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Old magazine new
By roberta
March 12, 2007 · 14 Comments
I got an email from Susan Myers about American Craft magazine reinventing itself for a re-launch in October. This at a time when many magazines can’t make it due to high cost of production and distribution and low subscriber base complicated by vast, free online coverage of art.
excerpt from the press release Susan passed on:
“AMERICAN CRAFT, the 66-year-old international bi-monthly publication, will relaunch in October 2007, the first significant redesign of the magazine in more than 15 years. Former executive editor and founding managing editor of DWELL magazine, Andrew Wagner, recently relocated from San Francisco to New York to steer the magazine’s new direction with former founding DWELL creative director, Jeanette Abbink. The first issue of the all-new AMERICAN
CRAFT‹the October/November 2007 issue‹will feature new typography and photography, and a new editorial voice. It will reflect the current, rapid convergence of craft, architecture, art, design, and fashion, pushing these connections to the forefront of the cultural conversation.”
Judging from Dwell’s highly active website with videos, podcasts, and a kind of “hook-up” area (“connect”) for like-minded souls to get together, I’d say American Craft is going to get quite a makeover.
Tags: american craft, dwell, susan myers
The California College of Arts and Crafts (founded 1909) recently dropped “Crafts” from its name. Ridiculous. Craft(s) have never been more important or special and will continue to be so as far as I’m concerned.
The Crafts Museum in NYC changed its name to The Museum of Arts and Design…I think this is old news (and they are affiliated with the magazine). Its discouraging as “art” and “design” are really in no way synonymous or even necessarily suggestive of “craft”.
The statement about the magazine: “…rapid convergence of craft, architecture, art, design, and fashion…” is troublesome to me. “Fine Art” may wish to associate itself with crafts when it is convenient but has basically taken a separtist stance. I can’t believe that the fine arts world will welcome this trend–or even notice or care, actually!
As for “Architecture”, ” Design” and “Fashion”, they are related fields but distinguished by being a far less hands on discipline and thus crucially different.
As much as there is convergence there is also divergence–to the point where the statement is more or less meaningless.
As an artist who has worked and taught in “Crafts” I am sorry to see that the term is being merged with these other fields. I think its a concession to its traditionally lower status–a desire to “elevate” itself artificially and its really wimping out! What makes Crafts great is what makes it unique from art and design. To borrow a sort of tired PC term, Crafts needs empowerment– but not by being arts or desgin wannabes.
I could go on and on and on but I’ll spare you!!
Wow, those are two great comments, guys! I knew about the American Craft Museum ditching “craft” from its name and think it’s understandable but a little shameful — like Norma Jean opting to become Marilyn. va-va-voom…
But I was ready to be upbeat about the “convergence of craft, architecture, art, design and fashion” in the new magazine, since I do think that convergence is no longer a trend but a reality.
Judith do you really see as much divergence these days? We”ve seen macrame-wallpaper and chandeliers (Virgil Marti) and glass paintings (you) in the recent Whitney Biennials…and, recently fine metals (Susan Myers) and for a long time ceramics have been included in the Fleisher challenge just to mention two venues that art “art” but seamlessly embrace craft.
And the influence of architecture, fashion and design on students is great. I’ve seen a lot of architectural fantasies in young painters’ works and much that’s decor magazine influenced too.
Maybe what’s happened is that art has coopted what part of craft that it likes and the rest is still outside looking in?
Uh oh–now I gotta put my money where my mouth is!!
My feeling is that the word “craft” turns off most fine artists. Craft to a fine artist is (sometimes) a subset of what they do –not What They Do. I have phrased the definitions in a convenient (and probably weak) soundbyte thusly: in Craft the means justfies the end and in the Fine Arts the end justifies the means. (For the record–I believe the Fine Arts and Decorative Arts and Crafts are all three ULTIMATELY one in the same: “ART”–its the outside structures which insists they are different–probably for economic and psycological reasons–all of which I have thought about and can rant on and on about). By that definition much of the Fine Arts is Craft. But struggling over definitions will get you nowhere and really–the ONLY people who give a flying rat’s arse are Craftspeople as they are the ones who stand to gain the most if it gets more respect.
By the way–I think in the popular imaginiation Fine Art is a serious practice which is for geniuses and Crafts is the hobby version of that.
I guess I ought to address what you point out: that crafts has been included in many fine art exhibitons and venues lately. Yup! Its great–I’m so very happy about that! Its still the exception that proves the rule, though. And those teapots are not getting anything like the prices Fine Arts get.
As for the various Design fields–they don’t confuse themselves with Crafts either. And they also don’t care–they have their own issues to deal with (like where can they find Craftspeople to execute their work?)
I agree that there is convergence (and I fail to see how this is new). Its just that there is and equal and opposite divergence. I mean–if its so converged–why are there separate museums and periodicals and award catagories and departments in art schools and galleries and collectors? Are these structures going to be dissolved now? Can I host that party?
The irony is that the godfather of cerebral art, Duchamp, was in fact a meticulous craftsman. His writings about his work were are essentially fiction that serve to distract one from the fact that he never abandoned the eye appeal of his work. In fact he either used his own dexterous hand work or hired experts to construct his “craft projects” which is identical to Martha Stewart’s modus oporandi.
Oh so true Scott! You can take the the art out of the craft but not vice versa. People will always come back for a second helping of eye candy.
Like I said before–the real people with a vested interest in separation are those involved in the separate institutions. There are separate magazines, separate museums. separate departments in art schools, separate catagories when applying for awards, separate collectors and separate galleries.
