Image is taken from the original article
Tomahawk hairdryers by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez, whose site is here
Here is the link to quite an interesting article about the rise of craft making, from the Guardian.
Showing posts with label Craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Craft. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Friday, 25 March 2011
Mike Press
Mike Press is speaking at Chelsea today, 2pm in the Lecture theatre at John Islip Street. He is talking on Hand-made Knowledge, its open entry and free...come along!!
http://mikepress.wordpress.com/
check him out!
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Interesting Article
http://www.beautifulwood.co.uk/blog/grayson-perry-on-art-and-craft.html
Worth a read!
Worth a read!
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Glenn Adamson
On Monday night (31/01/11) I saw Glenn Adamson talking on the subject of craft and affection. It was an interesting talk although more fine art orientated in a way - I felt he spoke on craft as an artists practise rather than for makers. However it was pleasingly un-twee and very thought/discussion provoking. This is a long post so I hve put in bold the bits I found most interesting.
These are my thoughts and notes, in part inspired by what he said and in part what he actually said: (I will try to denote the different bits by putting BH for me and GA for him, although please note that these are my interpretations of his words)
I took his meaning of the word affection to be how the work affects you as the viewer, the named maker, the actual/physical maker, and as to how it affects the world as a whole - footprint etc
GA: Nowadays there is a lateral movement between disciplines, an understanding of practice between disciplines/within movements
BH: Disciplines as containment, boundaries etc - Are they? Is your (trained/formal) discipline relevant to your work?
GA: Every generation has mourned the loss of craft/craftmanship, yet it is still here. In order to understand craft we must also understand loss.
Craft, not as fragile, but as cyclical, dynamic system, ebbs and flows.
Craft always exists within a discursive framework.
Craft is always in motion.
Citing Clare Twomey's Trophy as an example: Single parts of work as an emblem of work. Relational Aesthetics as important to craft viewers and makers.
Affective: engages with people on an emotional level: deep connectivity.
Ruskin: 'Such affection as one man owes to another'
Affective Craft: founded on love not owing. Lacking exploitation. (stamping out exploitation here can lead to it popping up somewhere else). No glib attempts to gloss over depth by representation rather than action.
Work as an archive of its own making, citing this piece by Anne Wilson as an example.
BH: work more affective when its origins/background etc are known? Making more important than the final piece?
GA: Enchantment:
Space as affective.
Enchantment held by someone who wasn't there in the making.
Affection not necessarilly held by everyone who views the work.
Craft done as a performance more enchanting?
Craft affection: Explicable; no: Obvious; no.
Craft not to be seen as revival.
BH: Does working plentifully on a piece add to its affective power? Affective/effective relationship most strong when one has personal experience/attachment to it?
GA: Technology can remove this personal attachment as we have no understanding of the making of it, the way we may do of a table for example.
Michael Taussig (anthropologist) Skilled revelation of skilled concealment: Understanding of a handcrafted object but unless one is a maker in that discipline then one has no in depth understanding available to one.
GA: Droog's macrame chair as an example. One understands macrame, or the concept there of, but not how it becomes a chair.
Direct and indirect craft: machine + hand = modern craft? Hand affects machine affects hand.
Is craft now past our understanding of modern craft? When does modern craft stop? What is it now? Next?
Modern - new, exciting, forwards etc
Craft - static, traditional, backwards
Craft as a cure for ills - still relevant?
Should craft scholarship now be focusing on the problems of the real world and crafts effect upon it?
GA: Craft pieces named as being one persons work but actually made by many. Work as satire. Calling attention to one person only (the named maker) (Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds as example).
Rhetoric of craft (particularly in advertising): handmaking is big: offers a return to an imaginary time before craft making
Affectivity + Enchantment = Craft ?
Variable amount + Variable amount = Unpredictable result
BH: Would each makers own system of making result in them always adding the same amount of each ingredient (ie always in a ration of 40%/60% of affectivity to enchantment) thus resulting in that makers own look/feel/voice to work?
Affectivity + Enchanment + more/something else (skill? time? care?) = Craft ?
These are my thoughts and notes, in part inspired by what he said and in part what he actually said: (I will try to denote the different bits by putting BH for me and GA for him, although please note that these are my interpretations of his words)
I took his meaning of the word affection to be how the work affects you as the viewer, the named maker, the actual/physical maker, and as to how it affects the world as a whole - footprint etc
GA: Nowadays there is a lateral movement between disciplines, an understanding of practice between disciplines/within movements
BH: Disciplines as containment, boundaries etc - Are they? Is your (trained/formal) discipline relevant to your work?
GA: Every generation has mourned the loss of craft/craftmanship, yet it is still here. In order to understand craft we must also understand loss.
