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The second issue of 2011 casts us back to craft futures of the past.

Articles

Editorial introduction

Corporate Craft: Constructing the Empire State Building by Ezra Shales

Coal-powered Craft: A Past for the Future by Ele Carpenter

Crafting a New Age: A. R. Orage and the Politics of Craft by Adam Trexler

Primary Text

Politics for Craftsmen by A. R. Orage

Statement of Practice

Technology and Hand Skill in Craft and Industry by Robin Wood (pdf)

Exhibition Reviews

• Ballets Russes: The Art of Costume Reviewed by Sally Gray
• Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art Reviewed by Dana E. Byrd
• Circuit Céramique aux Arts Décoratifs: La Scène Française Contemporaine Reviewed by Alison Britton

Book Reviews

• Cone Ten Down: Studio Pottery in New Zealand, 1945–1980 Reviewed by Grace Cochrane
• Cultural Commodities in Japanese Rural Revitalization: Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware and Tsugaru Shamisen Reviewed by Sarah Teasley

An interview with Claire Warnier and Dries Verbruggen of Unfold design studio, the creators of l’Artisan Électronique, a “virtual potter’s wheel”.

As a “virtual potter’s wheel” L’Artisan Electronique stands at an interesting cross-roads between materiality and the digital ephemera.  It dematerializes the process of creation, separating the maker from the raw material of the final object.  Do you have any thoughts on the role of materiality in what seems a widely de-materializing and virtual culture.

If you look at l’Artisan Électronique from the analog/material standpoint of it being a virtual remake of the traditional pottery studio than yes you are right in stating that it dematerializes the process of creation. But we actually approached it the other way around, from the digital standpoint and that angle is sometimes lost in the discussions. l’Artisan Électronique tries to bridge both worlds and to actually materialize the world of virtual design both by researching the use of more tactile digital design tools where there is much more relation between what you do with your body and the forms you generate as opposed to traditional digital design tools that are no different in interaction than non-design tools like browsing or email. Also the use of clay materials in 3d printers as opposed to more sterile and synthetic plastics is an effort to take some of the digital on/off logic and esthetics out of digital manufacturing. That’s why we often refer to the current era as the early days of the post-digital era where the divide between the digital and the analog thinking is fading away, it is not relevant anymore to think of something as either being digital or analog. The axe that a forester uses to cut a tree is produced using a computer controlled mill, you can’t take out the digital anymore.

Designguide.tv interview from Unfold on Vimeo.

I know that you are a participant on the online open source object file-sharing community at thingiverse.com, sharing plans for designs and even parts for 3D clay printing such as you used in L’Artisan Electronique. Could you reflect on how this participation in open source forums fits into your role as a designer?

At the moment we do this only on the level of the tools we use/develop and not (yet) on the level of our actual design output like plans for products. On the level of the tools it is very important to us, the advent of open source tools made it, like Tim Knapen says: impossible to have an excuse to NOT do a project. There are so many open source variants of what used to be very high tech hard- and software and it is very easy to combine and alter those building blocks and have a working prototype of a pretty advanced tool. If there wasn’t the RepRap open source 3d printer we would never have been able to create a working ceramic 3d printer. The community and the whole ecosphere around it is essential to any OS project and it is a system of give and take.

We also think that it is much better to share our findings on printing with clay because we are a small design studio.  Being able to tap into this vast community and have others with different backgrounds replicate your work, build on top of it and share back their findings suddenly gives us the knowhow that would traditionally be reserved for larger cooperations while still being very flexible and dynamic as a design studio. It’s the benefit of the networked society.

Do you see L’Artisan Electronique as an innovation specific to the practice of designers or do you have ambitions for it as a model for more distributed forms of manufacture?  For instance, do you see 3D printing in clay as a key tool in future forms of decentralized and open source manufacture?

