Buszek and Stevens

Buszek and Stevens

In the following article Buszek explores the world of handicraft in conjunction with the worlds of contemporary art and technology. Buszek further details how artists who experiement with fiber, glass, and wood, are caught in between the paradox of the traditional handicraft and contemporary art world. Buszek goes off writings by Risatti, stating artists in this dilemma should refer back to the roots that originally seperated the “fine arts” from the “applied arts” yet that artists should not be bound by these differences in producing their art. Buszek continues to detail from era to era how the lines have been blurred for the traditional artist and the crafter. Buszek states that early postmodern artists placed great faith in the value of folk and popular arts that had traditionally been viewed as the realm of women's, queer, and non-Western cultures as a means of communicating beyond an elite community and letting the "real" world back into the art world . For artists working today media, naturally, are generally chosen with regard to “sociohistorical” undertones of a medium, rather than regard for unique material properties.

Buszek elaborates that emerging artists in today's art world enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom in exploring craft media, yet educational institutions and museums fail to recognize these art forms.  Overall, the essays demonstrate that many artists drawing on craft culture do so in ways that defy the boudaries of craft and art but do so in “Ironic and ambivalent ways” different from (or even poking gentle fun at) the romantic or moralizing sensibility with which their predecessors often approached these media. 

Stevens

This essay considers the impact of the Internet on craft practice. In this essay  craft work is defined as requiring tacit knowledge-often called "personal know-how"' an is motivated by an ethic of working with one's hands yet  explains how capitalism contradicts this ideal.  

“The ideology of craft work and capitalism seeks efficiency in all matters, while craft, though it possesses many positive attributes, will always be a highly inefficient way of getting the job done”.

Key Points of the Essay

• societal standards dictate what forms of intelligence that are valued over one another.
• Corporations like Wal-Mart and William Sonoma have made it harder for blue collar and modern crafters compete. When companies like these make cheap imitations it poses an idea on society that kinda downgrades the organic and fruitful concept of what owning a handicraft is.  Objects of traditional craft connect people metaphorically and metaphysically to the tangible. People who produce these crafts offer a “ holistic bonding that occurs organically among groups of people through association, connection, or alliance and is  marked by shared beliefs as well as collective kinship”.
•  valuing craft and choosing to be a maker of craft in contemporary society is a decision  about identity and lifestyle as much as it is about values.
•  Each closely connected, craftbased community of practice has an internal system for indoctrinating and validating its members.
• Community is strengthened through crafting because it requires people to socialize while performing their craft.
• Ecommerce is now being used to strengthen the voice of the handicrafter to the world which results in a new community of bonding amongst crafters.
• Discusses Ideal Types...an ideal type cannot be rightfully formed since art is percieved from generation to generation under different circumstances.
• DIY ethos seeks to confront mass market consumers and the perceived homogenization of culture as a result of the aggressive expansion of multinational corporations.
• DIY craft does not often seek validation within the traditional methodologies of the museum, the media, or the market; it is rather motivated by a desire for creative and economic freedom from the same. (54)
• DIY craft seeks to redefine the antiquated nomenclatures of artist, maker, craftsperson, designer, and small-business owner. Although the DIY movement has a certain reverence for what American craft represented, it is unquestionably an independent and burgeoning cultural and economic force, as evidenced by its own magazines, websites, fairs, books, television programs, and documentary video projects. (55)