Beauty Ntshalintshali and Mavis Shabalala (2009). Guineafowl Tureen, 29 x 35 x 28cm. Masterpiece Collection: Ardmore Ceramics. Photo used with permission.

I agree with Bickford Berzock & Frank that ‘it is clear that today the market for African ceramics is outpacing scholarship. Published research on African ceramics is highly idiosyncratic and uneven in depth and cultural representation. Only a few traditions have been the focus of in-depth study by multiple researchers offering complementary perspectives’ (Bickford Berzock & Frank, 2007). Notwithstanding the lack of scholarly research, here I discuss the question of whether African ceramics is harboured or hindered by European industry, influence and appetite and its impact on village and studio practice.

The largest pottery studio in South Africa, Ardmore Ceramics, is an interesting case. It was founded by white South African artist, Fèe Halsted after she had trained a disabled black South African, Bonnie Ntshalintshali, and discovered a powerful dynamic in combining European and African craft traditions. By ingenuity, by thrift and by chance, Halsted developed the style that has made Ardmore Ceramics internationally renowned (Ardmore Ceramics, 2010). Not quite African nor European in neither aesthetic nor sensibility. Intricately decorated ware in a Western ceramic tradition, the work is brightly coloured and the forms unique, featuring flora and animal motifs with almost mythological figurines in fantasy narratives. The only thing African about them is perhaps the subject matter, the style of modelling and colouring. They seem to evoke a familiar African aesthetic, however they do not have a sense of traditional tribal pottery, the work more resembling narrative-based wood carvings of Malawi and Zimbabwe. Ardmore pottery would be most comfortable in an upmarket home, office or gallery; the concept is technologically European with an African aesthetic spin and justifiably heavy price tags. In 2008 eight Ardmore pieces fetched over GB£20,000 at Bonhams in London (Prendini Toffoli, 2008). The Ardmore website currently has a set of candlesticks for GB£7,500. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve coveted Ardmore Ceramics for years but have never quite had the funds to shell out for one. They are a fabulous example of co-creative practice. Each piece is made in stages of construction, sculpting and painting by different artists to produce a shared outcome.

The influence of the European drive for production and saleability might be a strong influence in the style evolution of the potters’ wares.

It seems that the successful African potters are for the most part discovered then engineered into greatness by Europeans. Without European business entrepreneurship these potters would, it seems have continued in their craft serving their communities. Their craft would then have remained in its pure, traditional and primarily functional form.

Ardmore is in stark contrast to traditional craft pottery of the African village. With the latter, clay is dug by hand, dried and ground like grain, hand built by coiling and burnished. Then wood or smoke fired in aloe leaves as the first firing and a final firing in umTomboti wood – toxic while burning, its oils stain pots a deep lustrous black. The pots are finally glossed up with animal fat.

The now internationally renowned Nesta Nala from the Tugela Ferry area of Zululand worked exclusively in that tradition. Nala was the foremost potter who brought Zulu pottery onto the world stage. She passed on her skills to her daughters and at her death in 2005 many in South Africa considered her a national treasure. She represented South Africa at the Cairo International Biennale for ceramics in 1994, received South Africa’s prestigious Vita award for craft in 1995, in 1999 participated in the Smithsonian Institute’s Folk Life Project in Washington. Her work is represented in major collections in South Africa and worldwide (Ceramics Today, circa 2001). Her pottery was traditional in the true sense – functional pots used in everyday Zulu tribal life and prized by the local rural community for its beauty. Considering the rudimentary equipment and method, her work is startling, exhibiting purity of form, perfect proportion and embellished with exquisitely simple reliefs. While much of her decoration style was in the Zulu geometric patterning tradition, she later experimented with fish and other motifs. Hints of European influence are found in her later pieces where she was encouraged to sign and date her work – a very unAfrican practice. Nala’s promotion and exposure at the Association of Potters of Southern Africa and Corobrik National Ceramics Exhibitions of the 90’s generated interest in traditional Zulu pottery. Had Nala not been discovered and catapulted onto the world art stage, her work would have remained in rural obscurity. Although world-renowned she remained a rurally based, traditional village potter until her death, never crossing the divide to a studio tradition. She left her legacy in the Nala family of potters and paved the way for other Zulu potters like the Magwaza family and the noteworthy Clive Sithole.

Clive Sithole is an exception—a true studio potter who studied traditional techniques under Nesta Nala. Heavily influenced by Nala, his works feature traditional Zulu form with added sculptural elements and a more Western style pit-firing. His work is considered a new development in the history of the craft. Successfully positioning his pot-making as an art form, he developed a style that incorporates bovine reliefs from the Zulu tradition of young boys making clay bulls (Van Wyk, 2010). His pots fuse the form and functionality of Nala’s and his own decorative style. While there are other examples, one hopes Clive Sithole heralds the future of African potters – creative practice unfettered by European influence yet relevant on the world art scene.

Bernard Zondo and Zinhle Nene (2009). Porcupine Tureen detail, 29 x 27 x 20cm. Masterpiece Collection: Ardmore Ceramics. Photo used with permission.

The end-use of African ceramics is fascinating and requires more research. Where the potter creates traditional ware, it is functionally useful to Africans as everyday or special occasion ware. The very same piece in the hands of Europeans becomes an art piece separated from its context and devoid of its utilitarian function yet prized for its beauty and market value. African Art Centre in Durban assists craft producers to sell their ware to collectors, interior decorators and particularly tourists. The high-end work is earmarked for galleries and collectors and the remainder is generally relegated to tourist curios. An unsurprising phenomenon is the plethora of studios of previously disadvantaged potters industriously churning out Africanesque pottery for Western consumption. Far worse is white South Africans churning out Western ceramics decorated in a kitsch quasi-African style. This is unduly harsh criticism of black craft studios as tourist patronage keeps bread on the table of these craftspeople who otherwise have no source of income.

