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rEvolution: 105 Years of Jewelry & Metalsmithing at The University of the ArtsPhiladelphia Art AlliancePhiladelphia, PennsylvaniaMay 14th - July 26th, 2009“rEvolution: 105 Years of Jewelry & Metalsmithing at The University of the Arts” is a survey, of sorts, of the many jewelers and metalsmiths who have taught at the Philadelphia College of Art/University of the Arts over the years. Like many art schools, UArts first offered hands-on metals instruction in the early 1900s. Blacksmithing maestro Samuel Yellin was one of the first; Sharon Church, Rod McCormick and Lola ...
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The Los Angeles creative community and assorted other cool folk came out in force January 29 for the festive opening of two exciting shows celebrating L.A. artists at the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Wilshire Boulevard.
"A Marriage of Craft and Design" highlights the 50-year creative partnership-and love story- of modern master designer-craftsmen Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman, with a retrospective selection of weavings, ceramics and metalwork from the early 1950s to the 90s. "Crossing the Line," a site-specific space by multimedia maker Tanya Aguiniga, 32, transforms a gallery into a wonderland filled with thousands of colorful, crisscrossed yarn strands, floating ...
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This is the second in a series of posts about Editor in Chief Monica Moses' studio remodel, which is being filmed for a cable TV show. Read the first post here.
In the last couple of weeks, things have really started hopping on this remodel, which is being filmed by Magnetic Productions for the DIY Network show called Sweat Equity. I got a plan from the designer, did extensive "before" video interviews with my husband, got feedback on our house from a real estate agent and Sweat Equity's host, Amy Matthews, and with some friends, demolished ...
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If there were a battle of the vessels, the pot or bowl might be a classic, heavyweight victor. But it'd be the cup - the vessel we hold in our hands, against which we press our lips - that'd be found the most intimate. Drawing attention to the "often-overlooked art of handmade cups" is part of what inspired KEIKO Gallery's annual cup show, which opens tomorrow and runs until December 2.
KEIKO, nestled in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood, specializes in contemporary Japanese art and craft. The group exhibition, "It's All About Cups," is now in its 4th year and features work ...
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Fresh from the floor of the 700-artist show, we're excited to report the winners of the 2011 Awards of Excellence. This year's jurors were Elisabeth R. Agro and Heather Gibson of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The six artists recognized for their work are:
Taikyun Kim (Edison, NJ), whose hand-sculpted metal jewelry of oxidized silver overlaid with platinum or 24 karat gold evokes the cosmos. In Kim's work, the judges saw "a true unique voice," unlike that of any other jeweler in the show.http://taikyunkim.com
Lisa Klakulak (Asheville, NC), whose incredible range of works in felt blew away the jurors. The consummate fiber ...
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If you watched the Grammys, you no doubt saw the stunning green gown worn by the best new artist winner, Esperanza Spalding. Spalding's gown was made by Brooklyn-based designer Selma Karaca, whose work will be featured at the American Craft Council show in Baltimore next week. The show runs from Thursday through Sunday and features the fine work of more than 700 of the country's top contemporary craft artists. Stop by booth 709, to see more of Karaca's gorgeous collection.
For more details on the American Craft Council show, including how to purchase tickets, please visit craftcouncil.org/baltimore. ...
Perspective
The biggest and most joyous craft event of the year is staged every September on a gigantic playa, a clay lakebed over 30,000 years old, in the middle of Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. This is the site of the Burning Man festival (Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2009). I have wanted to attend for 10 years. Having regularly read about it and discussed it with veteran “burners,” I thought I had a good idea of what to expect. But it was a hundred times more than I imagined. It cannot be fully explained; it can only be experienced. Here ...
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It's not too late to participate in the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design's fantastic raffle. Two winners, selected on January 15, will be treated to a one-week class of their choice, including board and meals, at Penland, Arrowmont, or John C. Campbell Folk School.
A single ticket will set you back $25, but the CCCD is only selling 200. In other words, you can start daydreaming about where you'd go and what you'd learn - without soul-crushing odds to ruin the fun. And even if you don't win, you can still feel good about where your money goes. The CCCD ...
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The cult illustrator Robert Crumb-“R. Crumb,” as he signs his work-holds a special place in the hearts of baby boomers. What ’60s kid didn’t gaze in awe at his cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills album (marveling every time at Janis Joplin’s cleavage), paste a “Keep on Truckin” sticker on a school notebook, or delight in the idea of a naughty comic strip starring a feline rake named Fritz the Cat? The New York artist Joseph Cavalieri has been reminded of just how powerfully this era-defining art still resonates, ...
Perspective
“As long as the craft community considers its goals to be the creation of autonomous and rarefied objets d’art, it will remain trapped in a retrograde exercise.” I had just finished writing this essay when I read that sentence in Glenn Adamson’s column, titled “Craft’s Horizons,” in the August/September 2009 issue of American Craft. Glenn comes to this conclusion from an historical and international perspective. I am viewing the situation from a personal one. The whole concept of the community of craft indicates that the personal level is one of value. Glenn’s comments only reaffirmed my conviction that enthusiastic artists, ...
