A proposal has been made at the Cleveland Institute of Art to fold enameling into the jewelry/metals program. The following is a letter I mailed to Mr. David Deming, the President of the CIA. I believe anyone who is concerned with the preservation of craft skills in the academy should be alarmed by this proposal, and interested in my arguments against the idea.
January 6, 2010
Mr. David Deming, President
Cleveland Institute of Art
11141 East Blvd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44106
Dear Mr. Deming.
I recently saw Gretchen Goss at the Philadelphia Craft Show, and she told me that the Cleveland Institute of Art is considering merging enameling with its jewelry/metals program. I’m very familiar with the CIA and its craft programs, since I taught jewelry at Kent State University from 1981 to 1991, and I count both Ms. Goss and Matthew Hollern among my friends. I also have a detailed knowledge of enameling, jewelry and silversmithing, having just completed writing Makers: A History of American Studio Craft with Janet Koplos. And, way back in my distant past, I once tried to teach myself how to enamel, so I know firsthand how demanding the craft is. I was a lousy enamellist, by the way.
While it might be tempting to consider enameling as an adjunct or subset of jewelry-making, it is not. It is a separate medium entirely, requiring an altogether distinct body of knowledge and skills. To control enamels, one must know all the techniques – from wet inlay to plique-a-jour – as well as the temperature at which every single color matures in the kiln. One must know how each color reacts to others, how they look when underfired or overfired, how they work over foils, and much more. This is not knowledge that can be transferred in two or three assignments while concentrating on jewelry-making. It is specific, and it is deep. It requires sustained practice and experimentation. In terms of education, the only way enameling can be done justice is to treat it as a separate discipline.
I’m sure you know that the Cleveland Institute of Art was the epicenter of enameling as a studio practice in the United States. Bostonian Lauren Martin and his students did a fair amount of enameling in early decades of the 20th century, but they had none of Kenneth Bates’s obsession with the medium, none of his forceful curiosity about technique, and none of his missionary zeal to popularize the craft. Later, Edward Winter and William Harper made their own contributions to enameling while they lived in Cleveland, and John Paul Miller’s enameled gold jewels still astonish. The CIA has a central place in the history of the medium.
Study of the history of studio craft shows that the transmission of skill has migrated from trade and industry to college-level art education. Silversmithing, weaving, bookmaking, glassblowing: all were preserved or revived in academia, which is now the primary repository for training and information for each of these crafts. Luckily, information is dispersed across a number of institutions, so the closure of any one program does not threaten the survival of an entire craft discipline.
This is not true of enameling. Most of the degree-granting programs in enameling (Kent State and San Diego State University were the last two MFA programs in the country) have been shuttered. The last school to offer expert training, a studio dedicated to enameling alone, and a BFA degree in the discipline is the CIA.
Which brings up a question: to what extent is higher education responsible for cultural preservation? If an institution is the last remaining repository of best practices and comprehensive information, does it bear a responsibility to preserve the discipline?
I submit that it does. Higher education must answer to society’s highest aspirations. There is a cultural DNA that is directly analogous to biological DNA – and we are all aware of the dangers of the extinction of species. Enameling is part of our cultural DNA. Does the CIA wish to force the extinction of a discipline? While my rhetorical question overstates the case, you get the idea. The Cleveland Institute of Art is now the sole institutional conservator of high-level enameling in the entire country. Educational fashion aside, the CIA is the last keeper of the field.
Is that a liability? I’m sure some educators will tell you that it is; the CIA must change with the times; consolidation is necessary; the post-studio model is the future of art education. I beg to differ. The post-studio model is very fashionable right now. Art schools and departments rush willy-nilly to adopt it. But does anybody point out the downside?
As you know, John Baldessari was the pioneer of post-studio art education at Cal Arts in the late 1970s. In his graduate seminar, he introduced students to a system of inquiry and critique that was perfectly suited to the strategies of conceptual art. Mediums were freely selected to match ideas, and expertise no longer seemed necessary. But there were three hidden assumptions. First, students were assumed to have had a basic training in the visual arts and its mediums: the classic undergraduate education of the time. Second, conceptual art was assumed to be the most legitimate art practice, trumping all medium-based art forms like painting, sculpture or, for that matter, crafts. And third, all mediums were assumed to be disposable.
But what happens when the post-studio model is forced upon students who do not have that classic education? What if the students are undergraduates themselves, without the foundation in the visual arts that Baldessari could count on? And what if post-conceptual art becomes passé, as it surely will? What is left for academia to transmit if it has discarded its expertise in mediums?
An inherent problem with the post-studio model is de-skilling. Students complete their education without the knowledge of how to make things. At that point, their artistic toolkit is half empty. When art changes, they lack the tools – the skills – to adapt.
At the Cleveland Institute of Art, you could declare that your mission is to equip every student with a complete toolkit. Not just intelligence and criticality, but skills to give ideas tangible form. Every medium remains an option, no matter what makes it into Artforum. Artists will rediscover mediums and use them for their own purposes. Certainly, that’s the case with craft. Kids who are fed up with the gallery system and the pretentiousness of high art are turning to craft, and doing very interesting things. Have you seen microrevolt? Marianne Jorgensen’s pink tank cozy? If crocheting can be recruited for current artistic practice, so can enameling.
I don’t know what arguments will be advanced to justify folding enameling into jewelry/metals. Efficiency, perhaps, or declining enrollments. But you could equally well look to the history of enameling in Cleveland, or the role of academia as a conservator of knowledge and culture. You could stand against de-skilling. You could assert the relevance of craft for artists who are increasingly dissatisfied with spectacle, big commerce, and the dematerialization of art. You could decide that enameling is a program that makes the Cleveland Institute of Art unique, and use it as part of your branding strategy. There are many positives about enameling at the CIA, and I hope I give you cause to reconsider them.
Sincerely,
Bruce Metcalf
Studio jeweler and independent scholar




