 January 2010
Greetings!
Dian, Katie & Terri would like to wish you a very Happy New Year! Thinking about taking a weeklong class at Penland, Arrowmont or John C. Campbell this year? 2 chances to win a one-week class, including board Cost of Ticket: $25 Odds of Winning: 1 in 150 (300 tickets will be sold) Each winner will select and register for a class that takes place within one year from the date of the raffle (Jan. 15, 2010). Once they register at the school of their choice, the tuition will be paid for by CCCD. To view classes go to: **This is for a one-week class, but can be used towards a two-week class. To maintain the odds we reserve the right to add or subtract a winner/class.** IN THE GALLERY
Images L to R:
Crown, human hair, fiberglass screen, wire, 18 x 18 x 18", 2008 1317 Charbonnet St., human hair, fiberglass screen, wire, beads, 19” x 23” x 3.5", 2007 Nest, human hair, synthetic hair, wire, 30 x 16 x 12", 2008
Loren Schwerd: Mourning Portrait
January 15 – March 26, 2010 OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, Jan. 21 from 5-7 p.m. ARTIST LECTURE: Thursday, Feb. 25 at 6pm, Owen Conference Center, UNCA Mourning Portrait began as a series of memorials to the communities of New Orleans that were devastated by the flooding which followed Hurricane Katrina. These commemorative objects, made from human hair extensions found outside a flooded beauty shop in the Ninth Ward, venerate the city’s losses, both individual and collective. The portraits draw on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tradition of hairwork, in which family members or artisans would fashion the hair of the deceased into intricate jewelry and other objects as symbols of death and rebirth. In the two years that Schwerd has been researching and executing this work, the series has expanded into a larger body of objects and images that utilize a broader range of techniques and provide a richer context for the houses, such as sculptures, shaped from found wigs, that combine imagery from Victorian hair wreaths with contemporary, sculptural, African-American hair fashions. 2010 WINDGATE MUSEUM INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES ANNOUNCED
Since the first 2006 Windgate Museum Internships were awarded, 17 graduate and undergraduate students from 13 universities have received internships in 10 museums throughout the U.S. and the V&A in London. Interns work closely with a curator on a studio craft collection, exhibit, or project providing students with invaluable experience. Museums select from qualified applicants from across the country in this highly competitive program. Museums report over 50 applicants for each Windgate Museum Internship position. The student receives $5000 from the museum for their internship. Applicants should be enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program in an accredited U.S. college or university with a focus on studio craft or art/craft history. Individuals who have received a Windgate Museum Internship in the past are not eligible for the 2010 internships. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Oakland Museum of California The Cleveland Museum of Art To that end, the Windgate summer Internship opportunity will explore the development of the CMA’s studio craft collection through careful analysis of existing work; the identification of major trends and cross currents in the field; and suggestions for appropriate additions from emerging artists. It is expected that a final written report will address these areas in specific and measurable ways along the ideas for exhibition display and interpretation of the collection within the museum’s galleries of 20th and 21st century art. The intern will report to the Curator of Decorative Art and Design and the Director of Museum Interpretation. The Victoria & Albert Museum, London OPPORTUNITY FOR RECENTLY GRADUATED MFA STUDENTS
Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Craft/Material Studies
Emerging Artist Residency Fellowship
VCU Department of Craft and Material Studies is seeking TWO qualified applicants for its Emerging Artist Residency Fellowship. The residency provides an opportunity for the strongest recent national MFA graduates to continue their studio practice in Richmond, Virginia. The recipients gain valuable teaching experience and participate in a vital, progressive community of artists at Virginia Commonwealth University. The Emerging Artist Residency Program is a project of the Department of Craft and Material Studies, in cooperation with Fountain Head Development, and the Windgate Foundation. The residency is for a one-year period beginning in mid-August. Must be a U.S. citizen to qualify. For more information and to apply go to www.vcu/edu/arts/craft/dept OF RELATED INTEREST
Just released: THE CRAFT READER, edited by Glenn Adamson
Published by Berg Publishers The CCCD proudly supported this text with a Windgate internship. Berg Publishers Paperback $39.95 Buy today at us.macmillan.com/thecraftreader From the canonical texts of the Arts and Crafts Movement to the radical thinking of today's “DIY” movement, from theoretical writings on the position of craft in distinction to Art and Design to how-to texts from Covering the period from the Industrial Revolution to today, the Reader draws on craft practice and theory from America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The world of craft is considered in its full breadth – from pottery and weaving, to couture and chocolate-making, to contemporary art, architecture and curation. The writings are themed into sections and all extracts are individually introduced, placing each in its historical, cultural and artistic context. Bringing together an astonishing range of both classic and contemporary texts, The Craft Reader will be invaluable to any student or practitioner of Craft and also to readers in Art and Design. “The scope of the Craft Reader is breathtaking. Finally, here is a text that successfully contextualizes the diverse range of writings on craft. By gathering these thoughts into a clearly articulated set of arguments Adamson has helped to shape the field of craft discourse. This book will stand as an invaluable tool for craft scholars.” –Sandra Alfoldy, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design “Glenn Adamson's Craft Reader is the rarest of anthologies: at once an excellent and wide-reaching compilation of craft scholarship, and a provocative challenge to the same.” --Maria Elena Buszek, Kansas City Art Institute Glenn Adamson is Deputy Head of Research and Head of Graduate Studies at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He is author of Thinking Through Craft and co-editor of The Journal of Modern Craft. Andrew Glasgow Writing Residency
