tradition of studio craft. 

Instead of directly embracing a long established tradition directly, D.I.Y. craft practitioners prefer to reinvent it in the form of a re-mix that attempts to keep the old way of doing things at arms length, preferring instead to engage with techniques of the tradition through parody, satire and nostalgic irony.  Further, at the risk of stating the obvious, D.I.Y. craft is a largely feminist movement and often seeks to re-route the traditional feminist rejection of domestic creativity in an effort to make a semiologically loaded, cultural statement from a third-wave feminist [3] perspective.  Quite often, D.I.Y. craft seeks to re-value and re-situate techniques and traditions of domestic creativity in the service of social action; an effort that, at first glance, sometimes confuses second-wave feminists.

However, prior to pronouncing what could be critiqued as merely a simplistic series of generalization about generations, social movements and the relative experience of groups of people, I would like to establish that the concept of “political generations” is where I intend to situate my argument.  According to Whittier, a political generation is understood as “a group of people (not necessarily of the same age) that experiences shared formative social conditions at approximately the same point in their lives, and

holds a common interpretive framework shaped by historical circumstances” [4].  As such, much of the tensions that we are seeing within craft have to with allegiances and historical conditions set forth by one political generation and which are being confronted by another.  Clearly, we are facing a situation where there is a disconnect between the ideals and values of the Baby-Boom and second wave feminists versus the newer perspectives of the Gen-X’ers and third-wave feminists.  However, to stop short of  leading the reader to believe that we are discussing merely a few lines in the proverbial sand, several authors have suggested that rather than being a cohesive movement the only thing that unites third-wave feminists are the themes of multiple voices [5] and contradiction[6]; it is likely that we could say the same thing about Generation-X.

However, despite these differences, it does seem that if we dig below the surface, it is possible to locate a shared raison d’etre[7] for craft, as ultimately, an analysis of craft’s ethos leads us back through a long history of resistance to both the industrial revolution and the general tendency of technology and capitalism to replace the more genuine and authentic forms of human production, namely the things made by hand. Yet, aside from the tendency of history to repeat itself, we must not underestimate the struggle of the youth to be understood and to live out their generational experiences and “truths” in their own unique manner, as it is their paths that will lead the culture to new places and ultimately, new reasons for being.

As conceptual artist and writer, David Robbins suggests:  “Every generation of artist configures culture to match its own experience.  The conditions of our upbringing imprint us and when we come to maturity we return the favor, imprinting our sensibilities upon the culture and bending it to our wills.”[8]  It is with this quote in mind that one can assert that craft today is comprised of multiple groups with their own goals, ambitions and internal methods of knowledge production and sharing; these groups are navigating their own way through previously unmapped territories.

During their youth, the Baby Boom generation and also correspondingly, the second-wave feminists, believed that revolution was necessary to change the world.  During their formative stages as adolescents and young adults, they experienced much political turmoil such as the Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the struggles associated with both the Civil Rights and the Women’s Liberation Movements.  Correspondingly, young adults in the mid-1960s were portrayed by the French film maker Jean-Luc Godard as “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola”.[9]

However, in contrast, young adults in the mid-1980’s are described by David Robbins as the children of Barthes[10] and Coca-Cola [11] and he further describes his shared generational experience as having “no use for 60’s naïveté or 70’s embitterment”.[12]  He further comments on his shared experience as a young adult in the 1980’s in the following: “cynicism springs from disappointment, disappointment from naïveté;obvious, it seemed to us, that to ward off the cynicism’s black flowers, naïveté had to be nipped in the bud.  We wielded the shears cheerfully.” [13]

However, somewhere in the transition and despite Robbins’ generational claim to success, a mere decade later the cynicism returned in full bloom within the Gen-Xer’s and the third-wave feminist attitudes towards the media and political change.  In contrast to the Baby-Boom experience, punk rock, grunge, hip-hop and mass-consumerism comprised the experiences of these groups as adolescents and young adults.  As a result of these experiences as well as the history that they inherited from their parent’s generation, somewhere within their ethos the Gen-Xer’s and third-wave feminists began to see the inherent difficulty and perhaps the impossibility of changing the world through direct political action.  Therefore, today these group’s efforts to bring about political change often remains subversively masked within their culturally fluent use of irony, satire and parody.  Further, as the first generation to grow up with MTV and the internet, there is something striking about this generation’s degree of media literacy and the methods through which they use to engage with the culture; without any doubt, it is strikingly different than how their parents did business.