It’s is basically a factory in a box so it would be hard to ignore that aspect. l’Artisan Électronique is a very narrative installation meant to tell a story to a public in a gallery and let them wander about the various aspects that are embedded in it, it’s a spatial snapshot of what we are working on as designers. But we are not sitting still and working further on these various lines, unfolding them into different projects and products. Networked manufacturing is an aspect we are very interested in. We just finished a project called Unfold Factory for Onomatopee shown at the dutch design week at the moment. It’s not a finished project but more an initial proposal in the form of a movie running on an iPad that demonstrates how the virtual throwing wheel could be adapted as an iPad app. Everyone can design objects using the app, these objects can be uploaded to unfoldfactory.com where they are up for display. Besides being able to download the file and print the design yourself, the uploaded designs take part in a system where others can co-fund the production at the Unfold Factory. The design that reaches the goal first will be produced and profits are shared between the funders, the designers and Unfold Factory, a bit similar to how something like Kickstarter.com works. This is also extending what we have done with the NFLD2030 project which is Unfold’s shareholder community. 3D printing in clay is a relevant addition to the world of 3d printing because it helps to move from Rapid Prototyping to Rapid Manufacturing because the materials have a higher emotional value that is linked with real world objects vs the exotic resins and plastics of traditional RP processes. The problem is that all RP techniques are unsuitable for mass production, and this is the interesting dilemma to work on for designers. There is probably also no place for ceramic 3d printing in an at home scenario because of the need to fire the objects so small scale, decentralized manufacturing using local sustainable energy and even raw materials looks like the most interesting route to follow.

In your text that accompanies L’Artisan Electronique you describe the objects produced as “artefacts of a new history”.  What historical lineage(s) do you see L’Artisan Electronique acting within?  Given that you’re working within the specific forms of pottery making, how do you see L’Artisan Electronique in relation to ceramic history?

We are not trained as potters, although our interest in ceramics is big. But the history of pottery is like the history of (furniture) design. Both professions evolved from an artisanal way of working with small editions to industrial mass production. The difference between pottery and design, is that in the field of pottery, you still have a great deal of people working in an artisanal way and the industrial production still has a lot of handwork in it. And it seems in pottery, these two tendencies still look at each others as rivals: the artisans don’t like industrial production, the ceramic industries seem to find artisanal production childish. The same you found a bit in the Arts and Crafts Movement, where machines and industry was presented as something bad and small minded, while the crafts were seen as a noble way of working. People often think in antagonisms. Intelligent – stupid, high art – low art, good – bad. But things are not that black and white. With L’Artisan Electronique we want to show this. We want to overcome these antagonisms.

The objects that have been made on the digital pottery wheel and the 3D ceramics printer have a lot of traces. They are not perfect, even if they are produced on a machine and with a digital design software. You can see the imperfection of the hand in the design. None of the objects designed on the virtual pottery wheel are completely symmetric. Even if you try to make it is ‘perfect’ as possible, your hand is never stable enough. The software will register every small movement of the hand. One can also see the traces of the digital representation within the objects, such as the polygonal mesh. And the machine leaves traces while producing, due to air in the clay, the layered deposition or designs that are not perfect enough for printing. This means that the objects we print are not sterile (something people often say about industrial production), but they are also not really handmade. They are something in between. And that’s where we think a new history evolves. It is the difference between the crafts and the industries that we want to bridge. So to use they feel like the first artifacts of a story that will further unfold.

Could you speak about the importance of your own role in building and modifying the tools you use for L’Artisan Electronique? In some ways it seems that the tool itself is more important than the final object, that the interest lies more in the machine that made the object than the final object itself.  Could you respond to this?

The tool was definitely the initial goal for the project, can we as designers add relevant items to the digital tool case in an era where these tools get increasingly more specialized and complex to understand. Can we create our own tools like an pre-digital artisan used to do? We always wanted to first develop the tool and then find out true experimentation what the tool learns us, what is its specific form language, which forms are possible and which are impossible, how do people react to it etc etc. Due to the success of l’Artisan Électronique as an installation we had the printer rarely in the studio and could spend far too less time than we wanted experimenting. We are in talks with actors within various industries to develop the tool and related scenarios further. We were able to develop the initial prototype as a small studio with the help of the OS community but now we need specialists in clay, software and hardware to take it a few steps further. But that could only happen after we made the prototype because now these more specialized people can identify the areas in their expertise field and see exactly what can be improved. If we only had the concept on paper then nobody would have been able to help us and be rather  sceptical, the value of seeing it actually working is enormous. Recently Bits from Bytes, the company that produces the printer kits, agreed to support us with materials and development so now we have machines to exhibit and machines to experiment with in the studio. We also got a small kiln working since last week so the experimentation part will kick into higher gear after the Abu Dhabi Art show next week.

