of the same age) that experiences shared formative social conditions at ap-
proximately the same point in their lives, and holds a common interpretive
framework shaped by historical circumstances.” Thus, the tensions with-
in craft have to do with allegiances and historical conditions established
by different political generations that stand in contrast to one another.
However, the entire concept of political generations is surely more
complicated than drawing a few lines in the sand, and several authors
have suggested that rather than being cohesive, third-wave feminism,
a movement that seeks to challenge what it considers to be the failures
and shortcomings of second-wave feminism, is united by the themes of
multiple voices2
and contradiction.3
We could likely say the same thing
about Generation
X
,4
and thus
d
iv
craft, altogether.
If there is anything cohesive about the
d
iy
movement, it’s that its
practitioners choose to reinvent tradition as a remix, engaging with it
through parody, satire and nostalgic irony, quite in the same way that Sid
Vicious mocks and riffs upon high culture in the opening minute of the
Sex Pistols’ 1977 remake of Paul Anka’s “My Way.” It is important to ac-
knowledge that
d
iy
craft as a movement emerged as part of community
activism, with a lineage that can be traced back to the 1980s and the punk
movement, ’zine activity and into the early 1990s with the Riot Grrrl
movement
[fig ure
3
].
In its essence, this new type of craft represents a form
of expression that often flies in the face of the 1970s second-wave feminist
rejection of creativity in the domestic sphere.
Today within craft it seems that we are confronted with a shifting
epoch, evidenced by the struggle of young people to be understood and
to live out their own generational experiences and “truths” in a distinct
manner. 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.”5
Such a comment supports the assertion that today,
as always, craft consists of multiple groups with their own goals, ambitions
and internal methods of knowledge production and sharing; all are navi-
gating their own way through previously unmapped territories
[fig u r e
4
].
During their youth, the baby boom generation, like the second-wave
feminists, believed that revolutionary change was necessary to shift the
existing social structure toward a more liberal moral ideal. During their
formative stages as adolescents and young adults, they experienced much
political turmoil—the Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy
and the struggles of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements.
Young adults in the mid-1960s were portrayed by the French filmmaker
Jean-Luc Godard in his
Masculin Féminin
(1966) as “the children of Marx
and Coca-Cola.”
[f i g u r e s ]
Young adults in the mid-1980s, however, are described by Robbins
as the children of the French philosopher Roland Barthes and Coca-Cola,
and he further describes his shared generational experience as having
“no use for 60s naïveté or 70s embitterment”6
because they led to cynicism.
Nevertheless, the cynicism returned in full bloom along with new atti-
tudes toward the media and political change. In contrast to the baby boom-
ers, adolescents and young adults of the 90s experienced punk rock,
grunge, hip-hop and mass consumerism. As a result of these experiences >
FIGURE 3
Cover of
R io t G rrrl:
R e v o lu tio n S ty le N o w !,
a documentary history
of the punk feminist
movement.
FIGURE 4
Liz Collins's
K n ittin g
N a tio n Phase 4: P rid e,
part of an ongoing col-
laborative performance
and installation project.
FIGURE 5
Poster for Jean-Luc
Godard’s
M a scu lin
F ém in in
(19 66).
2. L. S. Chancer,
R econcila ble D ifferences:
C o n fro n tin g B ea u ty ,
Pornography a n d the
F u tu re o f F em in ism ,
Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998.
3. C. Bailey, “Making
Waves and Drawing
Lines: The Politics
of Defining the Vicissi-
tudes of Feminism,”
H yp a tia
12,1997,
pp. 17-28.
4. Generation X includes
those bom early-to-mid-
1960s to late 70s.
5. David Robbins,
T h e
V e lv e t G rin d : S elected
E ssa ys, In te rv ie w s a n d
S a tires (198 3-20 0 5),
ed.
L. Bovier and F. Stroun,
JRP/Ringicr and Lcs
Presses du Reel, 2006,
p. 108.
6. Ibid.
oct/novo9 american craft 051
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