American craft
Encyclopedia
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
materials and/or processes such as wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
or furniture making
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
, glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
or glassblowing
Glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
, clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
or ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
s, textiles, metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
or metalworking
Metalworking
Metalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships and bridges to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry. It therefore includes a correspondingly wide range of skills,...
etc.. Studio Craft works tend to either serve or allude to a functional or utilitarian purpose, though they are as often as not handled and exhibited in ways similar to visual art objects.
History
The American studio craft movement is a successor to earlier European craft movements. Modern studio crafts developed as a reaction to modernityModernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
and, particularly, the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. During the nineteenth century, Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
and English social critic John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
warned of the extinction of handicrafts in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. English designer and theorist William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
continued this line of thought, becoming father of England's Arts & Crafts Movement. Morris distinguished the studio craftsman in this way: "[O]ur art is the work of a small minority composed of educated persons, fully conscious of their aim of producing beauty, and distinguished from the great body of workmen by that aim." Both European and American craft traditions have also been influenced by Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
. Both of these movements influenced the development of the contemporary studio craft movement in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the late nineteenth century, throughout the twentieth century and to the present.
American craft pioneers
Rufus Porter
For the American football player see Rufus Porter .For the American poet see Rufus L. Porter.Rufus M. Porter was an American painter, inventor, and founder of Scientific American magazine....
was an early proponent of the American craft movement, who believed that the arts needed to be accessible to, and appreciated by, the nation as a whole. In 1825 he published A Select Collection of Valuable and Curious Arts, and Interesting Experiments Which are Well Explained, and Warranted Genuine, and May be Prepared, Safely and at Little Expense, which is a book of instructions for various domestic decorative arts, including wall, floor, and furniture painting. By the end of the nineteenth century, the preindustrial craft trades had almost totally disappeared. Industrial expansion and westward movement had largely severed American culture from early Colonial American and Native American craft roots. Against this backdrop, Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...
was a pioneer of the American craft movement, arguing for the placement of well-designed and crafted objects in the American home. Tiffany's elegant stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
creations were influenced by the values of William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
and became America's leading embodiment of art nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
.
Gustav Stickley
Gustav Stickley
Gustav Stickley was a manufacturer of furniture and the leading proselytizer for the American Arts and Crafts movement, an extension of the British Arts and Crafts movement.-Biography:...
, the cabinetmaker was an early leader in the development of Studio Furniture
Studio Furniture
Studio Furniture is a subfield of Studio Craft centered around one-of-a-kind or limited production furniture objects designed and built by craftspeople. The work is made in a craftsperson's studio setting as opposed to being made in a high volume factory...
and the American craft movement. Stickley's designs were distinguished by their simplicity and by their harmony between interior decorative art
Decorative art
The decorative arts is traditionally a term for the design and manufacture of functional objects. It includes interior design, but not usually architecture. The decorative arts are often categorized in opposition to the "fine arts", namely, painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale...
and architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. Stickley's magazine, "The Craftsman
The Craftsman
The Craftsman was a magazine founded by Gustav Stickley in 1901 which carried house designs that created the American Craftsman architectural style....
," was a forum for this movement from 1901 through 1916. Originally focused on expounding ideas from the England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
's Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
, "The Craftsman
The Craftsman
The Craftsman was a magazine founded by Gustav Stickley in 1901 which carried house designs that created the American Craftsman architectural style....
" increasingly developed American craft concepts over the years of its publication. Stickley's ideas later had significant influence on Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and future generations of American craftsmen, artists and architects.
The Roycroft
Roycroft
Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the USA. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895 in the village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, near Buffalo. Participants were known as Roycrofters...
movement was an American adaptation of the British arts and crafts movement founded by Elbert Hubbard
Elbert Hubbard
Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he met early success as a traveling salesman with the Larkin soap company. Today Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an...
and his wife Bertha Crawford Hubbard
Bertha Crawford Hubbard
Bertha Crawford Hubbard was one of the founders of the Roycroft movement, an American branch of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
in the small-town of East Aurora, New York
East Aurora, New York
East Aurora is a village in Erie County, New York, United States, southeast of Buffalo. The Village of East Aurora lies in the eastern half of the Town of Aurora.The population was 6,673 at the 2000 census...
in 1895. Its primary focus was on writing and publishing ornate books, but it also made furniture and metal products. Roycroft was organized as a living/working artisans' community along the lines of a Medieval European guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
.