Regardless if they ever studied any of Roland Barthes, Gen-Xer’s and third-wave feminists alike have a strong sense of semiotics[14] and they like to use the tools of the re-mix, namely satire, parody and irony along with an occasional tinge of cynicism or nihilism, respectively drawn from their grunge and punk influences, to make cultural statements.  In fact, quite often, their experience with culture is such that their creative outcomes are often aimed at drawing our attention to the chasm between a diverse range of experiences and “truths” that are at the root of the post-modern condition and quite often, the re-mix is placed in the service of calling attention to the post-modern divide that relates to the status of knowledge in the 21^st century; namely, the idea that the Western meta-narrative is dead and truth can be found relative to one’s own experience. [15]

To demonstrate this concept in action, I would like to offer a tangential aside, which relates back to the sub-title of this essay.  As some readers may have noted, the term, “front back and side to side” slyly references a lyric excerpted from a song titled “Boyz-in-the-Hood” which was originally performed by the late rapper Easy-E, written by Ice Cube and released on N.W.A’s 1987 album called N.W.A and the Posse.  Easy-E was best known for his sexually explicit, misogynistic and deviant lyrics. He and a few other West coast rappers, such as Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, originally founded N.W.A.; a group that was instrumental in establishing the gangsta rap genre.  Ironically, for almost two decades many white suburban young men (and women) have been emulating the aesthetic form of gangsta rap and it remains the most popular form of music among adolescents and young adults.

Correspondingly, in 2000, a group of white boys in Austin, TX from a post-grunge band called Dynamite Hack, transformed Easy-E’s “Boyz-in-the-Hood” gangsta anthem into a softened, Caucasian version that homogenized the original hardened aesthetic form of the song. In their re-mix, Dynamite Hack essentially reinterpreted the music through their own intentionally “white” filter.  Similarly, in 2006, Nina Gordon, formerly of Veruca Salt, reinterpreted N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” in her own, unique, soft feminine style that is similarly Caucasian and even a bit folk.  Also in 2006, Ben Folds reinterpreted a Dr. Dre’s song called “Bitches Ain’t Shit”, which eventually influenced an a cappella group at UC Berkeley called DeCadence to release a unique re-mix of the tune on YouTube. 

The point here is that the divide between the Caucasian and African American experience is the reality of re-mix. The nostalgically ironic embrace and re-presentation of these lyrical works of gangsta rap are intended to distance the listener from the harsh reality and vulgarity of the original aesthetic form.  As Gen-Xer’s are quite fond of using these forms of cultural twists, quagmires and reinventions, I cite these examples because similarly positioned work is cropping up throughout the D.I.Y craft community.

Regardless of the political ambitions of their statements, anytime someone needlepoints a pleasant looking phrase which is gleefully embedded with curse words, knits a skull and cross-bones or makes a cozy for a tank; these are all cultural statements that demonstrate: 1.) the semiotic literacy of the generation, 2.) the nostalgic irony through which this generation prefers to operate and 3.) how cynicism sometimes finds its way to the surface of this creative work.  Quite simply, work of D.I.Y. craft is often intended to quietly make cultural statements. 

Rather than bringing revolution to the front door and kicking it open, as their parents did, these independent makers are using the disarming and presumably unassuming aesthetic form of D.I.Y. craft to make quiet and often subversive statements about the world in which they live and in the process, they have created a revolution that no one heard coming.

Endnotes

[1] See the website http://www.redefiningcraft.com for the slogan “untangling the web of vernacular misnomer that we call craft”.

[2] Coupland, Douglas. 1991. Generation X, tales for an accelerated culture. New York: St. Martis’s Press.

[3] The term third-wave feminism refers to a new form of feminist activity that emerged in the early 1990s.  At its core, it seeks to challenge what it considers to be the failures and shortcomings of second-wave feminism; particularly its perceived assumptions of universal female identity and what the third-wave views as an over-emphasis upon the experiences of upper middle class white women.