You acknowledge a gap between those who insist on “physical craftsmanship” and those who support “digital design”, indicating that your interest is in finding a workable space between these two camps.  In my recent entries for the Journal of Modern Craft I consider some possible physical roadblocks to digitally-driven innovation, such as resource depletion and worker conditions.  I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on how digital open source innovation in decentralized manufacture might approach the still very physical challenges that face our culture.

We don’t know if we understand your question correctly. But open source innovation is a mentality change. It’s not only about digital innovation, it’s about sharing rather than using. If we want to overcome problems such as resource depletion, we need to rethink the way we work and live. The open source mentality, we think, is a mentality that could help rethinking our lives. It is based on a social principle. By sharing your code with others, you get access to someone else’s knowledge. At the end, it will help to make a better, cheaper and shared product. If people have the same mentality with physical things, we could probable solve quite some urgent problems that we are facing these days. Also see the answer below about social, economical and ecological implications.

As to the gap between the two camps, yes we meet some people that are in one of the two camps (mostly craft) and oppose the other but I would rather not pitch them against each other as two camps. Far more people we talk with are interested in both (ceramic) craft AND digital technology but have difficulties finding common ground between the two or finding the appropriate tools to work in that space. We have already had one professional potter who took the time and the effort to visit us in Belgium and a few more who contacted us. So there are a lot of artists/designers/craftsmen that would like to work in the space in-between but lack the necessary tools and so have difficulties expressing themselves.

You briefly refer to “social, economical and ecological implications” of open source hardware and design.  Could you expand on what you see as those implications and how it effects your own thinking about design?

social/economical: We see social and economical as two sides of the same coin. The recent crisis has shown what happens if the two are disconnected. People have no idea where their money goes to, they put it on their bank account, the bank invests it in a repackaged insurance on loans taken by people on the other side of the planet. There is totally no transparency in these flows. Even if you invest in the stock market you rarely have a feel of what’s going on in that company. It’s not enough to only invest money in a company, you also have to be part of a community and be involved in the company. That’s why we like things like Kickstarter.com and our own NFLD2030 because it allows the lines between investor/producer to be very short.

ecological: It is very debatable whether ceramic objects would be more sustainable than objects printed for example in bio degradable PLA, something we would like to learn more about. Ceramics require a large amount of energy and can’t be used in a closed material cycle. But it is very suitable for the locale scenario we described above. What we are worried about is that the perceived value of an at home printed, immediately recyclable item will be very low and actually enforce the fast-consume/throw-away culture of today. Ceramics could have a higher emotional value to the user thus having a much longer life time.

I guess that our focus at the moment is on keeping the lines very short and transparent socially, economically and ecologically.

You describe a shift in the usual relationship between designers and consumers brought on by the innovation of at-home 3D printing and other open source projects like it.  Could you talk about how these shifts are influencing how you approach your own work and how you see your role as a designer developing in the future?

We have no clear view of how this will develop in the future, there are some people that proclaim a new revolution of desktop manufacturing where all goods will be printed by people at home. We believe that the future scenarios will be different and probably more unexpected and that is exactly why we have to explore these various scenarios as designers. What is clear is that the business as usual of designing mass produced items that are digested by consumers without any interaction between what happens upstream and downstream of that cycle is impossible to sustain much longer in a networked society. As designers we will be spending more time on designing scenarios, frameworks and tools to facilitate this consumer interaction than actual finished products. We have always been more storytellers than designers that can come up with brilliant forms so for us it is a great opportunity. Alternative ways of manufacturing, financing and distributing are important areas to explore as designers If you stick your head in the sand like the music industry did 10 years ago then it will catch you by surprise. But talking about the music industry, one of the ideas floating around would be that of an iTunes for printable products and as a side effect the PirateBay for products (place where you download illegal copies of designs, which actually already exist). But I don’t think that you can use this analogy 1/1 because you can enjoy music digitally and copy the files endlessly without losing quality. But a digital file for a product is still nothing more than a blueprint which has to be materialized, this is a lot more complex than playing an audio file. Since a few years we have digital cameras and photo printers that can produce physical results that rival what photo kiosks did for you 10 years ago but I see very few people printing their pictures out at home… They rather enjoy them on the various TVs, computers and mobile phones they have, share them over the net with relatives around the world on sites like flickr. People have had sewing machines cheaply available for decennia and with the advent of the internet a bottomless archive of designs but we are still not en-mass producing our own clothes. So it must be that people rather enjoy their traditional media on a digital carrier because of the added value and flexibility of that digital medium? But goods can’t be enjoyed on a digital medium like music, movies and photographs, there must be another scenario that will unfold in the future.