The success of traditional pottery seems inextricably linked to Europeans; either as facilitators or business leaders on the one hand or the purchasers on the other. This symbiotic relationship has the drawback of the best artefacts ending up overseas, however the benefit is increased interest and trade in pottery (even from the tourism sector) allowing potters to develop and refine their practice and supports more people in the community learning the craft, ironically ensuring its survival as a tradition. At this juncture whether an African potter is studio-based or works traditionally does not seem to affect their fortunes, only that they are discovered and promoted. It is likely that as more potters like Clive Sithole come up through the ranks, African pottery will organically develop its own aesthetic and become increasingly self-assured. And that which is created in studios will influence the village potter.

Bibliography

• African Ceramics (2010). Arts and crafts from Africa. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.ceramicsafrica.co.za/index.htm
• Ardmore Ceramics (2010). Ardmore’s history. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.ardmoreceramics.co.za/about/history.php
• Bickford Berzock, Kathleen & Frank, Barbara E. (2007). Ceramic arts in Africa. African Arts (Spring). Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0438/is_1_40/ai_n18646981/?tag=content;col1
• Capolo, Mark (2008). Traditional Zulu village and pottery. Travel Blog 17 March. Retrieved 28 September, 2009, from http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/KwaZulu-Natal/Pietermaritzburg/blog-257001.html
• Ceramics Today (circa 2001). Nesta Nala & Clive Sithole Retrieved 21 February, 2010, from http://www.ceramicstoday.com/potw/zulu.htm
• Chennell, Louise, & Talbot, Kathy (2008). Exhibition review: Sankofa: Ceramic tales from Africa. Interpreting Ceramics (10).
• Colleen (2010). Traditional smoke firing. Ceramics South Africa, (15 January). Retrieved from http://ceramicssouthernafrica.blogspot.com/search/label/Traditional%20South%20African%20Ceramics
• Davern, Fiona (2006). Made in South Africa. Design Seven, p. 76–80.
• ELC Art and Craft Centre Rorke’s Drift (2010). The passion. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.puul.de/centre/index.html?=ceramic_studio.html
• Folk Art South Africa (2010). Ceramics and pottery. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.folkartsouthafrica.com/category.php?cid=1
• Inkosi Imported Crafts (2010). Zulu clay pots. Retrieved 19 February, 2010, from http://nkosiimportedcrafts.com/Zulu_Clay_Pots.html
• Prendini Toffoli, Hilary (2008). Evermore Ardmore. Financial Mail, September 5, p. 86–87.
• Sizana Craft (2010). Homepage. Retrieved 19 February, 2010, from http://www.sizanacraft.co.za/contentpage.aspx?pageid=3643
• Tatham Art Gallery (2008). Ardmore Ceramic Studio: HIV/AIDS exhibition. Retrieved 15 February, 2010, from http://www.tatham.org.za/ardmore-ceramics-studio.html
• The Pottery Studio (2010). About the potters: Nic Sithole. Retrieved 10 February, 2010, from http://www.potterystudio.co.za/about.html
• Van Wyk, Gary (2010). Interview with Clive Sithole. African Arts, 21 February. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0438/is_1_40/ai_n18646986/
• Zizamele Ceramics (2010). The art of changing lives. Retrieved 11 February, 2010, from http://www.zizamele.co.za/index.html

Steven Smith is a Lecturer in Advertising Design at the Institute of Communication Design, Massey University, New Zealand.  Steven has been a practicing studio potter in South Africa for over twenty years and has a keen interest in Zulu culture and craft, especially pottery.

Lestina Malatjie and Calvin Machlawaule, (Kaross Collective), Community, 1999. Embroidery on black cloth, 60 x 115 cm. Collection: Johannesburg Art Gallery

Shortly after the newly democratic ANC-led government of South Africa was installed in 1994, it issued a White Paper that announced a policy of using the arts for the purpose of social transformation and reconciliation. The paper asserted that “experiencing the creative expression of different communities of South Africa provides insights into the aspirations and values of our nation. This experience develops tolerance and provides a foundation for national reconciliation.” One outcome of this policy should have been to bridge the gap between art and craft in South African cultural property. Unfortunately, because government support for ‘craft’ was predicated on its ability to alleviate poverty– “to contribute significantly to the economy of the country by…creating employment,” its effect has been to maintain the hierarchical distinction between art and craft by reinforcing the divide between the aesthetic and the practical and between the rural and urban. The Department of Arts and Culture’s motto: “Design Feeds the Poor,” could hardly be expected to resonate with an international art market now free, after the lifting of sanctions, to scour the county for the next hot art star. Both the government and the museum/gallery system are driven by monetary concerns, but with radically different goals. In the end, one could argue that the gap between art and craft in the new South Africa is a reflection of the bottomless chasm between rich and poor.

When I first went to South Africa in 2000, I was exhilarated by the art world’s rethinking of the traditional categories of what constituted art. Universities were hurriedly revamping art history courses to include ‘traditional’ arts, and museums were not only purchasing the work of black painters, sculptors and printmakers, they were displaying both traditional and contemporary crafts along with the ‘high’ arts of painting and sculpture. The legacy of 19^th century concepts of what constituted art and art history was quietly being buried, or so it seemed. For over a century, the avant-garde had advocated the destruction of the very idea of ‘high’ art, whereas the history of art was narrowly confined to the study of traditional media. In South Africa in 2000, it appeared as if the internal contradiction within modernism was going to be resolved in favor of the avant-garde. From the perspective of this newcomer, the history of art was being reconceived as the history of cultural production, and the former hierarchies among media were being leveled.