Craft, not as fragile, but as cyclical, dynamic system, ebbs and flows.
Craft always exists within a discursive framework.
Craft is always in motion.
Citing Clare Twomey's Trophy as an example: Single parts of work as an emblem of work. Relational Aesthetics as important to craft viewers and makers.
Affective: engages with people on an emotional level: deep connectivity.
Ruskin: 'Such affection as one man owes to another'
Affective Craft: founded on love not owing. Lacking exploitation. (stamping out exploitation here can lead to it popping up somewhere else). No glib attempts to gloss over depth by representation rather than action.
Work as an archive of its own making, citing this piece by Anne Wilson as an example.
BH: work more affective when its origins/background etc are known? Making more important than the final piece?
GA: Enchantment:
Space as affective.
Enchantment held by someone who wasn't there in the making.
Affection not necessarilly held by everyone who views the work.
Craft done as a performance more enchanting?
Craft affection: Explicable; no: Obvious; no.
Craft not to be seen as revival.
BH: Does working plentifully on a piece add to its affective power? Affective/effective relationship most strong when one has personal experience/attachment to it?
GA: Technology can remove this personal attachment as we have no understanding of the making of it, the way we may do of a table for example.
Michael Taussig (anthropologist) Skilled revelation of skilled concealment: Understanding of a handcrafted object but unless one is a maker in that discipline then one has no in depth understanding available to one.
GA: Droog's macrame chair as an example. One understands macrame, or the concept there of, but not how it becomes a chair.
Direct and indirect craft: machine + hand = modern craft? Hand affects machine affects hand.
Is craft now past our understanding of modern craft? When does modern craft stop? What is it now? Next?
Modern - new, exciting, forwards etc
Craft - static, traditional, backwards
Craft as a cure for ills - still relevant?
Should craft scholarship now be focusing on the problems of the real world and crafts effect upon it?
GA: Craft pieces named as being one persons work but actually made by many. Work as satire. Calling attention to one person only (the named maker) (Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds as example).
Rhetoric of craft (particularly in advertising): handmaking is big: offers a return to an imaginary time before craft making
Affectivity + Enchantment = Craft ?
Variable amount + Variable amount = Unpredictable result
BH: Would each makers own system of making result in them always adding the same amount of each ingredient (ie always in a ration of 40%/60% of affectivity to enchantment) thus resulting in that makers own look/feel/voice to work?
Affectivity + Enchanment + more/something else (skill? time? care?) = Craft ?
Monday, 22 November 2010
Helen Carnac; maker and curator; Time, Lines and Processes
Helen Carnac spoke at the Chelsea lecture theatre last week. She posed a series of questions and statements that, in her thinking about Slow and craft, had occurred to her. She stressed that she didn't necessarily have answers to them but riffed somewhat on what they meant to her. These are the notions that I took from it:
-End products as resting points in process or ideas process
(This particularly appeals to me as part of my Slow thinking)
- Importance of generating ideas through collaboration and conversation
- Objects: why do we have them, collect them? Who has them now, who had them before?
- [In her own practice] Mark-making and drawing, scratching away surfaces to find what is below
- Using walking as a form of interaction to create conversation in order to find a common ground or language between makers
- [For her] Slow means looking at one, all or some of the following: Quality, provenance, lasting value, valuing craft skills
- Possible key words, possible sequence: Reveal, reflect, engage, participate, evolve.
- Using these words and ideas to interrogate oneself, asking what you are doing and why
- Tempo as an important consideration for oneself and ones work
- Networks and webs. What do we think of unlikely connections in craft, Slow and thinking?
Then her 'questions'
- "We cannot afford cheap things" - What is cheap? What if we cannot afford expensive things?
- How do we encounter things locally and globally? Why do we go elsewhere to do it when everything can be perceived as so accessible online now.
- What is authentic?
- Is there really a sustainable luxury?
- Can we understand what it was to live in another time? How do we understand it today? False nostalgia? Fake memories? Imitation communities?
-End products as resting points in process or ideas process
(This particularly appeals to me as part of my Slow thinking)
- Importance of generating ideas through collaboration and conversation
- Objects: why do we have them, collect them? Who has them now, who had them before?
- [In her own practice] Mark-making and drawing, scratching away surfaces to find what is below
- Using walking as a form of interaction to create conversation in order to find a common ground or language between makers
- [For her] Slow means looking at one, all or some of the following: Quality, provenance, lasting value, valuing craft skills
- Possible key words, possible sequence: Reveal, reflect, engage, participate, evolve.