Early craft institutions
The studio crafts movement was fostered by the establishment of crafts programs within post-secondary educational institutions. In 1894, for example, North America's first universityUniversity
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
ceramics
Ceramics (art)
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
department was begun at Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
. This was followed in 1901 by the establishment of the first ceramics art school at Alfred University
Alfred University
Alfred University is a small, comprehensive university in the Village of Alfred in Western New York, USA, an hour and a half south of Rochester and two hours southeast of Buffalo. Alfred has an undergraduate population of around 2,000, and approximately 300 graduate students...
in Alfred, New York
Alfred (village), New York
Alfred is a village located in the Town of Alfred in Allegany County, New York, USA. The population was 3,954 at the 2000 census. The village is named after Alfred the Great....
. Similarly, the Rhode Island School of Design
Rhode Island School of Design
Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...
in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
established the first metal arts class in 1901 and the first textiles class in 1903.
After World War I, a postwar spirit of internationalism influenced the establishment of other important craft institutions, such as the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Bloomfield Hills is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan, northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,869...
. Cranbrook craftsmen translated organic and geometric forms into the style that would be known as Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
. At Cranbrook, teachers like Maija Grotell
Maija Grotell
Maija Grotell was a ceramist and teacher sometimes described today as the “mother of American ceramics”. Grotell was born in Helsinki, Finland, and emigrated to New York in 1927. After arriving in New York she studied at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University...
produced important work in their own right while also teaching a new generation of young studio craft artists.
The Depression years and World War II
During the DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
years, the federal Works Progress Administration funded crafts projects as well as public works and murals as a way to both keep workers working and as a way to increase national morale. This enabled crafts to flourish at a local level. At the same time, American art programs began to include craft studies into their curricula.
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
brought an influx of European artists and craftsmen. These European exiles brought with them a range of historical traditions including not only European craft practices but also knowledge of Asian and other non-Western cultures. One example of this influx is Tage Frid, a Danish furniture maker, who established the reputation of the Furniture Making program at Rhode Island School of Design, and there are certainly others. Also during the post World War II period a general dissatisfaction with industrial society began to fuel further support for handmade art objects. In 1943, the American Craft Council
American Craft Council
The American Craft Council , was founded in 1943 as a national, nonprofit, educational organization to support and foster interest in the crafts in America. The council sponsers national craft shows, publishes American Craft magazine, and has an extensive awards program...
was founded to support craftspeople and cultivate an appreciation for their work. The ACC's founder, Aileen Osborn Webb was a potter interested in creating marketing opportunities for studio craftsmen. The organization eventually grew to include American Craft magazine and the Museum of Arts and Design (then called the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and at one point known as the American Craft Museum). As a result of these phenomena, post-war American craft became stylistically more refined as well as technically more proficient.
The 1950s and Peter Voulkos
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos popular name of Panagiotis Voulkos, was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art....
developed increasingly largescale and nontraditional ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
works, influenced by Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, which transformed traditional understandings of the craft
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
media. Like the Abstract Expressionists, Voulkos emphasized performance, process and primal expression in his ceramic forms. In some cases, Voulkos deconstructed and reconstructed traditional ceramic vessel
Bowl (vessel)
A bowl is a common open-top container used in many cultures to serve food, and is also used for drinking and storing other items. They are typically small and shallow, although some, such as punch bowls and salad bowls, are larger and often intended to serve many people.Bowls have existed for...
forms such as plates, ice buckets, and tea bowls. In other works, Voulkos created new nonutilitarian forms, such as his purely sculptural, large-scale cylindrical "stacks."
Voulkos was also influeced by Zen Buddhism after a 1952 encounter with prominent Japanese potter Shoji Hamada
Shoji Hamada
was a Japanese potter. He was a significant influence on studio pottery of the twentieth century, and a major figure of the mingei folk-art movement, establishing the town of Mashiko as a world-renowned pottery centre.- Biography :...
. Hamada encouraged Voulkos to embrace a Zen approach to ceramics based not only upon technical proficiency but also upon a mental and spiritual union between creator and art object. Voulkos later cited Hamada's statement that it "took him ten years to learn the potter's wheel and another ten years to forget it" -- an insight that inspired Voulkos' early attempts to fully form a teapot in two minutes.
Voulkos taught at Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...
in 1953, where he was further exposed to the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movements. In 1954, he founded the ceramics
Ceramics (art)
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
department at the Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design is an art and design college in Los Angeles, California.The school's programs, accredited by WASC and National Association of Schools of Art and Design, include four-year BFA degrees in illustration, fine arts, graphic design, architecture, landscape design, interior...