In 2003, in the exhibition, “Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa,” that I co-curated with the former Director of the South African National Gallery, Marilyn Martin, we included the work of rural needlework collectives along with that of university-trained artists working in cities in South Africa or abroad. Our aim was to bridge not only the rural/urban//craft/art divide but also the gender divide. The needlework collectives had been established for the most part by white women artists who had identified traditional craft skills as a means of income generation. Among the most successful was and remains the Kaross collective in Limpopo Province. Founded by Irma van Rooyen in 1988, it employs over 600 people today, the vast majority of whom are women. (B. Schmahmann in the exhibition catalog). Even if the role of these white founders might be considered a form of colonialism, it anticipated government policy and moreover has given disadvantaged women new status in their communities, answering the call of the ANC Women’s League “for the right to fashion feminism to suit their own worlds.” I will use the example of a stunning embroidered cloth to illustrate the complexities of the art/craft divide in the South African context post-1994.

Community (1999) is a subtle interweaving of voices—a textile in the truest sense of the word. The cloth was commissioned by the National Paper Prayers Campaign for AIDS Awareness (1998-2000), initiated by artist Kim Berman and administered through Artist Proof Studio. In collaboration with AIDS educators, the Studio members went to community centers in all of South Africa’s nine provinces to help address trauma and loss through the process of making a print as a prayer for healing. During its second year, the program expanded to three needlework collectives, each of which produced large-scale hangings—a sort of surrogate painting– that could serve either to inform the local populace if hung in a community center or as a collectible art work to raise funds for treatment programs. Like a storybook, Community visually narrates the story of the impact of AIDS on a rural village. As drawn by Calvin Machlawaule, who is HIV positive, and then embroidered by Lestina Malatjie, it emphasizes the tragic consequences of denial and stigma in the era of AIDS.

Clearly the cloth is a hybrid in more ways than one. At the Kaross collective, the women’s needlework skills had been transferred from creating clothing for personal use to making place mats and tablecloths for the tourist trade. Once the government-funded Paper Prayers program provided a tool for AIDS awareness, the resulting narrative cloths had a powerful content that transcended both its educational purpose and its ‘craft’ designation. Signed by the embroiderer, Malatjie, in order to satisfy the predominantly white collectors’ expectations of authorship, it was exhibited at the Vita Craft Awards, where it won a top prize and was purchased by the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Neither the format of the wall hanging nor its content was the result of Malatjie’s individual inspiration, however. The work, as its title indicates, was the collaborative effort of several of the participants in the training, as overseen by the artists and educators. And despite the exceptional quality of the work, Malatjie has not emerged as a recognized craft-artist. As for Community itself, it remains in storage at JAG, its status as ‘art’ in limbo.

Of course, ‘community’ is the problem. In South Africa, ‘high’ art is still thought of as the product of an individual sensibility, despite every effort to rethink categories to be more reflective of the values of a democratic nation. The fact that the needlework collectives consist predominantly of women has only contributed further to locking the art/craft hierarchy more firmly into place. Until very recently, ‘high’ art, as defined in western terms, was considered a male-only realm within the majority black culture. Although this is rapidly changing, the continuing rural/urban divide—men in the city, women in the countryside– also contributes to maintaining the status quo.

The situation results in an impoverished picture of South African art, as exemplified by the recent publication, South African Art Now, authored by artist Sue Williamson and produced by HarperCollins in the U.S. In this broad survey, the craft traditions are acknowledged only in terms of individual practitioners employing handwork skills to make ‘art.’ The important work of the embroidery or pottery collectives receives no mention at all. Of course, in the United States, one rarely finds publications on community-based art or artists’ collectives; monographic studies of individual artists still predominate. Although it is hardly surprising that HarperCollins, owned by the conservative propagandist Rupert Murdoch, followed this established hierarchy, the book does distort the South African picture, in my opinion.

The arts will never be able to adequately contribute to social transformation and reconciliation in South Africa until the art/craft divide is finally and firmly bridged. The country has faced and surmounted far greater challenges, so the cause is far from lost.

Pamela Allara is Associate Professor emerita, Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA

In the past, she has completed a number of commission for beaded public art in South Africa. This year she is producing a South African flag, embroidered entirely of beads, which will fly at the Madiba Stadium for the FIFA World Cup.

The African Art Centre where Hlengiwe works has a small gallery which hosts exhibitions of crafters. It is one of the relatively few places in South Africa were craft can be seen in a gallery setting. It seems a natural progression for a crafter like Hlengiwe to have a solo exhibition including unique works from her artistic imagination. But to claim status as an individual art is more difficult than in Western contemporary craft. Traditional culture seems to have a much stronger pull. In the following brief interview, she starts the ball rolling on the question of African craft in galleries.

What prompted you to write a book on Zulu beadwork?

My grandmother and mother were collectors of antique Zulu craftwork and beadwork and I used to go with them to the museums to help on translating the information about the antique beadwork that they were selling to them. I discovered that most of the items in the museums didn’t have enough information. Even when schools visited the museum, there was not enough information to gain.

When I was reading the books about the Zulu beadwork, they were all saying different things and I was so confused. I decided to go direct and communicate with the people whom wear the beadwork, as well as those who make beadwork. I sought to find out from them all the meaning of beadwork and colours that they used. It was very interesting because much of what I heard was different to what the available books were saying. I decided to collect all the information that I could and share it with the other Zulu beadwork lovers, as it was direct from the Zulu people.

Do you think Zulu craft like beadwork is the expression of an individual artist or a collective culture?

I think it is both. In some instances, craft items are intended for the sole use of a crafter or the person who wears or uses the craft object. You also find crafts which are representative of stylistic expressions of a particular culture with particular colours and designs of metaphoric significance to the concerned culture.

Would you like to see more of this craft in art galleries? If so, what do you think has prevented opportunities for their display?