Andrew Glasgow is very dear to CCCD, serving on our board as Vice-President from 2002-2007 and being a friend to many in this area. He has been a leader in the craft field for over 20 years, holding the positions of Assistant Director of the Blue Spiral 1 Gallery; Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Director of Education and Collections at the Southern Highlands Craft Guild; Executive Director of the Furniture Society from 2000-2007; and most recently Deputy Director and then Executive Director of the American Craft Council. The Andrew Glasgow Writing Residency will provide two writers the opportunity to serve the field by fully immersing themselves for four weeks in thinking and writing about craft. If you are a writer, or know someone who may be interested in this opportunity, please visit: http://www.penland.org/programs/special_programs_glasgow.htmlCONFERENCES
REINVENTION
Conference, Tours, and Workshops in San Francisco, CA March 19 - 24, 2010 Co-sponsored by Surface Design Association, Studio Art Quilt Associates and San Francisco State University Textiles Surface Design Association, Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. and the Textiles concentration of the Art Department at San Francisco State University announce the upcoming conference, tour, and workshop program called "Reinvention". The location will be Seven Hills Conference Center, San Francisco State University Campus. Program dates for the conference are Friday and Saturday, March 19 - 20; Sunday, studio bus tour and de Young museum tours on Sunday, March 21; and three-day workshops on Monday - Wednesday, March 22-24. The program is intended for fiber studio artists, textile designers, art quilters, instructors, and people interested in the fiber field and looking for inspiration. Attendees must be members of either Surface Design Association (surfacedesign.org) or Studio Art Quilt Associates (saqa.com). Other interested parties are invited to join and attend. The theme Reinvention is described as follows: "Life in the arts is a constant process of invention and reinvention. Techniques change, new materials emerge, inspiration evolves along with the world in which we work. Artists reinvent themselves as they mature or change creative paths. It's an exciting time to be a creative individual and change is in the air." KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Marci McDade, editor, Fiberarts magazine, Reinvention: Transforming the Face of Fiber Janet Koplos, editor, American Craft magazine, Reinventing American Craft Conference brochure and registration will be available at saqa.com and surfacedesign.org after September 20th, 2009.
CODA - Craft Organization Development Association
Annual Conference: Aspects of Identity Savannah, Georgia April 6-8, 2010 Hosted by Georgia Made Georgia Grown LLC As organizations struggle to market themselves, grow memberships, expand services, and attract customers and funders, establishing a clear understanding of the organization's identity is a critical step toward successfully reaching its goals. This identity embodies a deeper understanding of what organizations want to accomplish and who they serve and their ability to communicate that message effectively to their audiences. Topics addressed at the conference are "Challenges and Creative Solutions in this Current Economy," "The Savannah Story," "Transitioning Craft Students into the Workplace," and "Crafts and Arts in Education." For more information go to www.coda.org PUBLICATIONS
Studio Furniture of the Renwick Gallery: Smithsonian American Art Museum The eighty-four pieces of studio furniture owned by the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum constitute one of the largest assemblages of American studio furniture in the nation. Three former administrators-Lloyd Herman, Michael Monroe, and Kenneth Trapp-amassed a seminal collection that samples studio furniture's great diversity. From the carefully crafted stools of Tage Frid to the art deco chest painted by R ob Womack, from the one-of-a-kind Ghost Clock sculpture by Wendell Castle to the limited production stool by David Ebner, the collection highlights the astonishing variety of the American studio furniture movement. In this catalog, author Oscar P. Fitzgerald documents each piece of furniture in a descriptive, illustrated entry. He also recounts the history of the collection's formation in an introductory essay, which illuminates the rationale and aesthetic choices of each curator and notes various donors and support organizations. Finally, Fitzgerald's statistical analysis of the collection, formulated from detailed interviews with the surviving artists, casts new light on workshop practices, marketing concerns, and other aspects of the contemporary studio furniture movement. A foreword by noted scholar and curator Paul Greenhalgh gives readers a brilliant overview. This book is published by Fox Chapel Publishing and is available at www.foxchapelpublishing.com. Choosing Craft: The Artist's Viewpoint Choosing Craft explores the history and practice of American craft through the words of influential artists whose lives, work, and ideas have shaped the field. Editors Vicki Halper and Diane Douglas construct an anecdotal narrative that examines the post-World War II development of modern craft, which came of age alongside modernist painting and sculpture and was greatly influenced by them as well as by traditional and industrial practices. The anthology is organized according to four activities that ground a professional life in craft--inspiration, training, economics, and philosophy. Halper and Douglas mined a wide variety of sources for their material, including artists' published writings, letters, journal entries, exhibition