I’m just back from the SNAG conference in Houston, still cleaning up loose ends. The conference was one of the best I have attended in recent years: lots of good speakers and at least two excellent exhibitions. Normally I go to SNAG with low expectations, since my interest in provocative discourse is still not widely shared by the membership. So it’s nice to have my expectations blown away.
Caroline Broadhead was the keynote speaker. Her delivery was quiet and understated, and sometimes I couldn’t hear her very well. But her body of work was very interesting, and occasionally quite beautiful. She traced her development from jeweler to installation artist. For her, a dress is a proxy for a person. Over the years, her dresses became increasingly dematerialized, moving from actual garments to shadows to images of shadows. In the end, there was no connection to jewelry at all. I suppose she is a model for turning craft into art. For my money, Broadhead is a better artist than Beverly Semmes, the uber-meister of dress imagery. She explores variations on the body and its trace, never resorting to a single format that exploits the same basic format over and over.
My other favorite lecture was Kristen Beeler’s extended meditation on beauty. (Beauty was a big topic at Houston. Kim Cridler’s exhibit “Extreme Beauty” was a visual exploration of the same theme.) Beeler’s talk was not just a discussion of her own work, with ideas thrown in here and there to illuminate the art. In fact, her speech was the inverse: a discussion of beauty with her work used to illuminate the subject. It seemed far less egotistical than the normal artist’s talk, which was refreshing. I hope Beeler revises her speech for publication someday: I would love to think about it in the way that only text can afford. A speech is like a musical performance. It’s here and then it’s gone, and all you have left is your own memory. Given the overload of information at a typical conference, I cannot recall the detail and density of any one speech. So… Kristen? We’re waiting.
Gabriel Craig’s talk on the moral potential of craft was not a crowd favorite. But I admire the guy’s courage in advancing a position that is usually ridiculed, even in the craftworld. Glenn Adamson scoffs at craft moralism, noting that the Nazis used craft in their volkisch propaganda, and that didn’t prevent Germans from committing all kinds of atrocities. Thus craft is not good for you. I think Adamson’s argument is specious, but it’s tough to argue that craft is, in fact, morally good. In contrast to Adamson, Craig said that certain types of craft practices – craftivism, ethical materials sourcing, the movement against sweated labor, development of local markets – are all forms of moral behavior. His agenda is relentlessly liberal, and certainly would not make points with most Republicans. Since I’m a closet moralist from way back (most college hippies in the 60s were moralists), I’m drawn to Craig’s argument. Like him, I’m a fan of Ruskin and Morris. And like him, I believe craft is an agent of the good.
I’m bothered by Craig’s framing of the issue as a moral imperative. The idea of the imperative goes back to Kant. As defined in Wikipedia (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative), Kant’s categorical imperative “denotes an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances.” I don’t buy Kant’s argument, and the idea of an imperative strikes me as intellectual arm-twisting. So there was something coercive in Craig’s argument, which I think many in the audience sensed. But still, props to Craig for making the effort.
Ana Lopez did a fine job of organizing the Education Dialogue, at which I spoke. (My talk was primarily about the history of craft education in the U.S. before 1945.) The other speakers all focused on the intersection of craft practice and scholarship, which is now an essential part of college-level craft instruction. Lopez’s account of the “object report,” an analytical procedure developed by material culture scholar Jules Prown, was very interesting.
As for entertainment, I modeled a Robert Longyear necklace at the “Exhibition in Motion” at the MFA Houston. Thanks to several ounces of hair product and a pair of vintage sunglasses, I’m told I cut quite the figure out on the floor. Look for a photo on my Facebook page: Bruce Metcalf as wild & crazy guy! Dang!
Anyway, the multitudes who decided not to attend SNAG 2010 missed a very good conference. Congrats to Sandie Zilker and Diane Falkenhagen for their good taste and hard work.
Thanks for the “props” Bruce. I was unaware that the crowd didn’t like it – a point lost on the many, many young makers I talked to at the conference that identify with craft as a social movement. Rather than dismissing my talk because I used Kant’s nomenclature, a more productive conversation may be had by examining the actual points I made and addressing those. I know that intellectual sparing is part of it, but dialogue is only productive if it leads to something. Keep it real and mind your apple cart. ;-)
-Gabriel
The issue of an “audience” response is nothing more than an unproductive distraction.
The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein saw the complications in positing a “good object” in that “one can never be sure that the good object does not contain a bad piece” (”The Logic of Sense” Deleuze). In “Anti-Oedipus” Deleuze and Guattari intend to break or at least destabilize the Kantian category in its sacred form and lofty pretension through the idea of schizoanalysis (by introducing an opposition of the traditional as paranoia with the revolutionary in schizophrenia – less mental disease than the process of the breakdown of institutional structures found in the mind).
It is in this light that I insist the craftsman’s labor must be seen and should be considered – a multifaceted action that cannot be strictly categorized. Why should one limit one’s practice to a dogmatic binary principle of denotation when the possibilities of connotation can be so rewarding?
With the history of crafts intertwining with so many communes seeking financial stability, self-sufficiency, or a derivation on the protestant work ethic, I cannot fathom that any moralistic Luddite call could be considered revolutionary especially given the malaise of our pancapitalist/hypercapitalist/posthuman environs. I am not calling for an abandonment of a priori values or moral axioms, instead I insist on a full consideration of the power structure in which it is to be found.
My issue with Gabriel’s talk was the inclusion of greenwashing vertical monopolies as the exemplary model for reform. As “The Corporation” (and the current economic debacle – disaster capitalism come home to roost) proved, the corporate model itself must be replaced if exploitation and the anti-production/colonization of the Brand ideal are to be avoided. Noted economist Ravi Batra (”Greenspan’s Fraud”) has set up an alternative calculation method of GDP to account for those “externalized costs” that could not be accounted for by the decontextualized absolute axiom of a Kantian imperative. Likewise an alternative model for skilled labor exchange valuation must be crafted to avoid the pitfalls of idealism, utilitarianism and cynicism.
In my own realm I refuse to define myself as the product of my consumption. Once the citizen becomes the consumer it is categorically impossible to make, let alone produce change.
-Sean