I would definitely like to see more craft in art galleries. I think craft has always been relegated to a level lower that Fine Art, and not as a creative form of expression. I think display in craft in art galleries will narrow the divide between art and craft.

How do you see South African craft developing in the future?

I think South African craft is developing, embracing modern trends, usages and also attracts interest from other cultures.

*’Crafter’ is the preferred term for craftsperson in South Africa.

Patrick McNaugthon’s study of Mali metalsmithing identified a problem in the applying Western distinction between art and life:

The Mande people of Mali, like some other African peoples, give a name to every kind of sculpture that they produce, and also to categories of objects such as wooden twin figures, dolls, animal masks and headdresses (McNaughton 1988:110f.). These names may be revealing as to an object’s perceived spiritual potency. Some types of objects might not be considered as art by Westerners, as in the case of spear blades and oil-burning lamps. Yet the Mande consider their beauty, symbolism, and place in society to take them beyond simple utility. The distinction between art and artifact (or crafts) is not generally marked in African languages.

Patrick R. McNaughton The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power and Art in West Africa Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988

Potters from Nkwalini Valley in KwaZulu-Natal including Masonto. Photo by Steven Smith. Click image for story.

The online theme for 2.3 is the broad relation between African craft cultures and the modern craft movement. To a large degree, the development of modern craft has coincided with the relocation of craft practice from the village to the studio – from cottage industry to the artistic production of unique objects. Does modern African craft follow a similar path? Does the origin of much African craft tradition in collective ritual entail a loss of meaning when an object is transferred into the cold and quiet space of a gallery? Does this limit the capacity for individual African craftspersons to participate in the international craft arena?

For this issue, we invite those working in the field of African craft to share their thoughts on issues special to their area.

Online from Journal of Modern Craft 2.3: Editorial and Handspring Puppet Company by Adrian Kohler, Basil Jones and Tommy Luther

Almost two years ago now, the Journal of Modern Craft’s first editorial argued for a broad framing of our subject, one that would go beyond the studio crafts and their discrete disciplines, as well as the tendency to place craft in a series of continuous dialectics with modernity, industrialization, commerce, and fine art aesthetics. Our first Primary Text, by the late Reyner Banham, argued for an authentic species of craft embedded (and buried, out of view) within the routines of the factory. In more recent issues we have continued to seek out scholarship on craft well outside “movement” logic, in contexts such as tourist economies, public art performance, and industrial design. Yet the area of academic study most closely associated with the word “craft” remains, of course, the Arts and Crafts movement.

In that first editorial we expressed the hope that a major study would emerge that tackled the movement’s complexity and paradoxical nature. Gillian Naylor’s The Arts and Crafts Movement: A Study of Its Sources, Ideals and Influence on Design Theory, first published in 1971, set the bar high. It is salutary to consider that although there has been much valuable infilling in the form of newly discovered objects, good international surveys, monographs on individual figures, and detailed regional studies—both in our own pages, and in such exemplary recent publications as Lawrence Kreisman and Glenn Mason’s The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Pacific Northwest—there has been nothing quite as energetic, incisive and politically aware as Naylor’s pioneering contribution, written nearly forty years ago.

The last fresh contextualization of the Arts and Crafts movement was the decisive turn to Romantic Nationalism, a diffusionist approach that informed Elizabeth Cumming and Wendy Kaplan’s succinct, admirable 1991 The Arts and Crafts Movement in the World of Art series and the papers in Art and the National Dream (1993) edited by Nicola Gordon Bowe. A key moment for reframing Arts and Crafts studies should have been 2005—when two major exhibitions were mounted (at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at Los Angeles County Museum). Both, however, were chiefly informed by Romantic Nationalist scholarship, choosing to explore the international nature of the movement by tracking its dissemination country by country. When nationalist agendas are examined in relative isolation, we miss the opportunities to see what is common to different experiences of craft reform, what hybrids develop, and why. Craft movements do not chart a simple, linear process of influence, but rather a series of asymmetrical and overlapping fits and starts.

Then there is the question of the relationship between the Arts and Crafts movement and later developments within modern craft and design. Alan Crawford’s remarkable, modestly entitled “The Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sketch”—in Alan Crawford (ed.), By Hammer and By Hand: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Birmingham, 1984—showed the way. As Tom Crook argued in our first issue of this year, the Arts and Crafts movement should be viewed as presenting an alternative option within (rather than an escape from) modernity, and its political and aesthetic transformations. A logical corollary is that historians should look beyond the chronological boundaries of the Arts and Crafts movement, finding continuities that might reshape our understanding of early modernism in design and architecture, and uncovering hidden stories of craft hitherto obscured by an interwar rhetoric of progressive technology.

And there are plenty of other possibilities for further research. These might include the investigation of workshop practice and engagement with materials—themes intrinsic to the Arts and Crafts movement’s pedagogy, both informal and formal, and transmitted through permissible tools, and the study of historic and vernacular material. This could tie in with an investigation of time consumption and normative work practices during the high period of the Arts and Crafts movement. John Roberts’s Marxist-infected art historical study, The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade, suggests the potential for using a labor theory of culture as a model to investigate Arts and Crafts values. Equally, a history of colonial art education would show Arts and Crafts values being deployed and depleted in strategies of underdevelopment.