- Using these words and ideas to interrogate oneself, asking what you are doing and why
- Tempo as an important consideration for oneself and ones work
- Networks and webs. What do we think of unlikely connections in craft, Slow and thinking?
Then her 'questions'
- "We cannot afford cheap things" - What is cheap? What if we cannot afford expensive things?
- How do we encounter things locally and globally? Why do we go elsewhere to do it when everything can be perceived as so accessible online now.
- What is authentic?
- Is there really a sustainable luxury?
- Can we understand what it was to live in another time? How do we understand it today? False nostalgia? Fake memories? Imitation communities?
Monday, 27 September 2010
Slow Practices/Processes
Slow processes and what Slow means to me: A partially finished series of ideas
In my opinion Slow is a thought process or philosophy rather than a time reference – just because a task takes a long time does not mean it is a Slow task. I feel that Slow can be defined as taking appropriate time compared to our perceived normal 21st century way of living (seen as Fast). A Slow process to me is one that has been well considered and thus decided upon due to its appropriateness. This consideration may only need to be undertaken once as the resulting information could be held in mind for future projects, or it may be that the thinking needs to be done every time a process is used. Slow and working in a Slow manner is about appropriateness, in terms of material choices, process choices and intended outcomes of your processes; in this sense Slow relates to time because, by working within a Slow framework one allows oneself the time to consider the available options, regardless of the scale of operation.
I feel that the following things should be considered as part of a Slow working process:
What is the intended outcome of the process?
What is the intended outcome for the series of processes, what are you intending to make?
What impact does the process have environmentally, both small and large scale, and if negative, how could this be reduced?
Also post-consumer use and recycling of the end product.
This should lead to a list of ‘needs’ for the outcome, which should help determine which process is most appropriate. I believe that Slow relates to processes in a decision making format – why use that process? Is it the most appropriate for the intended outcome of the process?
I feel that one does not need to be personally involved in the process itself to consider it and its implications, also I feel that processes can be considered on an industrial scale. One does not need to be an individual designer maker to work within a Slow framework/context, nor does one need to be a professional designer.
Personally when deciding upon a process I use my STEER theory, developed to offer a framework for Slow design. I take a few moments to consider what I need it to do (STOP), I then consider whether it will do that to the standard I need it to, be that finished perfection or experimental designing stages (THINK), I then might ask around or look online to see if there is any other way of doing it – is there a way better environmentally or more appropriate aesthetically (EXPLORE). I then go ahead with the process I have decided upon and involve myself in my making process (ENJOY). I will at some point look over what I have done and how I did it in order to establish if I was happy with it, practically, environmentally and aesthetically and how I would do it if I were to repeat that process (RETHINK). Part of working Slowly is being willing to rethink, revisit ideas to rework them. Particularly as someone who is concerned about the environmental impact of my work I find the ‘re-‘ stages of my work very interesting, and often they offer a lot to learn from.
THOUGHTS:
‘The moral significance of work that grapples with material things may lie in the simple fact that such things lie outside the self’ (Crawford, M; Shop Classs as Soulcraft; 2009; p16)
‘…severing of the cognitive aspects of manual work from its physical execution’
(Crawford, M; Shop Class as Soulcraft; Penguin 2009; p31) – I think Slow can help reconnect the two.
‘As to the hope of the product, I have said that Nature compels us to work for that. It remains for us to look to it that we do really produce something an not nothing…’ (Morris, W; Useful Work Versus Useless Toil; Penguin 2008; p3)
‘We shall not, therefore, be concerning ourselves with objects as defined by their functions or by the categories into which they might be subdivided for analytic purposes, but instead with the processes whereby people relate to them and with the systems of human behaviour and relationships that result therefrom.’ (Baudrillard, J; The System of Objects; Verso 2005; p2)
In my opinion Slow is a thought process or philosophy rather than a time reference – just because a task takes a long time does not mean it is a Slow task. I feel that Slow can be defined as taking appropriate time compared to our perceived normal 21st century way of living (seen as Fast). A Slow process to me is one that has been well considered and thus decided upon due to its appropriateness. This consideration may only need to be undertaken once as the resulting information could be held in mind for future projects, or it may be that the thinking needs to be done every time a process is used. Slow and working in a Slow manner is about appropriateness, in terms of material choices, process choices and intended outcomes of your processes; in this sense Slow relates to time because, by working within a Slow framework one allows oneself the time to consider the available options, regardless of the scale of operation.
I feel that the following things should be considered as part of a Slow working process:
What is the intended outcome of the process?
What is the intended outcome for the series of processes, what are you intending to make?
What impact does the process have environmentally, both small and large scale, and if negative, how could this be reduced?
Also post-consumer use and recycling of the end product.