statements, lecture notes, and oral histories. The detailed record they amassed reveals craft's dynamic relationships with painting, sculpture, design, industry, folk and ethnic traditions, hobby craft, and political and social movements. Collectively, these reflections form a social history of craft. Choosing Craft ultimately offers artists' writings and recollections as vital and vivid data that deserve widespread study as a primary resource for those interested in the American art form. This book is published by The University of North Carolina Press and is available at www.uncpress.unc.edu The Craftsman and the Critic When English craftsman, poet, and socialist William Morris advised consumers in the 1880s to "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful," he prompted a movement for design reform in Britain, Europe, and America. Championing Morris's views, the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston led the quest for "usefulness and beauty" in the United States. As the oldest, continuously-operating arts and crafts organization in the country, it exerted considerable influence. Among the Boston reformers were design critics, whose profession became increasingly important in the nineteenth century. Many of them-including a number of prominent women-were also architects, designers, craft workers, educators, and theorists. Their views on design reform were substantive and often controversial. This richly illustrated book explores the interaction of craft workers and critics as they collaborated to improve the quality of the living and working environment in Boston and across the United States. Beverly K. Brandt examines multiple overlapping topics-the evolution of the profession of design criticism in the nineteenth century; Boston in the "Gilded Age" as a center for reform, epitomized by the Aesthetic and the Arts and Crafts movements; the formative years of the Society of Arts and Crafts (1897-1917); key personalities associated with that organization; the theoretical underpinnings of the Arts and Crafts movement; and a diaspora of Boston reformers who left the city to promote usefulness and beauty across the country and abroad. In an epilogue, she discusses the Arts and Crafts revival which has flourished since the 1970s and contemplates why the search for usefulness and beauty continues to resonate today. This book is available through the University of Massachusetts Press at A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression by Howard Risatti. What is craft? How is it different from fine art or design? Risatti examines these issues by comparing handmade ceramics, glass, metalwork, weaving, and furniture to painting, sculpture, photography, and machine-made design from Bauhaus to the Memphis Group. He describes craft's unique qualities as functionality combined with an ability to express human values that transcend temporal, spatial, and social boundaries. Craft must articulate a role for itself in contemporary society, says Risatti; otherwise it will be absorbed by fine art or design and its singular approach to understanding the world will be lost. Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Sock to High Art. This is the history that Knitting America celebrates. The first fully detailed, full-color, comprehensive history of knitting in America from colonial times to the present, the book conveys the social and historical realities that the craft embodied as well as the emotional narrative that unfolded at the hands of the nations knitters. With vintage patterns and designs typical of each era, Knitting America comprises a knitted history of American society. Here are the trends and the shortages, the historical happenings and the social movements, the advertising and economic developments that affected knitting and style. Also included are 20 historic knitting patterns for todays knitters. Beautifully illustrated with vintage pattern booklets, posters, postcards, black-and-white historical photographs, and contemporary color photographs of knitted pieces in private collections and in museums, this book is a treasure of history and craft, an exquisite view of America through the handiwork of its knitters. Makers: A History of American Studio Craft At the first "Think-Tank" convened by CCCD in 2002, of craft faculty, museum director and curators, scholars and critics, the initiative ranked as most important to the advancement of the field was a history of American Craft in the twentieth Century. The journey toward making this a reality can be tracked on www.craftcreativitydesign.org/research/history.php. Makers: A History of American Studio Craft by Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf is with the publisher, the University of North Carolina Press. Long awaited, the book, researched and written under the auspices of CCCD, will include 500+ images and also serve as an undergraduate text. It will be released in 2010. The University of North Carolina Press is making craft history and criticism a focus of the Press. The Journal of Modern Craft, edited by Glenn Adamson, Victoria & Albert Museum, UK; Edward S. Cooke, Jr. Yale University, USA; Tanya Harrod, Royal College of Art, UK, is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum in its subject area. It address all forms of making that self-consciously set themselves apart from mass production - whether in the making of designed objects, artworks, buildings or other artefacts. Published three times a year in March, July and November. Additional information can be found at www.journalofmoderncraft.com. To place an order/subscription visit www.bergpublishers.com. About Us
The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design is an inter-institutional Center of the University of North Carolina. The mission of the regional UNC Center is to support and advance craft, creativity and design in education and research, and, through community collaborations, to demonstrate ways that craft and design provide creative solutions to community issues. The mission of the nonprofit CCCD is to support the mission of the UNC center through funding, programs, and outreach to artists, craft organizations, schools in the community, region and nation. email: info@craftcreativitydesign.org |