The research articles included in this issue suggest the rich possibilities afforded by some of these approaches. Each essay presents craft reform as inextricably bound to modern innovations, whether those occur in the registers of mass production, urban reinvention, or spiritual experimentation. Freyja Hartzell offers a sharply observed account of the stonewares produced in the Westerwald of Germany at the turn of the century. She shows how designers such as Richard Riemerschmid appropriated the völkisch emblems of vernacular ceramic production in the service of a modern German material culture. Jordi Falgàs tracks the transmission of these German ideas to the town of Girona in Spain, where the progressive architect Rafael Masó tried to put similar principles into practice. If Riemerschmid and his colleagues enjoyed success in reframing craft within an ideologically driven reform movement, Masó’s story is fascinating partly because of his failures. In the politically fractured context of Catalonia, artisanal architecture was impossible not because it was mute, but because it spoke all too clearly. Our third article brings us forward in time to the seam between the Arts and Crafts era and the emergence of an individualist studio craft movement. Art historian Roberta Meyer and master woodworker Mark Sifrri place the iconic figure of Wharton Esherick— often described as the first American studio furniture maker—into the surprising context of 1920s international anthroposophy. Meyer and Sfirri show that the motifs and intent of Esherick’s furniture conform closely to the teachings of this modernist spiritualist movement, pioneered by the Austro- Hungarian philosopher Rudolf Steiner.

All three articles attest to the importance of in-depth primary research in the effort to come to grips with the historical craft movement. In this spirit, we offer a Primary Text that takes us further forward in time to the postwar period, but not necessarily away from turn-of-the-century preoccupations. Paul Caffrey introduces us to a fascinating document of 1960s design reform, the so-called “Scandinavian Report,” in which a team of visiting designers frankly appraise the strengths and weaknesses of Irish craft and industrial production. It is fascinating to observe some of the same issues that were at issue in Germany and Spain, c.1900—such as the proper deployment of folk motifs and the ideal organization of workshops—still at issue in this very different chronological and geographical situation. Finally, we have a Statement of Practice by the founders of the Handspring Puppet Company, who are based in South Africa but have taken London by storm recently in the theatrical production War Horse. They argue that the contemporary puppet is a unique form of craft because its “ur-narrative” is a functional commitment to “seeming to be alive.” There are many subtle ways in which this absorbing account of puppet design connects with Arts and Crafts studies—by allying craftedness with radical modernity, through its global references and inspirations, through puppetry’s implicit commentary on individual agency and, not least, in a shared ambition to create a constructed object with a narrative, animate purpose.

The craft of questions, the craft of stories, the craft of the hands – all these are the making of something and that something is soul.

Post-trauma therapist and novelist Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Bikini Yarn Bomb by Abigayle, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

My Launceston Craftivist-Action Day Objects

I have on my university office bookshelf a few pre-loved Craftivist items that I pinched from Launceston’s Yarn Bombing Day at the end of November 2009. These are: a few multi-coloured wool pom-poms, a sparkling bright blue-ish knitted collar-type of thing, that I removed from its cable-ties, a knitted sweater fragment in warm mossy green colours, and an inventive ecological ‘pasta’-knit found on the grass (at first malleable and brown; now… having dried out in the sun… crisp and almost black. Because of my own 1990s earthworks practice, I am prone to preferring “environmentally P.C. art-as-a-living-system” — so, I really appreciate the latter crafted object, which I have had the pleasure of watching change states).

The ironically-entitled activity of Yarn Bombing in the public sphere, is about returning a ‘kindness’, albeit with a prankster-type of ‘guerrilla-cheeriness’ to plazas and streetscapes (which have become increasingly privatised spaces since the mid-1980s). Generally a ‘pink-ghetto’ profession: to be a Yarn Bomber-Craftivist you need a bit of the fearlessness, but I think Craftivism is a ‘service’ industry whose activist-participants carry the subtext of being ‘Carers’. The above quote, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, is to remind readers of the roots craft has with ‘narrative’ and ‘preserving’ diverse culture, as well as connections with making new, contemporary culture which engages a strategy of ‘civility-to-be-different’ through creative endeavours.

Pre-internet era of site-specific Collective Protest

Craftivism is a return to the 1980s pre-internet era of site-specific collective protest, the most infamous of which was the Greenham Common Fence at the infamous Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp at the USA air force base in Cardiff, Wales, early to mid- 1980s. The Greenham Common (open-weave-wire) fence perimeter was used exclusively as a textile arts (craftivist) communication strategy via the use of the on-going display of stuffed toys and knitted craftivist objects etc. which were stuffed into it. Historian and cultural theorist, Anna Feigenbaum, analysed the Greenham Common protest, with specific reference to the fence, and the protestor’s demands for a televised debate with the Ministry of Defense. The media strategies worked well in terms of garnering popular attention regarding the U.K. stockpiling of cruise missile nuclear weapons.

Craftivism, (although it was not called that back then), has been a strategy of women artists-activist-leaders such as the media-saavy (grand-scale) installation-performance artist Suzanne Lacy, USA, and tapestry weaver-turned new media theorist/smart-textiles designer, Prof. Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths College, London (a Greenham Common Fence social activist / craftivist).

Bauhaus Weaving

Long before the 1980s, I am reminded of the unwilling Bauhaus weaver, painter-performer Gertrud Arndt (1903 – 2000), and her early and playful work in self-portrait photography. One could say that Arndt’s early creative and rebellious strategies ran somewhat counter to the seriousness of the Bauhaus (and, in doing so, she protested her ‘ghetto-ism’ into the ‘pink’ profession of weaving design, a field in which she also, paradoxically, excelled). Arndt’s tongue-in-cheek conformity to the strictures under which she lived and worked as an artist show that, despite this, her creative soul was thriving – and this mirrors craftivist strategies of today. Arndt was known as sensible and practical, as well as an endlessly witty person in the midst of war-time hardships. Her infamous series of 43 Masken-Selbst Portrăts, or Mask Portraits, (1930) are testament to ‘her inner personality’ and her awareness of performative strategies needed to survive (6 Bauhaus women artists were killed in concentration camps) (Müller, 2009, pp. 7 – 13, p. 59).

