Fabrications, Craft in the 21st Century

This symposium was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum on Friday 23rd November to coincide with the exhibition Out of the Ordinary.

Collaboration was one of the recurring themes of the day and how artists 'claimed' work that they had not fabricated, the concept was theirs but they had used the technical skills of others to fabricate the finished product. One example of this was Grater Divide by Mona Hatoum, this 6ft high screen was fabricated at Mike Smith Studios in mild steel, the steel was laser cut and then worked by hand.

It was noted that studio assistants go back a long way, Rembrant had 50 assistants so much of his later work was not by his own hand.

Another area that was covered by more than one speaker was curatorship and how works are displayed - the white room is not a neutral setting but it offers a safe haven in which to test theories in art. The amount of space around an object confers a degree of importance on that object and plinths elevate objects and brings in the tradition of placing sculpture, the logic of the monument. Craft objects are often placed on plinths because of their relatively small size. Hildur Bjarnadottir's Belgian Linen Crochet Cloth was placed on a plinth but the fact that it was allowed to drape over the sides referenced it's 'homely' origins but it was still elevated from the domestic activity.

I was interested in the comments by Sorrel Herschberg of the British Council on the way that many people prefer to call themselves Designers or Makers rather than Craftsmen. In the West craftsmen are still regarded as having a narrow vision and being restricted to one medium or field . Max Lamb has a compulsion to make but calls himself a Designer as that is what he trained as, He works in cast copper and pewter and is based in Cornwall where these metals were once locally produced which adds value to the story of how the items were made. Sorrel commented that design has a power relationship over craft, this is probably based on the more commercial nature of design which always has one eye on the market place.

Paper-cuts are 'in' at the moment and Professor CJ Lim, the keynote speaker, used this technique in some of his work. Kara Walker uses black paper silhouettes to comment on social problems and it is the basis of Paul Chan's video installation First Light (right) which was projected onto the floor at the Serpentine Gallery in 2006

Laurie Britton-Newell, who curated Out of the Ordinary, commenting on the current resurgence of interest in Craft said that people feel out of touch with the origins of things and that previous generations were more familiar with the making process.

Out of the Ordinary

Out of the Ordinary, Crafts in the 21st Century is currently on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
For Everything and Nothing Catherine Bertola has collected dust from around the museum and used it to texture and colour giant paper-cuts based on wallpaper patterns. Dust tells the hidden history of a place and those who use it.

Naomie Filmer is fascinated by the parts of the body that are usually not celebrated, such as the back of the knee or elbow. For Body Map she has cast small areas of the body, such as the heel, in silver. These pieces have been magnified and isolated inside glass lenses making them extraordinary.
The Book of Humanity, the empty book is a stunning installation of hand cut red tissue paper falling from three suspended books by Lu Shengzhong. Each stream of paper ends with a small figure, representing the fragility of man. On the opposite wall are stacked black cases full of hand cut figures, also of hand cut red tissue paper.
Capacity by Anne Wilson is, for me, the most stunning piece in the exhibition. It is a fusion between art and science and captures the moment of the lungs being filled with air. The transparency of glass and its ability to reveal is perfectly suited to the invisibility of the air it portrays.
Anne Wilson has used thousands of fragments of lace in her Topologies installation. There is an important play on scale in this piece which counteracts the preciousness of lace - where one flower is precious, a field full is less so and the same effect is gained here. Showing alongside the installation is a stop-motion video of the piece being installed, accompanied by a soundtrack of the threads, pins and hammers at work.

V&A Entrance Tunnel

The entrance tunnel to the Victoria & Albert Museum is being used for a series of installations. The current work is, The anti room of the Mae Queen, by Simon Periton, who has been working in cut-out paper for the last decade. The delicacy and decorative qualities of these pieces is juxtaposed by the solidity of the metal in which they are worked.

I was particularly taken with this lantern. It is based on disintegrating knitting but looks very like a bobbin lace pattern that I like to distort (Half stitch and net ground). Disintegrating textiles is an area that I intend to look at in the next semester.

Urban Field Symposium

Urban Field was a series of exhibitions exploring the relationship of makers and their environment. Rurally based willow workers showed in urban London, makers from London and the rural south-west showed in the market town of Farnham and urban interior design was shown on the edge of Dartmoor at Bovey Tracey. The Symposium was an opportunity for reflection on the outcomes of these experiments.

Deirdre Figueiredo spoke about the work of Craftspace who build links between urban artists and audiences by involving them with crafts activities. A recent project was Transforming Crafts at Elsmere where they brought together Junko Mori an urban blacksmith working in cramped conditions in Manchester and Chris Stokes who runs a large forge in rural Oswestry. Their exchange of practice and dialog showed the breadth of techniques associated with blacksmithing in their collaborative work 'Bindweed' shown above.

