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Voices
D o you think
o f you rself
as belonging
to a crafts
community?
Absolutely. I write about craft,
collect contemporary craft
and antiques, socialize with
craft artists and collectors, take
workshops in metal, fibers or
clay, and lecture on the history
of craft. I am more a “thinker”
than a “maker” (in the words
of John Ruskin) when it comes
to craft: my current passion is
drawing connections between
the Arts and Crafts movement
and today’s green design/sus-
tainability movement. But it
is the crafts community—artists,
collectors, curators, students
and scholars—that sustains me.
— Beverly K. Brandt,
professor,
School o f Design Innovation,
Arizona State University, Tempe
I am so completely on the fence
between two worlds: one being
the design arts and the other that
of technique and craft. If one
were to ask another glass artist,
they’d probably describe me
as an architect-turned-artist who
makes architectural art glass.
I think that in order to do what
I do with some level of compe-
tence, I must be a good crafts-
person. But, I don’t really think
that I belong to a crafts commu-
nity per se. My projects are inte-
grated into architectural envi-
ronments and for that reason are
unlike stand-alone craft objects
that are both beautiful and iden-
tified as useful. I definitely
belong to the arts and creative
industries communities here.
— Laurel Porcari,
architectural
glass artist and educator, New
Orleans,
l a
Absolutely. I live in Western
North Carolina, where it is
continually humbling to wit-
ness the talent and passion
driving individuals, as well as
organizations, to create a
unique place for making and
living. Our community is built
on over a hundred years of
tradition and true grassroots
efforts with a contemporary
vision. We are blessed with a
wealth of talented individuals
committed to sustaining and
augmenting the next generation
of makers. This is a community
of wisdom, brilliant vision
and inspirational makers. I am
honored to call Western North
Carolina home.
— Brent Skidmore,
director,
U N C
Asheville, Craft Studies
program, studio furniture maker-
designer, Asheville.
Now is an exciting time to be
a part of the international crafts
community. The community
is far different from to years ago:
larger than ever and including
artists from such a variety of
backgrounds that they may not
all recognize the common thread
uniting them. There are the fore-
runners of the studio craft move-
ment, its participants, the new
generations influenced by it and
now those involved in
D I Y .
Because of the increasingly
blurred boundaries between the
arts, this community includes
artists who use one or more
craft medium, sometimes in
combination with other media,
in the service of a larger concep-
tual statement. They make the
critical decision to use a particu-
lar craft medium because of the
effect: for them, the material
is as essential to the message as
it is to the traditional craftsman,
but it is not their sole focus.
While the definitions of craft
and its community will continue
to change, aesthetic quality will
remain the prerequisite.
— Davira S. Taragin,
indepen-
dent curator, Bingham Farms, M l
My craft community is thriving,
transcending the standard me-
dia! It influences many aspects
of life in New York. My friends
include furniture designers, bi-
cycle frame builders, textile de-
signers and a master composter.
My work is shown next to a
three-person chocolate factory,
(I am using the waste material
from their cocoa beans to cast
into furniture and objects).
Nearby are young butchers in-
heriting skills from a butcher in
the Catskills. This new interest
in the handmade reflects a per-
manent interest in craft and in
the meaning of the stuff popu-
lating our everyday environ-
ment, as well as a willingness to
spend more on things made by
a person with skill.
— Daniel M ic
h
al ik,
furniture
designer, Brooklyn, N r
M y ideas about craft are deeply
connected to textiles, particu-
larly the expressive capacity of
the textile object. I feel kinship
with makers who engage the
body and mind in an intercon-
nected dance that moves
dynamically between sensation
and thought. This textile com-
munity is unlimited. It takes
only an instant to recognize
that common bond, whether in
Lodz, Poland; Bhuj, India; or
Philadelphia. It’s exhilarating.
— Wendy Weiss
, professor,
Textiles, Clothing and Design
department, and director, Robert
Hillestad Textiles Gallery,
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
I live in the southern Appala-
chian Mountains, where our
small and eager handmade com-
munity is overshadowed by the
extraction of coal. The habitual
Appalachian practices of quilt
making, wood shaping and pro-
duce preservation are the basis
of our craft community and,
truthfully, my ironwork falls
outside this base. Strangely, it
often seems that due to the in-
dustrial nature of iron, my days
overlap less with our craft com-
munity and more with the metal
shops supported by the mines.”
— Marc Maiorana,
metalsmith,
owner o f Iron Design Company,
Cedar Bluff, t’A
www.WorldMags.net & www.Journal-Plaza.net
Illustration T amara Shopsin.