Craftivism as ‘encoded’ communication

Craftivism is ‘encoded’ communication, and as such, is ‘fraught territory’ which is split right down the middle between ‘social conformity’ and ‘social protest.’ ‘Quiet’ or ‘silent’ protest has been called into question in various eras for many reasons. As a result of its ambiguous stance, Yarn Bombing is safe-to-practice, but contentious in its reception. I think the new generation of (mainly female) artist-craftivists might wish to acknowledge that their energetic polemics sometimes just ‘don’t deliver’ the desired results of ‘voicing’ or ‘making’ using other creative or organisational socio-political strategies. This may be because this art activity can be trivialised into the decorative trimmings of ‘events or festival management’ and/or conflated and reduced into an infantilised cute-ness, ready for erasure by other types of community-engaged leaders. Folklore theorist, Linda Pershing discusses the fraught aspects of such art practices in her book Peacemakers by Piecemakers which is about the needleworked Ribbon-Around-The-Pentagon, a monumental social-protest artwork by Justine Merritt, U.S.A (generally erased by the media as an ‘odd woman’s’ social protest against the nuclear arms race, 1985, but finally taken up as a United Nations ‘global citizenship’ day commemoration, from 2005 onwards).

Carer or Critic? The (female) Craftivist’s Fraught Territory

When I read Pershing’s research at the turn of the millennium, I was in the middle of making The Irish Linen Handkerchief Memorial. Pershing’s detailed findings made me realise that the ongoing reception of my own artwork (which had a similar approach to Merritt’s Ribbon) might be more obscure and more complicated than I had anticipated (despite the gains made in the last 40 years of the ‘fresh ungendered face’ of the Postmodern Sculptor). I think this has proven to be accurate. From the all-male journalist team, who compiled the post-1994 chronological Names List-of-those-killed-in-The Troubles sectarianism, Brian Feeney (on behalf of David McKittrick et al) rejected my counter-monument without even taking up an invitation (mid-2008) to walk through and experience it. The Linen Memorial was once staged as a ‘social protest – against – sectarian – violence’ and then, subsequently, it has become a commemorative Craftivist artwork-memorial, in 2007, due to the quieter socio-political situation in (‘post-conflict’) Northern Ireland.

Craftivists, themselves, come from various backgrounds with various intentions and might feel disconcerted, disconnected and / or unaware of the focus of their artistic intentions and unable to target and work effectively with their subconscious creative identity-politics concerns. If a Craftivist’s orientation is unquestioningly naive, then their craftivism remains a ‘past-time’. Full participation in an artworld can be scary: this is where the competition can be ‘catty’-between-competitive women and very steep for any professional opportunities. Anonymous home-making may seem preferable and more peaceful. Either way, the artwork is often playful (with avant-garde references) but often claims a serious subtext.

Textile arts / needlework craftivism is an interdisciplinary artistic field with conceptual concerns regarding the body, migration theory, gender studies, the history of non-erotic ‘Christian’ love / charity and communal well-being. Craftivist practitioners need an understanding of the complex history of public and private space, including of both incredibly intimate (sexualised and/or taboo ‘sites’) as well as a sense of the opposite and larger scale: urban planning.

Craftivist as Carer

Whether a professional or amateur pursuit, Craftivist / Yarn Bombers should acknowledge that they, indirectly, become carers of 1) the sustainable environment and 2) the sustainable (non-violent) community and, as such, their art-making becomes a service. In these methods, public artists also critically protest the lack of time for conversation in an highly mediatised world increasingly reliant on e-communication and e-relationships.

Craftivism Action Day

November 21^st 2009 was Arts Action Day organised by Kim Schneiders at Arts Access Link who had heard about the colourful cult following of contemporary knitting /yarn bombing. The day was a ‘test-run’ for a collaborative festival to be held later this year, associated with Arts Alive, an artist-run gallery space in Launceston, Northern Tasmania.

The Launceston Access Arts day was also, in part, a non-council approved anti-bureaucratic plea for art-for-community-by-community and for ‘art-as-we-like-when-we-like’. Some of the main players in Launceston’s action were Amy, a twenty-year-old Scottish conservationist, Abigayle, and Tess. Tess is a 30 year old University of Tasmania Arts Academy BCA graduate: a ceramicist, now apprenticing in animation in the U.K. Tess and Amy spent some time talking with me about the event.

Tess who learnt knitting from her grandmother when she was young, wanted to use it as a healing therapy with her mother. She was re-learning the skill from You Tube videos, also in order to send a gift to her friend overseas. She wanted more camaraderie and so she volunteered for Schneiders’ Arts Access Link to help lead a weekly creative group for physically challenged persons to learn craft-based skills at the Invermay Arts Railway precinct (where the UTAS art school is also located).

They consider themselves Yarn Bombers who appreciated the connection with the future festival, but who preferred (at this point) not to get caught up with its administration. Abigayle’s most pleasurable highlight of the Craftivist Action Day was wading through the newly renovated fountain at Prince’s Park in the centre of Launceston to place her knitted bikini bra on one of the female nude sculptures (in part a two-pronged protest against a recent local Tasmanian newsworthy tid-bit about public nudity and the history of the ‘male gaze’ in the traditional high arts of painting and sculpture). After this climax, the collective group was freezing cold, so they all disbanded, leaving the town more than colourful and the townsfolk questioning. The aftermath was that, in an expensive endeavour, the city council had to drain the fountain, remove the bikini and re-fill the pool.

