C R I T I C ’ S C O R N E R
FIGURE 6
The Nike Blanket
Petition, an anti-sweat-
shop protest initiated
by Cat Mazza in 2003.
FIGURE
7
Julie Jackson’s cross-
stitched “sampler,” a
tongue-in-cheek take on
traditional needlecraft.
FIGURE 8
Marianne Joergensen
wrapped a tank in a
knitted cozy in 2006
to protest the Iraq War.
FIGURE 9
H um m er C o zy
, 2004,
one of Adam Ellyson’s
works enclosing an
industrial object with
quilted fabric.
052 american craft oct/novo9
as well as the history that they inherited from their parents’ generation,
the Gen Xers and third-wave feminists confronted the inherent difficulty,
perhaps the impossibility, of changing the world through direct political
action; hence the cynicism. Today these groups’ efforts to bring about po-
litical change often remain subversively masked within their culturally
fluent use of mockery. Growing up with
m t v
and the Internet gives them
media literacy, and, as a consequence, the methods they use to engage
with the culture are very different from those of their parents.
Whether or not any of them ever studied Barthes, Gen Xers and third-
wave feminists alike have a strong sense of semiotics (the theory of signs
and symbols in language) [figure 6], and they like to use the tools of the re-
mix-the aforementioned satire, parody and irony-along with an occasional
tinge of cynicism or nihilism drawn, respectively, from grunge and punk
influences, to make cultural statements [figure?]. In fact, quite often their
experience with culture is such that their creative work calls our attention
to the chasm between a diverse range of experiences and “truths” that are
at the root of the postmodern condition, and quite often the remix calls
attention to the postmodern and postpositive divides regarding the status
of knowledge in the 21st century: namely, Jean-Francois Lyotard’s idea
that the Western meta-narrative is dead and Karl Popper’s assertion that
knowledge is conjectural.
In light of these cultural experiences, Gen Xers seem to be quite fond
of using cultural twists, quagmires and reinventions. W e are witnessing
similarly positioned work within the
d i Y
craft community. The effect
is that regardless of their political ambitions, anytime someone needle-
points a pleasant-looking phrase gleefully embedded with curse words,
knits a skull and crossbones or makes a cozy for a tank
[FIGURE 8 ],
these cul-
tural statements 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, this work makes its cultural statements indirectly
and quietly. Rather than bringing revolution to the front door and kicking
it open, as their parents may have hoped to do, these independent makers
are using the disarming and unassuming aesthetic of
d i y
craft’s remixed
domestic creativity to make subversive statements about the world in
which they live [figure 9].
Despite these differences, it does seem that if we dig below the surface,
we can still find a shared raison d’etre for craft. An analysis of craft’s
ethos leads us back through a long history of resistance to both the indus-
trial revolution and the general tendency of technology and capitalism
to replace the more genuine and authentic forms of human production—
namely, making things by hand. As studio craft and
d i y
craft continue
to resist the world and each other, it should remain clear to all of us why
we came to the party in the first place: to celebrate the handmade. And
that’s what we need to keep doing, making stuff and then sorting out, after
the fact, whether it is good or not. Or does that matter anymore?
Dennis Stevens is a doctoral candidate in the Art and Art Education program
at Teachers College, Columbia University.
+
redefiningcraft.dennisstevens.net.
www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaiza.net
Mazza photo/Jim Finn, Joergensen photo/Barbara Katzin.
