Unifying Craft Material

The tradition of craft is material. Material awareness which stems from our interaction with the substances of the earth. Hence the completed craft object is but a moment, but can never be considered finial. It is our ego which claims the craft object as complete. To remove the craft object from it’s function, preserved for speculation - encased behind glass is to necessitate the need for deeper understanding. Our hands work too fast. They know not what they make. This pause, is a moment to consider our selves as recorded in our work. A moment - a space to consider the value of our labor.

The Gestures of Resistance exhibition has been many things. Within the space of the Museum of Contemporary Craft the activities of each visiting artist in residence has defined that space while that individual was themselves present. For some, it was a home base. For others, a personal studio. During the down times, between resident guests, the space was once agin defined by the quiet object; the residue of the acts of the artists. As the months have progressed, so did the residue left behind, each complied onto the previous, made for an odd thing. An awkward hulk of a collage object. The viewer has had to work hard to understand it. Clearly, something had happened here. Some activity took place, but only with generous help from the Study Center located above, could the viewer begin to understand the awkward object’s history located below. It was by no means an unpleasant thing. The initial structure was designed with the utmost human ergonomic awareness, as is a requirement of the craftsman carpenter. The wooden foundation served as familiar function like that of furniture. It was inviting as well as intriguing. The structure had dual services which welcomed the viewer through it’s familiar form, as well as provided a functional role for the future artists of which they might work upon. Over the months since it’s construction, the wooded structure changed relatively little. In the quiet space of the museum the object became a pedestal, a pin board, a shelving unit. A strange utilitarian piece of furniture serving as best as possible to the needs of the succession of artists to come and work and go.

For me, the Gestures of Resistance object residing on the bottom floor of the Museum, although personal, due to my interaction over 5 months with it, was an awkward thing to grasp. Ironic that it was meant to be just that though. By the very same tactile components which produced the amalgamation, visually I had a hard time understanding it. Although, they were all items of craft, there lacked a certain unity of the object especially when at rest. I did have the privilege of knowing that the creation of the object was not complete till the last artist had arrived and made his presence.

The sound of oral tradition, emulated through the use of slip, filled and coated not only the space of the awkward object, but the entire Museum. It was moving. It was not rest though, yet it was calming. The craft items left behind by the former residences, became activated in new ways. Like a fresh paint job in an old house, the new surface application awakened new potentials in the residual forms of the artists previous labors. Through a performance involving liquid surface, the individual craft components became once again material. The completed craft object has returned as material by reinterpretation of it’s qualities. Ceramic breaks and can sound beautiful when done with awareness. Cups echo like thumping speakers, amplifying their use. Use and function for the craft ware is limitless, as long as we are mindful of it’s material origin. The craft object, because it is made of earth substances, is always craft material. A completed form by human hands is just one moment in it’s circular existence. The pause of display is always temporary. The awkward object in the Museum has now been unified through surface as well as material re-interaction. The craft object, like tradition, can not rest for too long. Unity is achieved through constant awareness of craft material’s potential.