Background to Craftivist Communication strategy

Craftivism cannot escape its direct, unrelenting and very specific links with the gendered history of craft, the lack of women’s equitable employment / financial independence (especially in craft in the first and forth worlds for very different reasons), lack of creative or organisational leadership opportunities, (and the resultant consequences for their independence and safety). For the young female artist / craft /design person who wishes to work with their matri-lineage in the art of textiles, or just because they are talented with textiles, or they like the contemporary issues which textiles connotative of: such as references to mobility/migration/time/touch/cultural or ethnic diversity/ ‘the abject’ etc. and/or for the sculptor of either gender who wants to participate more fully in the public realm (with textiles) — then, that artist needs to be knowledgeable about the gendered history of public space and realistic about how conventional media will perceive the Craftvist genre. Increasingly, the dauntless artist with lasting mainstream credibility who is able to gain funding for their inter-disciplinary art/craft/conceptual voice has been (since the mid-1990s) the committed practice-led doctorate/post-doctorate researcher.

References

• Estes, Clarissa Pinkola Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, Ballantine,1996.
• Müller, Ulrike with Ingrid Radewaldt and Sandra Kemker, Bauhaus Women: Art, Handicraft, Design, Flammarion, Paris, 2009

For more information, see Smart Craftivism

So, for my final response to the theme: Revivalist or Renegade, I ask the reader/other bloggers, Is ‘Soft’ Crochet Craftivism an effective public art ‘sub-culture’ strategy-for-social-change? Does craftivism work to achieve goals for the environmental movement, Tasmania’s primary concern-of-the-day? Many citizens in Northern Tassie have been garnering national, if not international, press by rallying against the nebulous processes of implementation and the negative impact of the proposed pulp mill by Gunns Ltd. Corporation on the ecology of the Tamar Valley. Some of my art students and craftivism colleagues have been involved either directly or tangentially. (see Banner photo image).

Even though artist-designer Melanie Kershaw is a staff member of Tasmania’s Wood Design Centre , she wanted to speak out against the logging. We spoke at the end of November. She went about making a seemingly innocuous crocheted hand grenade object (shown here). Kershaw said to me that she was responding to Melbourne Craft Cartel ‘s nation-wide ‘woollen weapon stockpile’ call (last August), which hopes to present a ‘vicious-yet-gentle and lovely’ community-engaged opposition statement to Gunns, as well as a Pro-Wilderness Society message. Visit Craft Cartel’s message to join “Save-The-World: Bang, Knit, Purl, KaPow!” campaign (fun, cartoonish tutorials included)!

Around the same time of year, Kershaw created a sedate ‘gratuitous’ crocheted-hamburger-object for the annual Tasmanian Design Award. When I asked her whether she was worried about public perception and, therefore, perhaps a type of sentimental ‘erasure’ of her ideas or serious intentions, (because of the almost-absurd incongruity between her 2 concepts)? Kershaw simply stated:

I like the medium of crochet, but I do not want to do knee-blankets, bed jackets and doylies… I learned this inherited skill from my mother and she learned from her mother…They used to sit around drinking tea calmly and talking about ‘the garden’ – how the roses are coming along and that sort-of-thing… But I wanted to do something meaningful; something contemporary in an ‘old-style’ medium. These two artworks operate in different genres, and that is ok.

I was a bit jealous of Melanie’s last remark: an off-handed au-fait enjoyment in her practice and in her ‘right’ to indulge in either ‘high fine art’ or ‘low-political public art’ practice if and when she chooses. This would have been an ‘open-ended luxury’ that might have worried high-brow ‘Fine Art’ artists of my generation. Creating, and ‘going public,’ in two widely-differentiated genres would have entailed considerable deliberation in ‘serious’ women painter and sculptor predecessors who would have been aware that their ‘gendered’ idealistic or political pursuits and ‘crafted’ concerns could be critiqued and ‘read’ as superficially decorative (lacking a depth of integrity), fluffy, sentimental or, even, simply dismissed as ‘mad’.

Kershaw’s sentiments about her art being ‘either’ are echoed in variously defined ‘knitting culture’ books out there: either the light-hearted: It’s my Party and I’ll Knit if I want to! by popular self-help writer, Sharon Aris, an entertaining adjunct to Joanne Turney’s serious academic epistle which positions knitting politically and historically within postmodernism and consumer culture, since the 1970s. (Turney is a senior visual and material culture lecturer at the U.K. Bath School of Art.)

A hasty visit to the Victorian and Albert Museum website helps position contemporary craftivism in terms of nineteenth century progress. Under the search terms ‘Knitting and Crochet,’ the website has approximately 15 entries and an Acknowledgement section. I reviewed ‘The Emergence of Crochet and Knitting in American Popular Culture from 1840 – 1876: The Hook and Book’ which links these crafts with the rise of Victorian ideals of ‘useful and silent’ femininity, and consumer, leisure culture (e.g. time freed up for more fanciful pursuits, because of the invention of the sewing machine in 1860, which made straightforward sewing and dressmaking less laboriously time-consuming).

When I left Dr. Jone’s home, after tea about the text and textile arts links, I ran into ‘Grace’, outside the Art Gallery of NSW. Grace, who stated that she is ‘not necessarily an artist’, holds a quiet day job: – that of The Gallery Attendant of Kaldor Public Art Projects, Art Gallery of New South Wales – at the site Tatzu Nishi’s artwork, directly in front of the gallery.

Grace responded to my question, ‘What are you knitting?’ by saying that she was a ‘Yarn Bomber!’ Grace was not concerned with the seeming obviousness of her task-at-hand: knitting. Grace was more concerned who she was – her identity as ‘a subversive avant gardist’, a Craftivist.