[4] Whittier, Nancy.1995. Turning it over: Personal change in the Columbus, Ohio women’s movement, 1984. In feminist organizations: Harvest of the new women’s movement. Ed. Myra Marx & Patricia Yancey Martin. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, p. 180.

[5] Chancer, L.S. 1998.  Reconcilable differences: Confronting beauty, pornography and the future of feminism. Berkeley: University of California Press

[6] Bailey, C. 1997. Making waves and drawing lines: The politics of defining the vicissitudes of feminism. Hypatia, 12, 17-28.

[7] Reasons for being

[8] Robbins, D. (2006).  The velvet grind: selected essays, interviews and satires (1983-2005). Ed. Bovier, L. and Stroun, F. Dijon: JRP/Ringier and Les presses du réel, p. 108.

[9] In Masculin, feminine, a 1966 film by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, a title between chapters states: “This film could be called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola.”

[10] Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher, and semiologist. Barthes’ work extended over many fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiology, existentialism, Marxism and post-structuralism.

[11] Robbins, Ibid

[12] Robbins, Ibid.

[13] Robbins, Ibid

[14] Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and how of how meaning is constructed and understood.

[15] Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1985. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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I will be traveling to Madrid and Toledo as a guest of the Spanish Foundation for the Innovation of Craft and I will be presenting on the topic innovation within the hybrid intersections of craft and design at the Craft + Innovation, II International Congress on October 25th, 2008.  In early November, I will also be presenting a short lecture as part of a Media Anthropology workshop in Barcelona.  It should be a great trip and I am certain that the experience will be the impetus to a lot of new ideas, plus I am looking forward to taking a nice vacation in the process.

In any case, I thought that while I am out of the Country, it might be nice for everyone to “chew” on this new video piece that I created.  We can talk about it when I get back…

Here’s a description:

This work seeks to challenge the field of ceramics as a tautology but at the same time it offers itself forth as a form of resistance and a solution that is impractical. In its aesthetic position, this video piece aligns itself with conceptual art but at the same time it attempts to justify itself in academic terms. Admittedly, the answer here is immanently incomplete and perhaps, that is what the field of ceramics needs to understand about itself.

Over the next year, I will be heading quite squarely into what stands to be a very complicated dissertation on capitalism, consumption and forms of protest and resistance in art, media and politics.  So, in preparation for this exploration, I have been doing a good bit of soul searching about my relationship to craft and my diverse range of research interests and ultimately, I have been trying to find a way to amalgamate all of this into a new direction, that is, perhaps related but quite likely, unrelated, to this blog site. 

The main question for me in this process of transformation is what to with this blog site and as always, how to re-position myself as a philosopher, a craft theorist, a writer, a thinker and an academic who has a strong interest in engaging with popular culture.  To me, in today’s culture, a purposefully constructed identity is of tantamount importance and as such, I think much of craft’s problem has to do with outdated or strongly defined sets of identities that are in conflict.

As has been the case since I started this site, I remain engaged with the questions: Who am I?  Who do I want to be?  And: How should I position myself relative to these answers?  And similarly, since I started this site in 2004, the questions for the field(s) of craft remain: Who are we?  Who do we want to be?  And: How should we position ourselves relative to these answers?

As I see it, American Studio Craft remains in conflict with its modernistic roots and at the same time, DIY craft is struggling to come terms with its own inherent conflicts, in terms of an anti-consumptive, anti-consumerist revolution quite quickly becoming a consumerist institution.  Further, the two fields, who share a common name, seem to remain far from reconciling their differences and working together toward a common set of shared ideals.

As the struggle for a re-definition of craft continues, I still have many questions and few answers and to me… things are as they should be.

Penland holds a special place in my heart as this is where I was originally indoctrinated into the craft experience in 1995, having visited as a young and disgruntled, undergraduate sculpture major from Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, where at the time, the utterance of the term “craft” was met with looks of contempt and disdain from the fine arts faculty and my fellow classmates.