This should lead to a list of ‘needs’ for the outcome, which should help determine which process is most appropriate. I believe that Slow relates to processes in a decision making format – why use that process? Is it the most appropriate for the intended outcome of the process?
I feel that one does not need to be personally involved in the process itself to consider it and its implications, also I feel that processes can be considered on an industrial scale. One does not need to be an individual designer maker to work within a Slow framework/context, nor does one need to be a professional designer.
Personally when deciding upon a process I use my STEER theory, developed to offer a framework for Slow design. I take a few moments to consider what I need it to do (STOP), I then consider whether it will do that to the standard I need it to, be that finished perfection or experimental designing stages (THINK), I then might ask around or look online to see if there is any other way of doing it – is there a way better environmentally or more appropriate aesthetically (EXPLORE). I then go ahead with the process I have decided upon and involve myself in my making process (ENJOY). I will at some point look over what I have done and how I did it in order to establish if I was happy with it, practically, environmentally and aesthetically and how I would do it if I were to repeat that process (RETHINK). Part of working Slowly is being willing to rethink, revisit ideas to rework them. Particularly as someone who is concerned about the environmental impact of my work I find the ‘re-‘ stages of my work very interesting, and often they offer a lot to learn from.
THOUGHTS:
‘The moral significance of work that grapples with material things may lie in the simple fact that such things lie outside the self’ (Crawford, M; Shop Classs as Soulcraft; 2009; p16)
‘…severing of the cognitive aspects of manual work from its physical execution’
(Crawford, M; Shop Class as Soulcraft; Penguin 2009; p31) – I think Slow can help reconnect the two.
‘As to the hope of the product, I have said that Nature compels us to work for that. It remains for us to look to it that we do really produce something an not nothing…’ (Morris, W; Useful Work Versus Useless Toil; Penguin 2008; p3)
‘We shall not, therefore, be concerning ourselves with objects as defined by their functions or by the categories into which they might be subdivided for analytic purposes, but instead with the processes whereby people relate to them and with the systems of human behaviour and relationships that result therefrom.’ (Baudrillard, J; The System of Objects; Verso 2005; p2)
slow quote
"A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life."
http://www.slowfood.org.uk/Cms/Page/our-mission
http://www.slowfood.org.uk/Cms/Page/our-mission
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Hand sanding
The tiles in the picture are maple, although they are not the tiles I will be working on this weekend.
Monday, 7 December 2009
The Craftsman - Richard Sennett
I have been reading The Craftsman by Richard Sennett. It has given me a lot of food for thought so far. Some questions that is has raised in my mind are as follows:
By enforcing design practice within ones work, does one lose the skill needed to be a craftsperson, and does that matter - is it the job of the designer to design and then to pass the work to the appropriate craftsperson for making? Is it possible to be a good designer and a skilled craftsperson.
Is design inherent in being a good craftsperson - does creating well made and beautiful objects automatically mean they are designed well?
Do objects need to be well made or is it more about appropriateness?
Sennett says "ethical behaviour was implicated in his technical work" (speaking about the craftsman, p64) and later "craft names a more anonymous, collective and continued practice" (p66). I believe he means truth about materials & skill levels and quality/qualities of result by ethical behaviour, and the anonymous, collective behaviour is the shared studio or skills set passed between craftsperson and apprentice or interested learner.
To link this in to some of my thoughts about Slow Design -
I believe that technical skill is gained through enduring practice, practice takes time and thus time should be allowed for this.
Practice toward skill can and should be consolidated by repetition and revisitation, where appropriate.
Advice from and discourse with others is key to advancing ones skills in any field.
More thoughts to come...
By enforcing design practice within ones work, does one lose the skill needed to be a craftsperson, and does that matter - is it the job of the designer to design and then to pass the work to the appropriate craftsperson for making? Is it possible to be a good designer and a skilled craftsperson.
Is design inherent in being a good craftsperson - does creating well made and beautiful objects automatically mean they are designed well?
Do objects need to be well made or is it more about appropriateness?
Sennett says "ethical behaviour was implicated in his technical work" (speaking about the craftsman, p64) and later "craft names a more anonymous, collective and continued practice" (p66). I believe he means truth about materials & skill levels and quality/qualities of result by ethical behaviour, and the anonymous, collective behaviour is the shared studio or skills set passed between craftsperson and apprentice or interested learner.
To link this in to some of my thoughts about Slow Design -
I believe that technical skill is gained through enduring practice, practice takes time and thus time should be allowed for this.
Practice toward skill can and should be consolidated by repetition and revisitation, where appropriate.
Advice from and discourse with others is key to advancing ones skills in any field.
More thoughts to come...
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