Reply to: Is Craft Art?
RunningWolf
Just a random thought on the subject.
I was a breif member of an Artist Guild in New Hampshire that only accepted
artists and not crafters. Artists included all the tradional fine arts, ie;
oil, acrylic and watercolor painters, sculptors, pastelist, colored pencil
and graphite, etc. It also included photographers, potters, poets, a
musician and an museum curator with an intense love of the fine arts. The
point of the Guild was to simply be around other artist of all levels and
share ideas, sucesses and techniques as well as just support each others
dreams.
Defining art as simply something that can evoke emotion and add insight into
the artist being, is silly. Some paintings just sit there and takes up
space on the wall, evoking no more than "nice colors" reponse and show no
emotion or mood from the artist. It just looks good hanging there! (Like
the dried flower embellished straw hat in the hallway! Clearly a craft!)
While some crafts, like the hand-painted country signs that also hang in a
hallway or bathroom can cause you to roll over in laughter or reflect deeply
on the love of your life. So then the definition must be in the
technicality of the works. Watercolor is a difficult medium to master,
learning to draw the human figure doesn't come overnight. Creating the fine
lines of a porcelan vase on a potters wheel is no accident. The skills
needed to produce the pieces required hours of patient and sometimes
frustrating work to attain. Most artist never stop learning to master their
medium, while they strive to learn a new one.
A crafter need not no more than how to use a hot glue gun and how to arrange
cinnamon sticks around a candle. But, a good crafter should have some basic
artistic fundamentals. Color theory, drawing skills and knowledge of how to
use a piant brush. A friend of mine painted lavishly detailed southwestern
motiffs on red-earth pottery and southwest style furniture. Was this art or
craft? She sold more work at craft shows and no gallery would display her
work, but I considered her an artist.
Ultimately it is up to two people to determine if a piece is art or craft.
The person who created it and the person viewing it. If these two people
connect, and agree that the hand painted sweatshirt is art, then guess what,
it's art. If they don't, well for the viewer it's not.
Haven't any of you looked at a piece of work hanging in a gallery and
thought to yourself, "My dog could have painted that piece of crap!" because
it was a canvass covered in splatters and gobs of paint that made no sense
to you? You didn't connect with the artist! Sometime is get so frustrated
because I know I put more thought and effort into my watercolors than this
guy did in his heavy impastoed montrosity yet, he is commanding five figure
sums on a piece in the gallery and I, alas sell my work by word of mouth to
those who happen to see my work in someones home. Yet that small
handcrafted trinket at the shops in Mystic Seaport Village, or the wonderful
wineries of Virginia or the even the Artsy world of Monterey California
somehow find their way to my home because I liked them, they made me smile
or filled an empty space in my home. I connected with the craftsperson.
Thanks for letting me reply,
rgr
Vince Rhea
Thanks for the reply. I have similar sentiments on the subject.
Jeanne
Jaakko Hucklebee
Did you know that Native Americans did not have a word for art? Yes?
Did you know Plato's word "artis" was virtue or skill? Not what we
think. What we call art, the free play of cognitions viewed from the
common perspective to be a formalist, never occured to the intuitive
Plato who simply desired to destroy or subvert the mythopoetic
extablishment in favor of reason and metaphor and a life considered
thoughtfully.
What is art for a pornographer is not art for a more sensitive person.
But I would not go so far as to put idea before art. Art must come first
in order to have something to talk about. Barthes wrote that an artist
uses craft to make art while craft goes no further than itself. If, such
as Pollack, one becomes nature and expresses an angst with the
establishment, the establishment may just call that person "the
greatest modern artist"---which is why he killed himself with his
existence after throwing all those drips on the canvass in the first
performance piece recoginzed by Western Civiliaztion as Fine Art.
For my own story, craft was hell, as was the years studying design. I
would in no way advocate that a person suffer for decades doing things
he or she hates to do as an apprentice in order to arrive in the rare
air of Fine Art BS and poverty. I guess it isn't free will going on.
It may just take all kinds. Vocation is a good word, so is ubermench.
regards,
Jaakko
G*rd*n
jes...@ziplink.net:
| Did you know that Native Americans did not have a word for art? Yes?
| Did you know Plato's word "artis" was virtue or skill? Not what we
He spoke Latin?
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