Love Jonsson introduced the audience to the way Sweden had tried to integrate its crafts people into the international community by inviting overseas artists to work in Sweden. One of the eventual results of this was the Swedish group 'We Work in Fragile Material' exhibiting at Happy Campers in New York in 2006. Individually the members work in glass and ceramics (hence the group title) but for this exhibition they produced a giant fabric Troll, this was a representation of the way crafts people are seen as Trolls who live in the countryside and shun modern technology. The piece was an affirmation of the joy of making by hand and testament to the crafters ability to move across disciplines.
After lunch we were treated to a brilliantly illustrated talk on the 'subversive' knitting scene in USA by Sabrina Gschwandtner of the publication KnitKnit. Amongst other things she showed the work of the group Knitta who are known for their knitted graffiti, they regularly 'tag' areas of cities by wrapping objects with brightly coloured knitting. Trees, lampposts, railings, car antennae and door handles have been tagged from Los Angeles to Paris and the group regularly get requests to work in peoples hometowns or on specific objects such as bicycles.
She also explained the work of Microrevolt who are a knitting group trying to change attitudes by involving large numbers of people in small, passive, protests that grow to into huge movements that have loud voices.
The afternoon was rounded off with talks by Dr Ian Hunter and Celia Larner from Littoral Arts Trust, a Rochdale based crafts charity. Dr Hunter was keen to make us aware of the agricultural changes that are coming and how they will impact on our lives. Agricultural policies are in place that will change our landscape with willow taking over as a major crop for bio-fuel. This will produce an ideal opportunity for the crafts to re-engage with agriculture and for the core skills of willow work/basketry to lead the way by adding value to agricultural produce/waste. The work of urban basket maker Lee Dalby is firmly based on traditional methods but he also works in modern free-form structures.

Celia went on to tell us about her trip to 'Sheep is Life' the Navajo celebration of the sheep in USA. Whether through felt making or weaving the crafts women are adding value to very poor quality wool and their work is in high demand by both private collectors and museum curators.

November 11th- Brighton

Steve and I don't need much by way of an excuse to take a trip to the sea, so bad train connections saw us heading for Brighton to collect our daughter who was staying with friends. We arrived to an amazing vista of four separated rain clouds emptying themselves on the horizon at sea whilst we watched from bright sunlit beach. The other thing that immediately struck me was how lacy the ruins of the burn-out pier looked.
We took a walk through the Narrows, where there are a wide variety of small independent shops and managed to buy a couple of Christmas presents before lunch. This was followed by a walk to show Anna the outside of the Brighton Pavilion - It's a long time since I was last in Brighton and I'd forgotten what a wondrous confection it is!
As we made out way back to the car I spotted these amazing gates at the entrance to a fairly new complex of flats about 100meters from the seafront.

The Textiles Collection

Linda Brassington introduced us to the on-line resources at the Visual Arts Data Service these include the Textile collection of UCCA, slides of students work from Goldsmiths College and the shoe collection from Cordwainers at London College of Fashion.

The Textiles Collection includes Coptic textiles from 800 - 1000, Kashmir shawls, African strip weaving and lace as well as more recent works by Peter Collingwood. (right)

I found the slides of students work from Goldsmiths fascinating, they are arranged chronologically and include Diploma, BA and postgraduate levels.

The piece shown is by Susan Tabor.

It was also interesting to learn about the Cordwainers shoe collection (which is in storage) as my daughter is studying Footwear there and knew nothing of it's collection.

Sculpture at Goodwood

The Cass Sculpture Foundation displays over 70 specially commissioned monumental British sculptures in a landscape of woodland and grassy glades. All of the works are for sale and each year approximately one third of the works are replaced with new commissions. Through the winter months many of the works are repositioned meaning that they can be viewed against a different backdrop, an enclosed woodland clearing shows a piece quite differently to an open grassy vista. Being an open air site also means that the works are affected by the weather conditions, bright blue skies affecting the works quite differently to dark brooding clouds.

One of the pieces that I had gone to see was System No 19 by Julian Wild. This abstract work explores line, space, maths and the essence of form and shape. I was lucky enough to visit on a sunny day and so see the shadows that it forms which, although difficult to capture on grass, add an extra dimension to the work.

Ellis O'Connell's Loop is a beautifully sinuous piece which shows strikingly different shapes as one moves around the form.

It also provided some hauntingly broody shadows from the surrounding trees.