Story by Namita Gupta Wiggers

Convincing Garth Clark to present a lecture in 2008 was no easy feat. After many years of running his gallery, curating, writing and lecturing, Clark was in the midst of both a professional and personal transition from New York City to Santa Fe. I can’t pretend – it took fast-talking and quick-thinking in person to convince him of several things: Portland audiences are not afraid of controversy; we were offering him an open platform for dialogue; and, finally, while the how’s and why’s are different, both Clark and I have spent the last several years thinking, writing and responding to issues surfaced during “Shaping the Future of Craft,” the 2006 National Leadership Conference organized by the American Craft Council in Houston, TX.

Clark’s lecture proved productively incendiary. Collaboratively presented by the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Oregon College of Art & Craft and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Clark’s lecture drew nearly 500 attendees, exceeding building capacity and disappointing many latecomers. “How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts” has, quite literally, travelled the globe through the internet and prompted subsequent interviews and articles. While Clark’s scholarship in the field of the visual arts is well recognized, his role as a critic can lead to his being misquoted or misunderstood. An extended period for questions and dialogue with the audience opened the conversation.

With characteristic humor, Clark surveyed the past 150 years, drawing socio-cultural parallels between the Arts & Crafts Movement of the British intelligentsia and the current state of the Studio Movement. Arguing that the desire for parity with the fine arts by artists, crafters (as Clark prefers), collectors, academia and institutions has created the demise of the movement itself, Clark expressed concerns that nostalgia and envy plague an aging community. As a result, he wryly quips, success is measured by escape from the “penitentiary” of craft into the “nirvana” of the art world. Instead of seeking a bridge to the fine arts, Clark advocates re-unification with design. It is here, he argues, that new business models and revitalized contemporary practices can be found, particularly in the recently growing and developing format of the applied arts in both Europe and the United States. In this new arena, Clark implies that the crafter can be more actively present in emerging scholarship and dialogue than through the perpetuation of older, hierarchical models.

Clark’s critique of the American Craft Council and the 2006 Leadership Conference provides an excellent springboard to explore “Creating a New Craft Culture” in Minneapolis. He raises important questions that have the potential to deepen and strengthen conference dialogue, picking up the baton, as he notes, put forward by Ned Cooke and Glenn Adamson’s presentation in 2006. Clark’s lecture provokes self-examination and self-critique regarding one’s own role in the construction of craft today. The seat at the proverbial communal table, as per Clark, is not always a comfortable one. The opportunity to redefine the table, the seat and the very conversation itself, however, is now. As they say, you have to be there to play; I hope you will join us.

Garth Clark’s lecture is available in two parts as a Museum of Contemporary Craft podcast. Click the links to download:

How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: Part I

How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: Part II

Garth Clark will present a follow-up to “How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement” at the Creating a New Craft Culture conference, entitled “A Case for Conservatism.” Namita Wiggers, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, will moderate a panel discussion at the conference entitled “Riding the ‘Long Tail’: Marketing Craft on the Internet.” Register now to claim your seat at the table! To learn more about the MFA in Applied Craft & Design offered by OCAC and PNCA in Portland, click here.