Over the years, I have returned to Penland about five times for classes in ceramics, glass and kiln building as well as for several shorter visits and once for their annual auction. As I have mentioned before, I paid my dues scrubbing pots in Penland’s kitchen.

I have included below a video postcard from Penland which provides a pretty good overview of what one might expect at the school. In a sociocultural sense, I am always entertained by the manner in which the folks in upper-clay and upper-metals assert their superiority over the classes in lower studios; just kidding… Enjoy!

As a social experiment in Flash Mobbing, I put together a call-in talk show today at 1:00.

Although, no one was able to call in, I did get some things off my chest in light of Carmine Branagan’s recent departure from the American Craft Council and the future of the organization.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Correction: In this podcast, I mention that the ACC craft show in Baltimore was held recently; actually that show occurred February 23rd-25th, 2007. In fact, what I was referring to is The Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, which was held November 8-11th.

Carmine Branagan has resigned as Executive Director of the American Craft Council effective Friday, November 9th. Carmine served the Council with passion and dedication since 2002. Under her leadership the Council re-launched American Craft magazine, presented a national leadership conference in Houston, TX, revitalized the Council’s show program, and developed a strong, committed staff. Carmine believes many of the goals set during her directorship have been achieved and she looks forward to pursuing other interests.

We are grateful for her vision for the Council and for the critical role she has played to help secure the future of the field.

In my view, Carmine has served the Council well and has led the organization through some challenging times and ultimately to an interesting point of transition. Throughout her term as E.D., she navigated the highly political and passionate waters of American Craft with a great deal of poise, dignity and savvy. Further, for the record it should be mentioned that Carmine Branagan endured the pressures of this leadership position far longer than many, if not all, of the executive directors that preceded her. I would personally like to wish Carmine well, in whatever opportunity that she has chosen to pursue next.

In terms of the Council’s future, like many people within the field, I will be very interested to see what the Trustees’ next move will be; the ball is entirely in their court. Does the future of craft hang in the balance??? Stay tuned…

I will report further details, as I receive them. Also, feel free to forward me the scoop on this situation, if you have it. As always, anonymity will be fully respected, if requested.

I welcome everyone’s comments.

Enjoy…

MassArt has just officially changed their name from Massachusetts College of Art to Massachusetts College
of Art + Design (note the “plus” not “and”).

So I wonder why art schools are now succumbing to the market pressures of a quid pro quo relationship between learning and vocation. “I go to school, I get a better job” a maxim under which liberal arts colleges and universities have long suffered has now clearly entered the realm of “art school.”

What was wrong with the “love of learning” anyway? Art school was the place where you go to develop as an artist. To hone your skills in search of your own artistic voice. Art school was not about getting a
job, it was about establishing a way of life. It was a pursuit of certain ideals consistent with valuing the visual, contributing to culture through the visual, expressing one’s deepest sense of self, responding to
the world through image making etc.

And let’s just look at the words independent of the ideals; would worthy alternatives also include?

• Art + Design
• Art + Color
• Art + Scale
• Art + Craft
• Art + any term that is a detail of an artistic exploration

After all, is not design a facet of art? How is it that it has become its own thing? It seems to me that
it has become such because we are looking for the commercial promise of an artistic expression.

Well, this could go on forever, but why not simply label the new MassArt as:

Massachusetts College of Art + Design = Job

Perhaps that would put a finer point on it!

Thoughts?

~ Andrew

The name change letter follows:

Dear MassArt alumni, parents and friends,

I am pleased to announce that Governor Deval Patrick
has signed into law an act to make permanent the
special status of MassArt, officially changing its
formal name to Massachusetts College of Art + Design.

Since its founding, the college’s name has changed on
two previous occasions. Established in 1873 as
Massachusetts Normal School of Art, we were renamed in
1926 as Massachusetts School of Art, when we began
granting a Bachelor of Science degree in Education,
and again in 1959 as Massachusetts College of Art,
after receiving approval to offer a Bachelor of Fine
Arts degree. Today’s official announcement provides
an opportunity to reflect on MassArt’s distinguished
history, celebrate our dynamic evolution, and envision
our future.