At the moment we are more looking at distributed glocal manufacturing with input from consumers than to consumer manufactured goods.

Another short term scenario (and maybe a transitional scenario) that we could see happening is some kind of 3d-printshop where you can have items printed but more important an added service. Traditional manufacturers can have a digital library of spare parts that are a burden to them to warehouse for years on end and provide these as a free download like they do with manuals and drivers (no warehouses full of books and cds anymore). People can send this file to the service shop and get them printed in a few hours. Or you can go there with your problem and have them design a part for you.

Articles

Editorial introduction: Tools of Trades by Jon Wood

Silence and Tools: (Non)verbalizing Sculptor’s Practice by Jyrki Siukonen

The Tortoise and the Hare: Extempore Performance and Sculptural Practice in Eighteenth-century France by Tomas Macsotay

Plastic Pleasures: Reconsidering the Practice of Modeling through Manuals of Sculpture Technique, c.1880-1933 by Ann Compton

Constantin Brancusi and the Image of Trade: Aspects of Trade in the Realm of Modern Fine Arts by Nina Gulicher

Statement of practice

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by Edward Allington (PDF)

Soliz Clay, Tools and Tooling by Cecile Johnson

New Territories in the Round: Krysten Cunningham in Conversation with Jon Wood

Reviews

The View from Nowhere by Matthew C. Hunter

Evans Warren Seelig: Textile Per Se by Heidi Nasstrom

Making Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution by Martina Margetts

Vicki Halper and Diane Douglas (eds.) Choosing Craft: The Artist’s Viewpoint by Sandra Alfoldy

Elissa Auther  String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art by Jenni Sorkin

JMC 3-1 OFC

First issue of 2010

Editorial Introduction

Articles

The Multiple Modalities of the Copy in Traditional Japanese Craft by Christine M. E. Guth

“Traditional Art Crafts (Dento¯ Ko¯gei)” in Japan: From Reproductions to Original Works by Kida Takuya

Crafting Hip and Cool: David McDiarmid’s Handcrafted Lamb Suede Dancefloor Outifts, 1980–1989 by Sally Gray

Life in a Zulu Village: Craft and the Art of Modernity in South Africa by Anitra Nettleton (pdf)

Statement of Practice

Ardmore Ceramic Art introduced by Fée Halsted and Jennifer Fair Cohen

Primary Text Commentary

Overseas Education and Arts of West Africa by Tanya Harrod

Exhibition Reviews

Industrial Ceramics, or Ceramics at Home? by Alan C. Elder

Crafting Modernist Aesthetics by Hana Leaper

A Crafted Presence by Russell Baldon

Book Reviews

The Craftsman and the Critic: Defining Usefulness and Beauty in Arts and Crafts-Era Boston reviewed by Kenneth L. Ames

The Saturated World: Aesthetic Meaning, Intimate Objects, Women’s Lives, 1890–1940 and “Make It Yourself”: Home Sewing, Gender, and Culture, 1890–1930 reviewed by Leah Dilworth

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.

Editorial introduction

Articles

Style, Skill and Modernity in the Zisha Pottery of China by Geoffrey Gowlland

Elbert Hubbard, Transcendentalism and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America by Jonathan Clancy

Hungarian Pottery, Politics and Identity: Re-presenting the Ceramic Art of Margit Kovacs by Juliet Kinchin

‘Acts of Association: Allison Smith’s Craft as Civic Practice’ (pdf) by Jennifer Geigel Mikulay

Looking is a Way of Touching by Gabriela Gusmao

Commentary by Mireia Freixa and Anna Calvera

Reviews

Application of the Arts to Industry by Salvador Sanpere i Miquel

Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright by Baird Jarman

Jean Nouvel Cesar, Anthology by Patricia Ribault

Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan by Susan Cahill

Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan by Alicia Volk

Craft in Dialogue: Six Views on a Practice in Change by Henrietta Lidchi

As the Journal of Modern Craft enters its second year of publication, it seems an appropriate time to go back to basics. And so, after a year of trying to push the boundaries, this time round we offer a series of writings that go right to the heart of “modern craft” and its interpretation.