Maybe the real question is what distinguishes painting and scupture??? Why do THEY have their own museums and galleries? Oh yeah–FUNCTIONALITY…right, I forgot for a second. Jewelry, tea pots and furniture all have a utlitarian function and painting and sculpture don’t….unless you consider that display and contemplation are functions of the Fine Arts. Oh I know–the function of “display” places Fine Arts as part of Decorative Arts” (gawd forbid…)
I think once Fine Arts wasn’t exclusively defined by the Church or private patronage (I.E. it is now often funded by philanthropy and non profit institutions) Fine Art had to really struggle for a deefinition in a way Decorative Arts didn’t. As Fine Art merged closer and closer to a philosophical discipline it rejected anything that associated itself with lower bodily functions–like hands…and grew loftier, more ephemeral and less object oriented. Since, of course, we still crave objects and aesthetics (and sometimes even aesthitic objects) Crafts moved into the vaccuum where Art used to be.
The only people trying to protect these catagories are those with a financial interest. Most artists don’t care. I do and that’s why I can’t shut up about this. Is anyone reading besides you, Scott? Who are you anyway?
Oh, hi Judith. I didn’t recognoze your name. I love your work! I remember seeing a great installation of it at the Renwick years ago.
You can see some of my work here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_waterman/sets/72157594203885928/
Hey you two, thanks for a great conversation about this big issue!! And please don’t stop if you have more to say, that’s not my intent butting in here… Scott, I love your point about Duchamp and his fine craftsmanship…that is choice! And Judith, I will cater your party when the lions and lambs lie down and play nice together!
Hi Roberta and Scott–
Thanks for all the good talk–I’m backing slowly away from the computer now! Have a happy weekend and thanks for the link, Scott-I very much enjoyed the images!!
Hello all…so, obviously I’m very late to this conversation but still thought I’d briefly chime in. Firstly, just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that we are not changing the name of the magazine. American Craft it remains. True that CCA dropped Craft. The American Craft Museum changed their name to the Museum of Arts and Design – we were associated with them for a long time but no longer are. I think it is a mistake for both institutions – short term thinking but c’est la vie.
As far as the other comments, obviously there is a lot to discuss here and I won’t get into it but just wanted to say that really, we are looking at craft as the root from which all of these parallel disciplines grow and the more that we can point that out and discover where and why that is happening, the more important the idea of “craft” will become to the general population who will hopefully understand how crucial and critical craft is to their world. Maybe that sounds heady or big or what have you but it is something we believe in here and what I think is perhaps the most exciting thing about craft.
Hopefully you all will take a look at our relaunch issue (October/November 2007). I think it’s gonna be a good one!
thanks for joining the discussion, Andrew. Passions run very high here (and everywhere) regarding crafts and the issue of high and low. We’ll check out your new mag when it’s out. Good luck!
Hi Andrew–
OOPS! Someone else pointed that out to me too. I’m sorry–I’m standing down now!
I am interested in “craft as the root from which all of these parallel disciplines grow”. I have this idea about wrting an article on “Pernicious (Protestant) Body Dysmorphia and its Effect on the Status of Handmade Objects” as I think that “root” is, or has a lot to do with the body. So-called craft objects are by the body and for the body. This is probably an illusion and perhaps its in reaction to art which has flown off into the de-material ether of the mind (at its own expense, I might add!) (or maybe its art that must react to crafts “claim” over the domain of the physical–its a chicken and egg question)
My new “theory” is that figurative paitning and sculpture are so anachronistic as to qualify as craft objects these days. I, for one, shall welcome them into the fold…
Balh blah blah am I making any sense??
I just got back from the GAS Conference!
I think its high time for a Crafts Summit Meeting. GAS has this weird isolationist feel.
Hey there folks…me again…Judith, you are making sense despite your crazy days at the GAS conference. Anyhow, just wanted to leave you folks with this interesting tid-bit from a “report” we’re running in our August/September issue about the “Craft at the Limits” conference that was recently at the Getty in LA. Pretty cool stuff I think…anyhow, more food for fodder.
“What is craft’s identity?” mused John Mason during the closing night’s master-artist panel, which included his fellow clay sculptor Peter Shire and the fiber artist Sheila Hicks. “Is it an object, thing, idea, or process? Where do we find it? Well, I believe we find it in every occupation, and in most human activities. It’s know-how, excellence, performance.”
And yet a refrain over the past two days had been how artists have used craft to articulate ideas outside the norm–including what might be seen as low, shameful or embarrassing–as an act of liberation and empowerment (an example was Harmony Hammond’s braided and painted floor rugs, which “resonate as visual lesbian slang,” as speaker Julia Bryan-Wilson archly put it). Maybe, it was suggested, craft is uniquely suited to this, and for reasons having more to do with sentiment than skill. Hicks reflected that often the flawed or “clumsily made” artwork is the most compelling, because of what its maker is “tenderly trying to put out. There’s something very endearing about seeing in an art exhibition something that doesn’t quite make it as finely crafted, but that has a deep meaning that the person is trying to communicate. Sometimes it’s not very well made but very well meant.”
Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me…wait, you weren’t asking…oh well! Hope everyone is well…
I think one definition of craft is that it is heavily dependent on whatever the definition of art may be at the time. And then craft just defaults to: “everything else”.
In fine arts when supposedly “anything goes”, the definition must necessarily narrow itself and become exclusive in order to protect its special status. Craft is the incusive principal.
Since art has apparently abandonded both objecthood and skill, those are now OURS for the taking. Soon maybe they will abandon vision and thought and then the world is our oyster. MUHAHAHA! Its never been a better time to call yourself a craftsperson!