Therefore, I ‘read’ Grace as an unintended ‘performance artist’ who had subversively inserted herself, as Actor/ Actress, into Nishi’s artwork, and, therefore, I saw her as a subversive ‘Craftivist’. She was certainly a part of my journey, as a viewer, into Tatzu Nishi’s two-part site-installation, entitled ‘War and peace and in-Between’, in which he re-shaped the large-scale figurative 1923 bronze (public art) sculptures by Gilbert Bayes: ‘The offerings of Peace’ and ‘The offerings of War.’ Grace was sitting at the entrance of one of the two ‘housing-boxes’ scaffolding. By ‘doing knitting’ Grace was ‘speaking to me’: her activity allowed me to re-think the position of the lowly paid female domestic in and amongst two large-scale male creations. Performing quietly in the corner, at the entrance to Nishi’s domestic, but grand, bedroom, Grace’s silent protest was made-visible by her craftivism. Nishi’s art already comments on the domestic versus public juxtaposition, together with his concept of ‘The Colonial Grand Narrative made post-colonial.’ Yet, in my eyes, Grace empowered his artwork by performing the miniature. Therefore, her subtle craftivism made her role-playing in-situ more outrageously symbolic against-the-presumed-social-order-of artworld policies and procedures. If artist Nishi is asking the viewer to imagine a ‘fresh’ perspective, I suggest he might want to take a leaf out of Vanessa Beecroft’s provocative portfolio and re-imagine ‘Grace’ (as legitimate Performer) in his and Baye’s “rightful” bedroom (Installation versus Sculpture-on-Pedestal) setting? At the same time, I would ask Grace to re-define herself, as Artist-Provocateur and both Careerist/Home-maker .

I wonder where protest Craftivism will take contemporary art, when viewed, not only in ‘fun’, ‘youthful’ and ill-defined public settings by anonymous makers, but when Craftivism-for-social-change sets itself within high-brow contexts such as the seriously-minded ‘High Contemporary Art Practice’ at traditional museum locations around-the-world.

Endnote

Forbat, Sophie excerpt from 40 years: Kaldor Public Art Projects Art Gallery of NSW, ‘Bending Perceptions: Everyday Scenes turned into Surreal Experiences’ in ‘Look’, 12/09 – 01/10.

Faythe Levine teaching students to embroider at the University of Champaign-Urbana, 2009. Photo by Kerianne Quick

This makes it very difficult to define and talk about what is going on within our community, especially when talking about topics such as skill and quality. I often like to remind people that D.I.Y. is not just an aesthetic, but for a lot of us, D.I.Y. is a lifestyle, a decision making process that overflows into all of our daily choices.

This past September I spoke at the American Craft Council Conference “Creating a New Craft Culture”. What I didn’t realize when stepping into the conference was that a large part of my presence there was to define and surprisingly to me, defend D.I.Y. craft. When making my film Handmade Nation, this was not my agenda. My number one goal was to produce a film about the people around me making amazing things, focusing on this incredible supportive creative community. In a way I have found myself a permission giver to many. I am more than thankful that I have been able to tour, talk and educated about D.I.Y.  I have found that it is difficult for me to defend something that I am fully immersed in, and actually feel like doesn’t need defending. As I stated in my talk at the conference to 300 ACC members, educators, curators and students “Whether you like it or not, it’s [D.I.Y.] there.”

Dying workshop with Kathi from Chicks on Speed at "Viva La Craft"in Hamburg, Germany where Handmade Nation premiered, 2008. Photo By Faythe Levine

I have realized I do walk a fine line. First and foremost, I promote, some would even say preach, that making something with your hands is empowering, powerful and in my opinion political. I truly believe that in this day and age if people are turning off their TV’s to make a creative decision, even if it’s one I am personally uninterested in, it’s a positive exciting step in the right direction for humanity. Here is the tricky part; I am a very selective curator and collector. I constantly tell people that their work isn’t “good enough” or the “right fit” for a project I am working on. I always end rejection with a positive note “good luck on your creative path” or suggest another show or gallery that may be interested in their work. When I lecture I always try to let people know I was turned down for 95% of my grant applications for Handmade Nation and still get rejections from film festivals weekly. One persons opinion only goes so far, only means so much.

After the past three years of interviewing, traveling to shows, galleries, boutiques and doing Q&A’s and lectures I am thankful for everyone I have met. My community has doubled, maybe tripled in numbers. This has allowed me to become a hub of networking. I recently had a friend ask if I knew of anyone who did custom velvet painting, I did and passed along the contact information hoping she would get a commission. D.I.Y. is about community, sharing and support. The most frequent feedback I get after a screening of my film is “I am inspired to go home and make something”.  That is what it is all about, not just the over saturation of owls, deer, apples and uncountable piles of cuteness that one can choke on at an indie craft fair. And with that said, most people have a sweet tooth and are always looking for more, just not this collector. I am in search of the strange, weird and oddly beautiful.

To summarize, staying focused, setting goals and moving forward. These are the skills that D.I.Y. are based on.

On The Midway at ArtScape in Baltimore. "Things To Put On Your Face" booth by Stefani Levin, 2008. Photo By Faythe Levine

In my next blog entry I look forward to discussing the demographic for Handmade Nation, and if there ways of expanding it, as well as my opinion on the future of D.I.Y.

Editorial Introduction

Articles

A Ghost in the Machine Age: The Westerwald Stoneware Industry and German Design Reform, 1900–1914 by Freyja Hartzell

A Catalan Werkstätte? Arts and Crafts Schools between Modernisme and Noucentisme by Jordi Falgàs

Early Expressions of Anthroposophical Design in America: The Infuence of Rudolf Steiner and Fritz Westhoff on Wharton Esherick by Roberta A. Mayer and Mark Sfrri

Primary Text Commentary

Design in Ireland: Report of the Scandinavian Design Group in Ireland, April 1861, by Paul Caffrey

Statement of Practice

Handspring Puppet Company by Adrian Kohler, Basil Jones and Tommy Luther (pdf)

Exhibition Reviews

Craft in its Gaseous State: Wouldn’t It Be Nice … Wishful Thinking in Art and Design by Mònica Gaspar

Quiet Persuasion: Political Craft by Geraldine Craig

Book Reviews

A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression reviewed by Sandra Alfoldy

Designing Modern Britain reviewed by Peter Hughes