Review
Santa Fe Clay Chris Staley: Harmony and DissonanceSanta Fe, NM Oct. 30 - Dec. 5, 2009www.santafeclay.comChris Staley’s ceramic sculptures and functional stoneware, all from 2009, are the products of competing interests that the artist balances with remarkable facility and visual aplomb. For example, in his classic functional objects, Staley is drawn to a Bauhausian sense of modernity, with crisp, minimal delineations of Platonic forms and decorations rendered in spare patterns of black and white. Yet, in his all-black sculptural jars and lidded boxes, the artist also embraces a degree of ...
Preview
Craft makers and thinkers will unite April 1-3 for what promises to be a weekend filled with rich discussion about the ethos of craft as the California College of the Arts hosts its Craft Forward symposium.
Mark Breitenberg, the provost of CCA, says the event is "intended to demonstrate the expanded field of craft practices and theory in the 21st century." He explains that Craft Forward originated "from our realization that craft was undergoing a resurgence in the last 10 years or so; not just in the traditional craft disciplines, but in art, design, architecture and even creative writing. I identified ...
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Why is craft seemingly less prestigious than fine art?
That's a question that often hangs in the air whenever studio craft people - artists, curators, and academics - get together to talk about the field. This weekend, at the CraftForward conference and pre-conference convenings at California College of the Arts, was no exception.
Underneath the question about craft and prestige is another question, tinged with frustration: Why won't fine art acknowledge and embrace craft the way it deserves be acknowledged and embraced?
Now, I don't want to minimize the pain of a talented artist who feels unrecognized because he or she ...
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Splashlife, a social media network for the under 30 crowd, recently launched a new monthly series highlighting 30 people (under 30) for excellence in a particular field - and the first list is the nation's top young crafters. Most of these artists work across a variety of mediums, and many sell their works on Etsy. Here are some of our favorites from the list:
Julia Stotz is a book artist and photographer based in Chicago. Her artist books and handmade invitations have a simple, modern feel. She also collaborates with other artists ...
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‘Tis the season of miracles, and Martin Ratermann is living proof. For nearly 40 years, the gifted woodworker has honed his craft, starting as several generations of his family did in the carpentry trade, and then developing his own furniture making business for which he creates stunning chairs, tables, and other pieces largely from Walnut grown in central Missouri.
Two years ago, the self-taught craftsman took on his biggest project yet, and though it wasn't made of wood he approached it in much the same way. Ratermann was diagnosed with stage four cancer. He weathered medical errors, falsified records, and ...
Extra
Craft has long been connected to home, and to the hand. Now one could say that craft is connected to home, hand and Internet. The web is often cited as a reason for and enabler of the DIY craft movement: its speed and ubiquity drives people to tune out through slow handcraft, but it also connects crafters to each other and thus grows the movement, the theory goes. Craft, the DIY movement asserts, is a lifestyle, one centered on the belief that you should make what you need (or want), through creative efforts that are environmentally sustainable and reflect your ...
Film Review
Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and DesignDVD, 65 minutes, Director, Faythe Levine$19.95
Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and DesignBy Faythe Levine and Cortney HeimerlPrinceton Architectural Press$24.95
Ah, youth! It is impossible to watch Handmade Nation and not be affected by its spirit: passionate, upbeat, idealistic and above all energetic. The frenetic pixilated opening credit sequence almost suggests that the title might be Over-Caffeinated Nation. It is also impossible not to be struck by déjà vu all over again, for most of the ...
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In mid-September, the Pittsburgh-based Society for Contemporary Craft threw open the doors on a bold new exhibit: "DIY: A Revolution in Handicrafts" features the work of more than a dozen contemporary artists working in a range of media and stretches from the SCC's main galleries through its alternative exhibition space EAT: An Art Space About Food, and its store and studio. The exhibition runs through March 26, 2011. Exhibitions coordinator Kati Fishbein was kind enough to answer our questions via email.
Tell us a little bit about why the Society for Contemporary Craft decided to do this exhibit. As ...
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We're overdue in offering kudos to the Etsy crew. We got word a couple of weeks ago that the burgeoning handmade marketplace was on track to amass upwards of $400 million in transactions last year, nearly double that of 2009 when the SAI Business Insider reported the company grossed $130 million.
Founded in 2005, the online boutique now counts seven million registered users, according to the New York Times, and as author Rachel Botsman told the paper, "Some people are more interested in buying an item or a good with a story behind it. There's a backlash against ...
ACC Shows
There are about 75 booths packed with ceramics here at ACC Baltimore, presenting a certain time-space challenge for a medium junkie such as myself. (That's time, as in never having enough of it to spend in each artist's booth, and space, as in having just one carry-on bag at my disposal.)
A few of of the many that caught my eye:
The Oxide Pottery crew (Chatham Monk, Justin Rice, and Joe Monk) brought an assortment of fantastic work from their fledgling shop (opened in November 2009), including both wheel-thrown and hand-built ceramics in a range of rich, groovy colors.http://www.oxidepottery.com
Dustin Harris, whose ...
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