Story by Lisa Bayne

Lisa Bayne with a Boris Bally “Transit” chair

In preparation for the American Craft Council conference in October, I have been thinking a lot about the word “community” lately, particularly in respect to the world of craft. It seems that a younger generation than mine (I’m a boomer) has claimed the word “community” as theirs, as evidenced in “Handmade Nation” and the world of online marketplaces selling the work of “makers” or “crafters.”  While that sense of community is indeed strong among makers of my daughter’s generation, I have been struck recently by the community that exists among my generation of craft lovers, a community largely composed of women.

As I walked through the ACC Show in San Francisco this weekend, I was stopped numerous times and asked about my wrap, my earrings, even my nail polish color! I engaged in conversations about wonderful work with total strangers, feeling like I was making new best friends at many booths. This community of women notice and love things that are made by hand and feel completely comfortable sharing stories, sources and tips with one another. Their delight in seeing and being seen in adornments made by artists was evident, with a free exchange of admiring comments.

Watching this community made me wonder if all the talk about a dwindling craft culture was missing the point. The culture and the community may be the point, not just for the Etsy crowd, but for boomers like us who are on Facebook, who attend shows, who shop at Eileen Fisher and Chico’s, who connect through book clubs and political action groups. The connection is the love of the work.

Janet Steadman, Flying Free

My best friend and I have attended many craft shows together over the years. No longer living in the same city, we now participate in what I jokingly refer to as “phone sex”; we phone each other using our earphones while we simultaneously go online and look at artwork, often on Artful Home. We comment and compare our reactions—we usually send each other links of favorites in preparation for a call. Just this morning we indulged in a session about Janet Steadman, an 80-year-old textile artist, and Suki Diamond, a ceramic artist. I wonder how many other women are engaged in a similar craft community – or would love to be – sharing in the delight formerly achieved by walking a show, now possible at any time online.

Lisa Bayne is the CEO of Guild/Artful Home, a print and online resource both for artists seeking buyers for their work and consumers seeking access to a broad selection of original art in a variety of media. She will participate in a panel discussion at the conference entitled “Riding the ‘Long Tail’: Marketing Craft on the Internet.”

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.