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Panel Discussion
The Need for Critical Discourse: 
Elevating Craft through Writing
 June 3, 2006

Paula Owen, Southwest School of Art & Craft,
Jim Romberg, Eagleheart Center for Art & Inquiry
Matthew Kangas, independent art critic, Seattle

What do you think critical writing is? 
Many different angles.

Each panelist discussed their relationship to critical writing. 

Paula Owen
She has a background as a maker, but is also aware of post-modernist ideas.  Paula had her feet in both worlds and wanted to act as a bridge-builder.  Through exhibition reviews, essays and articles in publications, she began trying to elevate craft by putting it in a larger context for a broader audience of appreciators.  Paula wrote about hybridization, called for theory, concepts and ideas behind the media.  In doing so, she became ostracized in both arenas, but kept moving forward and pushing buttons.  She sees it important to convey the many different settings for craft, and the complexities and assumptions that surround both commercial and cultural contexts (folk arts, design, art, hobby, traditional, and more). 

Matthew Kangas
He has an academic background in literature.  After being laid-off from an art-book publishing job in NYC, he moved to Seattle and began writing about craft out of cultural loneliness.  Making studio visits, he enjoyed writing and putting artists in other contexts beyond reviews, while also stretching his intellectual muscles.  Matthew began getting contacted by national craft organizations to write, then received a fellowship from the Smithsonian to pursue craft research/writing.  He has a book of compiled writing on ceramics (1945-present) and is seeking a publisher.  Akin to comments made by Paula, he discovered there was no real discourse or identification of the great craft makers of the 20th century, and is now attempting to build upon a canon.

Matthew points out that what merits something worthy of a feature article is often mistaken by those who are more aptly seeking promotion.

 He suggests how to affect change:

  • Cultivate more art critics/writers in your own community
  • Communicate your interest and enthusiasm
  • Expand modes of discourse to convey meaning, beyond materials and technique
  • Invest in great photography
  • Facilitate canon-building
  • Honor the giants (while they’re alive!)
  • Have professional standards for writing and exhibiting
  • Know crossover ties with the broader art world.  (He acknowledged craft’s dominant influence in contemporary art today and attributes it to the craving of tactility of objects and materials after such a long wave of conceptualism and distance from the object.  Shifting hierarchies.)
  • Beware of historic anti-intellectualism
  • Cultivate more curators
  • Find more design writers who understand the crossover

Jim Romberg:
Jim comes from a science background.  He visited Pottery Northwest in Seattle and was seduced by the material, its intimacy and process, and its historical context.  He is engaged by the object’s ability to command more than one meaning: function, historical document and a personal document.  He now works as a maker and is an educator who feels the dialogue needs to be expanded.   

Jim asks: how does critical writing actually become operative in the field? 
He sees criticism as a resource, able to change paradigms in craft.  Without it, the craft world is doomed to remain bound to commercialism and romanticism.

What is the benefit of criticism?
It diminishes the distance between viewer and the objects, emotionally, intellectually, sensually.  It gives the makers and means to step back and look anew at what they are doing.  And, it helps the audience to find meaning and create value.  Acknowledged that he thinks good criticism incorporates quieter voices that are equally significant. 

Jim sees “new criticism” as a collective creation that involves all of the craft community, in order to create an atmosphere that is receptive to evaluation, discussion and analysis.  But, he does not want to “scare away” traditional readers, and pointed out that inclusiveness and receptivity are important values.  He also notes that function and concept are two sides of a broad spectrum, not one over another on a hierarchical pyramid.  Jim encourages challenge of “absolute” viewpoints. 

Who are the critics? Start writing.  Look in your own community and challenge those who are promoting ideas to write with substance.  Back up opinions with criteria.   

Create workshops and other opportunities to initiate social gatherings and dialogue. 

Create publications that deal entirely with critical issues in craft.  Jim has one in the works with many authors/voices.  By the way, he needs a sponsor! 

General group discussion with panelists and audience: 

Kangas:  Exhibitions of craft objects need to have a strong curatorial promise that can be written about.  “Every curator should be able to write at least 10,000 words about the shows they organize.”

Audience comments:
Craft exhibitions are not (or are too rarely) being built upon ideas that can be written about.

There is potential for critical writing and analysis via new technologies (podcasts, blogs, etc.) that are quickly changing the nature of dialogue and discourse.