In articles by Tom Crook, a historian and theorist of nineteenth-century modernity, and Nicolette Makovicky, an anthropologist and material culture specialist, we are treated to two such methodological inquiries. Crook’s subject, the Arts and Crafts Movement, could not be more familiar to readers of this journal. By reframing the Movement as an ‘alternative modernity,’ however, he breathes new life into that subject. Crook’s account gives us new tools for understanding well worn aspects of the Movement like the debate over machines, medievalism and other forms of historicism, and the growth of interest in indigenous craft traditions from around the world. Of particular interest is his use of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of ‘dialogics,’ in which opposing positions and processes are seen as producing one another through continual interrelation, rather than resolving dialectically into new, stable syntheses.

Makovicky’s fieldwork among lace makers in contemporary Slovakia has led her to make a closely parallel argument. Just as Crook warns against seeing the Arts and Crafts Movement as either modern or anti-modern, Makovicky refuses the false choice between understanding ‘traditional’ craft either as a fictional construct, or as a fragmentary and threatened anachronism. Rather, she presents the choices made by individual lace makers as conscious responses to modernity, in which change and tradition are constantly reintegrated into one another. Especially when read together, these two essays exemplify this journal’s ambition to chart new methods in the study of modern craft, both by turning over old soil and ploughing new fields.

Much the same could be said about the prominent place given to British ceramics in this issue. Art historian Penelope Curtis outlines an unexpected comparison between the most famous name in English pottery—Bernard Leach—and the sculptor Barbara Hepworth. For many decades these two figures lived near one another in St. Ives, a small town in the west of England, but a notional art/craft divide prevented scholars from drawing connections between them. Interestingly, readers may feel that of the two, it is Hepworth who seems the more committed to the form-giving possibilities of handwork; but in any case, Curtis shows how the vessel form that forms the heart of studio ceramics can be seen afresh as it moves across disciplines.

Ceramics is also the focus of this issue’s Primary Text and Statement of Practice. In pairing David Queensberry and Alison Britton, we have intentionally taken a step back into the politics and possibilities of the 1970s. At that time Queensberry, a leading designer within the ceramic industry, was Britton’s tutor at the Royal College of Art. Despite his emphasis on functional design, she and many of his other students (including Carol McNicoll, Jacqueline Poncelet, and Elizabeth Fritsch) set off in a diametrically opposed direction. Britton turned to handbuilding, pattern and decoration, and fragmentary composition to forge a powerful new postmodern sculptural idiom. Now, thirty years later, it is Britton who teaches ceramics at the Royal College of Art. Her statement, written with the benefit of hindsight looking back at a long and successful career, describes her studies with Queensberry as the beginning of a journey of formal and conceptual experimentation.

Queensberry, too, has stuck to his guns. We have reprinted a talk he delivered back in ’75, in which he expresses alarm at the direction that young ceramists seem to be taking. In a new preface to this lecture, he reaffirms his convictions, arguing that the global transformations in production that have happened since make the teaching of design skills more important than ever. Queensberry’s and Britton’s positions reprise the old debate: should craft be oriented to design or fine art? But both write in full awareness that those two frameworks of reference are themselves fluid and unpredictable. 

The issue’s final article brings to our pages the work of Julia Bryan-Wilson, one of the most exciting new scholars working at the intersection of art and craft history. The lesbian identity politics that she locates in the work of Harmony Hammond might initially seem distant from modern craft’s fundamental concerns, as discussed elsewhere in this issue. But it is telling that Hammond, too, sought to break down false distinctions: “between painting and sculpture, between art and women’s work, and between art in craft and craft in art,” as she put it. In Bryan-Wilson’s analysis, Hammond looked to craft not as a reassuring source of identity, nor simply as a tool of Feminist critique, but rather as a means of queering seemingly stable oppositions and thus opening up new discursive possibilities.

Finally, we have the pleasure of announcing two new initiatives at the Journal of Modern Craft that are intended to embody this spirit of ongoing dialogue. This issue is our first to include a Response to a previously published article. We actively encourage such contributions, and hope to be able to feature other commentaries by our readers in future issues. Also, we are glad to be able to announce the launch of a new website at www.journalofmoderncraft.com. This new digital interface will carry selected content from the journal, and will also provide useful links, blog posts, and an open forum to which all our readers can contribute. Academic publishing is a slow and careful affair, and any scholarly journal—no matter how multiple and inventive—runs the risk of instituting a new orthodoxy. By actively promoting dialogue through printed and digital means, we hope to avoid this, and thus to do justice to the subject of modern craft, which is always on the move.