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The Art of Repetition: Contemporary Craft Studio Production
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10074 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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4 / 1993 |
1,906 Words |
| Author
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Karen S. Chambers
Karen S. Chambers is a craft writer, critic, and curator
currently based in New York. |
"When people come in for a glass of wine before going out to dinner, I serve it in a handmade goblet by Steve Maslach. It just changes their whole sense and appreciation of the liquid that's put in to the glass. When I take out a Jeff Oestreich bowl in the morning, I don't think, is this expensive? Is this esoteric? It just feels right. My mood feels right. It changes the feeling."
This is how Rosanne Raab, a lecturer and curator specializing in American crafts, explains using handcrafted production objects, objects intended to function and made in a multiple edition either limited or unlimited.
Today when we use a handthrown ceramic bowl or a handblown glass goblet, we have a very special experience, one different from using a mass-produced, industrially made object. This experience wasn't always so special or unusual. Until the Industrial Revolution, all functional objects were hand-crafted. But even as industry was taking over the primary purpose of craft makers, there were those who found the development alarming and wanted to offer an alternative. In England in the late nineteeth century, John Ruskin championed the handmade, and William Morries led the Arts and Crafts Movement. They rejected factory-produced objects and favored the handmade, with its Emphasis on asymmetry, roughness and irregularity--all the things that the factory avoided. Morris also believed that work should be "the creative and joyful essence of daily life rather than a mere act of sustenance."
The English Arts and Crafts Movement inspired a similar movement in the United States with two philosophical viewpoints. One focused more on aesthetics, the making of beautiful objects to enhance
Everyday life. The other had a socialist aspect where the manufacturing process would be restructured, enabling workers to have more control over their products, getting away from the assembly line.
A similar philosophy would become a motivating factor in the American Craft Movement of the 1950s, becoming even more so in the 1960s. Then people sought alternative life-styles, and brown-glazed mugs, macramé plant hangers, and tie-dyed fabrics became ubiquitous. In the studio glass movement, Richard Ritter and Mark Peiser both left advertising for what they perceived to be a purer life style blowing glass in the mountains of North Carolina. There were many others who made similar decisions.
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