Prior to proposing the name change, we undertook an
intensive study to measure public perception of the
college. The results show that many people do not
recognize the comprehensive nature of MassArt’s
programs, nor that design represents its largest
concentration of disciplines. Furthermore, Boston is
ranked second in North America as a center for design
employment, and with half of MassArt’s twenty-two
concentrations in design-related fields, it is the
primary educational institution preparing
professionals for that industry. As the college
enhances its national and international reach in all
areas of visual arts, including design, it is
appropriate that we embrace the name ” Massachusetts
College of Art + Design” as a true reflection of our
identity.

In an effort to fully integrate our new name
throughout the college, we have invited MOTH design
studio to develop a new graphic mark and visual
identity system. The design team - which will work
closely with members of the campus community - is
comprised of four MassArt alums: Tammy Dayton (BFA
‘98), Tony Leone (BFA ‘98), Dan Rukas (BFA ‘03), and
Kristen Paulson (Certificate ‘96). “MassArt” will
remain the primary component of our graphic identity
and continue to serve as our informal name. Evidence
of the new visual identity system, along with a
comprehensive overhaul of the college’s website, will
be evident beginning spring 2008.

These changes coincide with the creation of a new
marketing department responsible for promoting a
consistent message and visual identity across all
areas of the institution, increasing the college’s
visibility, and ultimately enhancing MassArt’s public
profile.

I extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has
championed this effort and to all those who strive
each day to keep MassArt in the forefront of art and
design around the world. As always, I welcome any
comments you may have on this new phase of success at
MassArt.

Sincerely,

Kay Sloan
President

I am hoping to return to New York renewed, refreshed and optimistic about the future of craft. As some of you may have gathered from the cynicism and ire in my most recent post and the frequency of my activity here lately, my frustration, in light of the apparent lack of willingness to embrace change within the field of craft, has been taking it’s toll on my ability to write.

In any case, we begin anew today and with this new beginning, I offer you a new post which finally came together for me last night after incubating for about three months. I have been meaning to post the following videos but I just haven’t been able to figure out quite how to frame it all but I now think that I have it. So here it goes….

Today, I offer two constrasting video examples which I hope will help more clearly articulate the differences between second-wave and third-wave feminism, as I think there is an important distinction to be made here in terms of understanding where the DIY craft energy is coming from. Of particular concern is the manner in which the third-wave (if there really is such a thing) represents it’s cause and purpose for being. In contrast to the second-wave, the third-wave doesn’t seem to care what other people think, they are just going to do what they do regardless of what anyone says, whereas, the second wave seems to be much more self-conscious and concerned with “changing the system” via direct confrontation.

I think this is an important concept to understand because:

1. This suggests how the future is going to be played out and also where craft is headed
2. the roots of our motivation for making objects (and often how they are designed) lies within our identity and serves a function which is related to how we interface with the world. Our choices concerning how we interact with the world and even our occupations and our hobbies often speak volumes about our inner beliefs and ultimately, our values.

These shared values, such as a concern for equality in perspectives unites feminists while a concern for functional objects that are unique, handmade and well designed unite crafters. In my view, the differences here have a great deal to do with the way in which Baby Boomers seek to change the world confrontationally, whereas the Gen-xers are much more cynical and accepting of the “way that things are” and seek change through a more subversive use of the system (example: Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show).

Another reason why I think this is important has to do with our growing concern with professionalism within art practice, which has been in place really since the 1950’s (see Singerman, 1999, pp. 189-192). In my view, a great deal of the hierarchical distinctions, perceived value and relative status of working with certain materials in art making in the twentieth century had a great deal to do with a socio-cultural need to be confirmed as a professional. Clearly, it is more difficult to assert your professionalism if you are working with materials that semiotically read “hobby” within the culture. So, the way around this, we have found is to work within the context of humor, irony, parody and satire in a effort to snidely comment upon the misguided values within our culture. Perhaps the entire DIY movement is a rebellious reaction against what “the culture” has suggested defines a professional artist and designer in the twenty-first century.

Take a look at the following two videos in light of the ideas outlined above and I look forward to your comments:

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Reference

Singerman, H. (1999). Art subjects: the Making of Artists in the American University. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Feel free to shop the file around… let’s see what happens.

I look forward to your comments!