(then called the Los Angeles County Art Institute). In California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Voulkos' pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
rapidly became abstract and sculptural. Voulkos then moved to the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, where he founded another ceramics
Ceramics (art)
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
department and taught from 1959 until 1985. At Berkeley, Voulkos became increasingly prominent for his massive, cracked and slashed pots.
The 1960s and the new glassblowing movement
The culture of the 1960s was even more conducive to the development of studio crafts. This period saw a rejection of materialismMaterialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
and exploration of alternative ways of living. For some, the creation of handicrafts provided just such an outlet. In 1962, then-ceramics
Ceramics (art)
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
professor Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton is an American educator and glass artist. Born in Corning, New York, he grew up in the shadow of Corning Glassworks, where his father headed Research and Development during the 1930s...
and chemist Dominick Labino
Dominick Labino
Dominick Labino Dominick Labino was an internationally-known scientist, inventor, artist and master craftsman in glass. Labino's art works in glass are in the permanent collections of more than 100 museums throughout the world...
began the contemporary glassblowing
Glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
movement. The impetus for the movement consisted of their two workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....
, during which they began experimenting with melting glass in a small furnace and creating blown glass art. Thus Littleton and Labino were the first to make molten glass feasible for artists in private studios. Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton is an American educator and glass artist. Born in Corning, New York, he grew up in the shadow of Corning Glassworks, where his father headed Research and Development during the 1930s...
extended his influence through his own important artistic contributions and through his teaching. Over the years, Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton is an American educator and glass artist. Born in Corning, New York, he grew up in the shadow of Corning Glassworks, where his father headed Research and Development during the 1930s...
trained many of the most important contemporary glass artists, including Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky is an American glass artist. He was one of the six students that Studio Glass founder Harvey Littleton instructed under an independent study program for the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 1962 and spring 1963...
, Sam Herman (Britain), Fritz Dreisbach and Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur.-Biography:Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959...
. These Littleton students in turn developed the new movement and spread it across the country. Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky is an American glass artist. He was one of the six students that Studio Glass founder Harvey Littleton instructed under an independent study program for the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 1962 and spring 1963...
, for example, is credited with being one of the founders of the Glass Art Society and introducing studio glass to California. In 1967, Lipofsky founded the glass program at the California College of Arts and Crafts, which he headed for two decades.
In 1971, Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur.-Biography:Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959...
began the influential Pilchuck Glass School
Pilchuck Glass School
Founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould Hauberg and John H. Hauberg , Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education. The name "Pilchuck" comes from the local Native American language and translates to "red river"...
near the rural town of Stanwood, Washington
Stanwood, Washington
Stanwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The population was 6,231 at the 2010 census.-History:Stanwood was first settled in 1866 by Robert Fulton. Stanwood's Post Office was established as Centerville in 1870, and the name was changed to Stanwood in 1877 by D.O. Pearson...
. Influenced by the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, commonly called "Haystack," is a craft school located on the coast of Deer Isle, Maine.Haystack was founded in 1950. It took its name from its original location near Haystack Mountain, in Montville, Maine...
(the first school to have a glass furnace), and the Penland School of Crafts, Pilchuck Glass School
Pilchuck Glass School
Founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould Hauberg and John H. Hauberg , Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education. The name "Pilchuck" comes from the local Native American language and translates to "red river"...
has become a center of the contemporary American studio glass movement, of which Chihuly is a leading figure. Artist Toots Zynsky, a Pilchuck pioneer, observed that the choice of a Western location for the school reflected a conscious rejection of the Eastern art establishment. The naming of the school also reflected the founders' countercultural attraction to Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
culture. Chihuly chose the name "Pilchuck," derived from the Chinookan
Chinookan
Chinook refers to several native amercain groups of in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, speaking the Chinookan languages. In the early 19th century, the Chinookan-speaking peoples lived along the lower and middle Columbia River in present-day Oregon and Washington...
words for "red" and "water," alluding to the iron-rich waters of the nearby Pilchuck River
Pilchuck River
The Pilchuck River is a river in the U.S. state of Washington. The name is derived from Chinook Jargon pilpil and chuck , or "red water".-Course:...
.
The Renwick Gallery
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
's Renwick Gallery
Renwick Gallery
The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, located in Washington, D.C., and focuses on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to the 21st century...
was founded as a studio craft department of the National Museum of American Art. Housed in the original Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
building across Pennsylvania Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue is a street in Washington, D.C. that joins the White House and the United States Capitol. Called "America's Main Street", it is the location of official parades and processions, as well as protest marches...
from the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, it provided a distinguished setting for American studio craft objects in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The Year of American Craft
In 1992, PresidentPresident
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
signed a proclamation designating 1993 as The Year of American Craft. As part of this commemoration, Renwick Gallery
Renwick Gallery
The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, located in Washington, D.C., and focuses on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to the 21st century...
director Michael Monroe selected seventy-two works by seventy American craftsmen which were donated to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
to serve as The White House Collection of American Crafts. This collection was displayed for four months at the National Museum of American Art in 1995.
