Bruce Metcalf’s essay Craftsmanship in the Age of Hot Glue and Tape, edited and renamed Hot Glue and Staples for American Craft issue June / July 2014 irritates me. I guess it has irritated many other folks as well, but I feel compelled to share some of my own thoughts. I don't disagree with much of what he says about the importance of craftsmanship, but its a rather narrow perspective to have with consideration to the changing state of the object these days. Metcalf is projecting his values based on his practice onto the entirety of art. Doing so, he is perpetuating the classification of objects solely between art and craft. His essay doesn’t include a perspective of the object beyond physicality, a world we have lived in for quite some time now. The age of the internet has changed craft.
Metcalf does highlight an important aspect of craftsmanship, the influence that practice has to change our minds, but fails to consider it in a much broader analysis. Prolonged repetition does change neurological pathways, that is to say, how we think. After twenty years of using the internet we are just beginning to catch up to the implications of this new information technology, this new medium. With prolonged use, the internet has changed our minds. Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows, proves that how we communicate, think, and create, have all been neurologically reformatted due to the internet. After two decades of working within virtual systems, with virtual material if you will, how can I be expected to approach physical materials in traditional ways? How can I think of objects by a purely physical description alone? How could I possibly approach them in the same way? Furthermore, why would I want to?
I believe that craftsmanship is on a sliding scale, a tool used incrementally from low to high, in order to support a makers intention. I have witnessed two unspoken reactions to the internet over the past few years when it comes to object making in craft. Very high craftsmanship, inciting an over fetishized product, both in form and nostalgia, and very low craftsmanship, creating haphazard, almost lackadaisical works which slightly refer to Process Art, but lack in the that movements intention. The high end reaction feels stubborn, in denial of the technological change we are all going through, and the low end reaction is lost in the quagmire of infinite possibility, feeling half inspired and half defeated. Given the overwhelming influence the internet has had on our notion of production, objects, and materials, I find it truly amazing that both camps are still making, with there hands, and with tangible substances. It is a testament to our genetically formed relationship with all things tangible and the will of humanity. Non-the-less, the notion of the object has been forever changed in the minds of all the internets users. I do not believe sloppy craft exists. The so called sloppy craft maker has purposely put that object into the public, opening it up for discussion. I have to at least meet the maker half way and believe that they choose that level of craftsmanship very intentionally. Furthermore, I have to consider why they choose to do so, and by that I mean what context the maker producing from.
I suspect that Metcalf is not so much upset with so called sloppy craft, as he is with wanting makers to have a sense of respect for material, with their work, and taking some pride in themselves. I agree, but the classification of created objects must transcend the previous models of art, craft and design, and begin to include, in the very least, the awareness of virtual sensibilities. Science fiction writer and design theorist Bruce Sterling helps to give some semblance to the virtual objects of the present and near future in his book Shaping Things. The physical object, what he calls the artifact, is merely our first notion of the object, there are many more to come. If form equals content, I suspect that there is a lot more understanding to be done and this can only happen with continued experimentation.
Metcalf calls for us to look through the surface of the object and into the meaning of it. I argue that lavish attention to an object completely hinders the disappearance of the surface and only reflects the makers technical ability. This is not concept. We need to think broader. We can no longer rely on our previous definitions of what makes a good art or a good craft object. To start, we all need to stop defining craft by material association and start defining it by the makers intention. Even infinitely malleable clay has its limitations in use, which in turn creates limitations in practice and the associative maker’s identity. Like the internet, intention has no bounds.
Let us pretend for a moment, that craft, as a noun, has died. It no longer exists. Regardless of means of production, whether by hand or by machine, people will continue to produce objects, for there will always be an innate calling to do so, that is something we can always rely on. Now, regardless of the inspirational source, utilitarian or not, people can now set there intention on only one aspect, whether an object is functional or is not. There would be objects that are sculptures and there would be objects that are designs. My point is, as makers we all side either one way or the other already, and that may change from day to day, but what I’m asking for is that makers get out of their own way and label the objects they make and not themselves. Let intention drive form and thus content.
Playing out this thought experiment a little further, how would such an approach to material and making change how we think about craft? Craft is reformed into a verb. Craft becomes a means for sociology including, but not limited to, education, community awareness, sharing, empathy, thinking, and discussion. These craft qualities far exceed the stagnate limitations of the individual object.
The influence of the internet places the maker in confusing territory, without a doubt, but that does not exclude us from trying to make sense of it. Any reaction to a major paradigm shift, is a good reaction, it shows consideration and thoughtfulness, but if there is one thing I have learned from my considerations of the internet, is that it affirms that there is more than one approach to thinking about things and that includes objects. The possibilities of a thing are endless, embrace them all, and let them influence what you love to do. You’ll make better work for doing so.
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