Monday, October 6, 2008

Spreading the Love

Last February I posted a call for submissions for contributing writers to add content to this blog. I am sad to say that nothing much came of it. However, today I am pleased to announce that Jon Sutter, a woodworker and furniture maker will be joining the Conceptual Metalsmithing team as a special correspondent on the subject of craft theory. Jon is an aspiring writer, and as you will see his view of craft and craft theory is well informed, though we agree less than half of the time. I am pleased to have him aboard, and I hope you will enjoy his writing as much as you have enjoyed my own. Shortly Jon will post his recent essay, Contemporary Craft: Non-Functional or Dysfunctional.

As always comments are welcome, and the door is still open to anyone who wants to contribute to the dialogue that this blog provides.

Best,
-Gabriel
Posted by at 10/06/2008
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1 comments:

Andrew Wagner said...

Thanks for the post Jon and Gabriel, thanks for opening up the doors to others here. There is a lot that could be said about this post but for now, I wanted to just say that I remain extremely optimistic about the future of craft. I truly believe it is the future - though it will look very different than what the "studio craft" of the '50s, 60s, 70s and 80s looked like. There will be much more collaboration amongst makers and there will need to be makers who are willing to sacrifice their art to tackle the business end of the craft world as well as the other "soft" skills you talk about - marketing etc. etc. There will need to be more writers and thinkers and the field will have to expose itself to criticism from a general public. It will be critical to begin to pay attention to how the field is perceived outside of the walls of academia and outside the studio doors. Again, perhaps I am naive or overly optimistic at the core, but I am seeing this start to happen and I'm very excited about it. We'll see what happens...

Thought I'd also point you to a little blog post I just did at our site about a great furniture maker named Max Lamb who I find really inspiring:

http://americancraftmag.org/zoom-entry.php?id=5842

Hope you enjoy...

Oh and by the way, I also think the future of the field is in function...

October 9, 2008 6:52 PM

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