“ M y n e w th in g r ig h t n o w is I
th in k th at th e w h o le craft id e n tity
crisis is a p r o je c tio n fro m art.
It’s
a r t
th at h a s th e id e n tity crisis.
C ra ft is fin e .” — Ju d ith S c h a ech ter
I f the worlds o f art and craft w ere involved in a kind o f civil w ar,
w ith the battlegrounds being blogs and gallery openings, panels
and salons, then there w ould be the so-called artists on the one
side and, com ing up over the h ill, on intricately crafted carousel
horses, w ould be the so-called decorative artists, w ith their pla-
toons o f ceram ists and furniture m akers, w ith regim ents o f w all-
paper designers and jew elry m akers. T h e y w ould very likely be
led in their charge by G eneral Judith Schaechter, w ho is not really
a general, o f course, but is a huge C iv il W ar aficionado as w ell
as a stained glass maker. Schaechter w ouldn’t just yell
charge'.
She
would shout points, philosophical notes and punch lines. Imagine
her firing a rhetorical shot that pokes fun at her side. “ N o one calls
them selves a decorative artist any m ore!” she says, for instance.
“ T h e y m ight be an
applied
artist or a
craft
artist or
afunctional
art-
ist. N o one says they are a
decorative artist—
th at’s like a category
at a museum!” T h en she fires again, this tim e aim ing a little closer
to the other team , or perhaps just shooting over their heads: “ I w ill
say that I agree w ith the Pasteur quote that Pasteur never actually
said—‘ I don’t think there’s such thing as applied science and pure
science. T h ere’s only good science.’ Just change it to art.”
T h e good thing about an art w ar is that (usually) no one gets
hurt, physically. A nother good thing about it is that it allow s you
to hear more precisely w hat artists on both sides think about w hat
it is they do. Judith Schaechter, for one, know s exactly w hat she
does—she m akes stained glass. T h a t’s all she m akes. She has made
stained glass since college. She has not dabbled in painting or used
ceram ics techniques in her stained glass w ork or w orked partly in
gouache. In a tim e w hen artists and m akers alike are changing
their m ediums as fast as they change their F acebook page, she is
the constant, unchanging glass star. W h y ? “ It bothers me that
people change media all the tim e,” she says. “ It’s like gettin g d i-
vorced before you’ve even m et the person. H aving a really inti-
mate relationship w ith a m aterial, you don’t just leave it.” She is
hopelessly devoted to glass, in other w ords, chained to it and liber-
ated by it. “ Stained glass made itse lf k now n to me like no other
medium and stained glass requires not a learning curve but fluency
that I haven’t gotten to y et. A n d , in a w ay, I ’m stuck w ith this.
For better or w orse. A n d it is ve ry much like a m arriage.”
Philadelphia is a place that intense lu xu ry condo developm ent
has not y et found com pletely, and i f you visit Schaechter there,
you head south o f dow ntow n and come to a tough-looking old cor-
ner w ith a couple o f V ietnam ese restaurants and an auto repair
shop. You have lunch at V ie t H uong; they know her noodle order.
A fter, you see her place is urban doll house-like—small and V icto -
rian. Inside, it’s dark and co zy , w ith a n arrow w ooden staircase
that leads past the m arionettes to the second-floor studio. T w o
cats play in the bay w in d o w , overlookin g an im m aculate w ork -
space, cds stored carefu lly along the w all, notes and decorations
at a m inim um . W atch in g it all is a sm all d agu erreotype o f her
great, great, great-uncle, John Fletcher H am lin, a C ivil W ar soldier
from Sugar G rove, Pennsylvania, w ho died in 1864 in Petersburg,
V irg in ia, a tip to her interest in the paraphernalia o f V icto rian
death m ourning. O ther tips are on her blog, entitled “ Late B reak-
ing N o o se,” and on her M ySpace page w here she loves listing
inspirations, w hich are numerous: “ Cem eteries and cem etery art
... old N ew England graveyard s, the G ettysb u rg battlefield,
o f course, but also lots o f other s tu ff related to death piques my>
064 american craft feb/maro9
