James Gobel, artist and associate professor at the When Mann’s classmates referred to craft, they
California College of the Arts. typically interpreted the word as recycled containers,
Howard Fox, curator of contemporary art for the glue, and craft store baubles, rather than long-
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) since standing customs or apprenticeship. But she
1985, encountered this issue while organizing the took it to another level: Mann used needlepoint, a
2006 exhibition Glass: Material Matters. centuries-old craft, as the basis for a compelling
“I met artists that didn’t want to be included. They multimedia performance in which she wore an
seemed to express a bias of elitism that some visual early Colonial dress, stood in front of a stitched
artists have,” Fox says. “But I also met those who mural of the White House, and embroidered an
identify as craftspeople and didn’t want their work image from Abu Ghraib prison directly onto her
to be shown in the company of ‘highfalutin’ sculptors,’ hand, letting the gendered history of sewing add
specifically those working in a conceptual frame- layers of meaning to her art.
work. The bias exists on both ends of the continuum, Perhaps because of the art world’s biases against
but as a curator I am more interested in the traditional crafts, such as glassblowing and wood-
continuum than in the polarities.” working, a new DIY sense of craft — in the context of
reuse and ingenuity — is weaving its way into and
becoming more readily accepted in contemporary
art than traditional crafts have been.
Fox cites Tim Hawkinson’s complex and fantastical sculptures as an example. Hawkinson’s widely
exhibited body of work includes a larger-than-life
organ, pieced together from electrical components
and plastic sheeting, and a tiny (and surprisingly
realistic) bird skeleton sculpted from fingernail
clippings.
“It is extraordinary sculpture, but is also heavily
freighted with subtext and context,” Fox says. “His
Indeed, one of the artists contacted for this article work is profound, but he uses extremely simple,
asked not to be included in a craft magazine. And hobby-like construction techniques, hardly more
many artists who employ ceramics or papier-mâché complicated than Tinkertoys or putting something
tend not to refer to their work as craft. So while together with velcro. The fact that he uses simple
woodworking, knitting, and other craft traditions techniques and humble materials doesn’t diminish
continue to crop up in contemporary art, these the work in my mind. Using techniques associated
processes are often used in the service of commu- with craft and decorative arts in an art context
nicating ideas rather than showcasing a process doesn’t in any way diminish or displace the claims
or material. the work can make on our imagination.”
So what happens to young artists educated in this Over the past century, the art object has under-anything-goes climate — when art is as readily made gone a historic transformation. From Duchamp’s
from cut-and-paste collage as from oil on linen, from famous challenge to art in the form of a urinal in
recycled tin cans as from cast bronze? Today’s art 1916, to the conceptual art movement spurning
students undergo rigorous critiques questioning the art object altogether in the 1960s, the way
everything from their choice of materials and quality something is made — or crafted — is expected
of craftsmanship, to the social, political, and other to inform the concept behind the work. Most
associations their art might suggest. artists use craft, or any other process, be it
Elana Mann, a recent graduate of the California manufacturing, painting, or digital media, as
Institute of the Arts (CalArts), recalls discussing an a means of communicating ideas.
artist’s work in relation to the role of Michaels stores “An artist might work in the tradition of needle-in the suburban American landscape. “I never grew up work in order to talk about the complex range
with Michaels, but many people talked about how it of ideas associated with this tradition, either to
was their ‘gateway’ to art-making, or their only outlet comment on it ironically, to quote it, or to use these
as a kid,” she says. Mann discovered that crafting same skills to refute the very biases associated with
“techniques and materials were regarded as merely them,” says Elizabeth East, managing director of
another strategy amongst a myriad of technical and L. A. Louver Gallery in Los Angeles.
conceptual approaches artists were using.” The meticulously crafted sculptures and collages
“Using techniques associated
with craft and decorative arts
in an art context doesn’t in
any way diminish or displace
the claims the work can make
on our imagination.”