Craft in Critical Theory
For numerous reasons Aesthetic and critical theories about the nature of craft practice have been slow to develop. Whereas, since the modern swing in Art History at large, Fine Art practice has been surrounded by and furthered with profuse amounts of art theory and criticism Craft theory and criticism has been, in the same period, much harder to come by; though not non-existent.Sources
- Biography.com Peter Voulkos Biography (1924–2002) (Retrieved 2007-09-01)
- Timothy Anglin Burgard, The Art of Craft: Contemporary Works from the Saxe Collection. Fine Arts Museums of San FranciscoFine Arts Museums of San FranciscoThe Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
, 1999. ISBN 0-88401-098-8 (paperback). ISBN 0-8212-2637-1 (hardcover). - Barbaralee Diamonstein, "Values, Skills and Dreams: Crafts in America," in Michael MonroeMichael MonroeMatti Antero Kristian Fagerholm , best known by his stage name, Michael Monroe, is a Finnish rock musician, and multi-instrumentalist who rose to fame as the vocalist for the glam punk band Hanoi Rocks, and has served as the frontman for all-star side projects, such as Demolition 23...
, The White House Collection of American Crafts, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995. ISBN 0-8109-4035-3. - Julie Hall, Tradition and Change: The New American Craftsman, E.P. Dutton, 1977. ISBN 0-525-22195-6.
- Kenneth Trapp and Howard Risatti, Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56098-806-1
- Pohl, Francis K. Framing America. A Social History of American Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002 (pages 118-122)
See also
- American CraftsmanAmerican CraftsmanThe American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...
- American FancyAmerican FancyAmerican Fancy was a decorative style popular in the United States between 1790-1840. Author Sumpter Priddy writes, American Fancy is a "cultural phenomenon born out of new and enlightened ways of seeing, understanding, and responding to the surrounding world...
- Applied artApplied artApplied art is the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use. Whereas fine arts serve as intellectual stimulation to the viewer or academic sensibilities, the applied arts incorporate design and creative ideals to objects of utility, such as a cup, magazine or...
- Art nouveauArt NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
- Art quilts
- Art decoArt DecoArt deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
- Arts and craftsArts and craftsArts and crafts comprise a whole host of activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's hands and skill. These can be sub-divided into handicrafts or "traditional crafts" and "the rest"...
- Blacksmithing
- CeramicsCeramics (art)In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
- CraftCraftA craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
- Decorative arts
- Fiber artFiber artFiber art is a style of fine art which uses textiles such as fabric, yarn, and natural and synthetic fibers. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labour involved as part of its significance.-Fiber:...
- Glass artGlass artStudio glass or glass sculpture is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. Specific approaches include working glass at room temperature cold working, stained glass, working glass in a torch flame , glass beadmaking, glass casting, glass...
- Glass blowing
- HandicraftHandicraftHandicraft, more precisely expressed as artisanic handicraft, sometimes also called artisanry, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or by using only simple tools. It is a traditional main sector of craft. Usually the term is applied to traditional means...
- History of decorative art
- MosaicMosaicMosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
- QuiltQuiltA quilt is a type of bed cover, traditionally composed of three layers of fiber: a woven cloth top, a layer of batting or wadding and a woven back, combined using the technique of quilting. “Quilting” refers to the technique of joining at least two fabric layers by stitches or ties...
- Studio CraftStudio CraftStudio craft, though it takes many forms, can be thought of in general as the tendency to practice craft methodology in an environment similar if not equivalent to that of an artist's studio...
- Studio FurnitureStudio FurnitureStudio Furniture is a subfield of Studio Craft centered around one-of-a-kind or limited production furniture objects designed and built by craftspeople. The work is made in a craftsperson's studio setting as opposed to being made in a high volume factory...
- Studio potteryStudio potteryStudio pottery is made by modern artists working alone or in small groups, producing unique items of pottery in small quantities, typically with all stages of manufacture carried out by one individual. Much studio pottery is tableware or cookware but an increasing number of studio potters produce...
- WoodturningWoodturningWoodturning is a form of woodworking that is used to create wooden objects on a lathe . Woodturning differs from most other forms of woodworking in that the wood is moving while a stationary tool is used to cut and shape it...
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