The Journal of Modern Craft

In a craft shop setting, a craft object can be picked up, held in the hand, stroked to feel its textures, tried on, filled, shaken out, dangled, crushed. In a gallery setting, displayed on a plinth, craft objects become sculpture, able to be viewed in the round but no longer touchable. In a sculpture garden, one may be encouraged to touch, walk through, or climb on a piece of sculpture but much of it is still immovable. Small, intimate scultural pieces that can be picked up and held take on a craft quality. Craft objects that are monumental in form take on a sculptural quality, as do installations of multiple craft objects, eg a set of Gwyn Hanssen Piggot bowls and bottles.

Increasingly, the boundaries between the two are blurred. Witness the recent exhibition, Slash, Paper under the knife at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, which really broadened the dialogue. I would describe it as sculpture made by hand, by an individual out of intense personal need.

I’m a guest blogger for this issue of the Journal. Some initial thoughts can be found here – http://journalofmoderncraft.com/theme/when-sculptors-craft#comment-13881

I suppose we are craft sculptors. We make handcrafted copper weather vanes using techniques that date back to Hellenistic Greek times. Our work is intentionally not three-dimensional for functionality’s sake; weathervane sculpture pieces need to turn in the wind. The style of sculpture we do is called swell bodied, rather than full bodied, so they encounter less wind resistance when they turn.

Swell bodied weather vanes also have certain inherent design considerations. Because the wind turns them, it is a disadvantage for them to have a front and back side, especially if the prevailing winds would cause the backside of the sculpture piece to be predominate. Therefore, our sculptures typically have two front sides so the sculpture shows to advantage no matter which way the wind points.

The very functionality of a weathervane forces design considerations which are not inherent in traditional sculpture in the round or in bas relief sculptures, placing it in a somewhat unique place within the sculpture genre.