art

Grayson Perry on the Great Art vs. Craft Debate

| Betsy

After seeing a post on The Dress Doctor regarding Grayson Perry’s exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsmen at the British Museum, I watched the first video below to learn more about it.





Then, through the wonderful world of the internet, I found the video below, from the V&A with Grayson Perry talking about craft, art and the digital world. I was struck by two quotes in the video below, “Our relationship to making things has changed.” This surprised me because, well, the reason we aren’t making bread anymore (something he notes) isn’t because we’ve changed, it’s changed because our options have changed. For the same reason people stopped handmaking clothes when the Industrial Revolution came around, technology brought us inventions that save us time and the “hassle” of making them ourselves.





But, then later he adds, “One of the great empowering things about learning craft is… it’s almost like a manifestation, a physical manifestation of, “I can change the world.”” A few times he seems quite damning on craft, while others quite complimentary.

Maybe he’s just like everyone else? Not so sure on the proper definition? And where “craft” begins and “art” ends?

There is No Myth of the Tortured Crafter.

| Betsy

When I was younger, I fell full into the myth of the tortured artist. I inhaled the work of Kerouac and Pollock and Thompson. I worshiped at the altar of Arbus and Ginsberg and Warhol. I cried in solidarity with the lives of Basquiat and Haring.

I made a lot of mistakes. I mistook pain for authenticity and thought that to create was to also destroy. That there was no one without the other. And, as a direct result, I’m lucky to be writing this. I could bore you with tales of close calls or of loved ones that didn’t fare so well and lost, or details half-remembered or eulogized in partial memory by people that claimed to be “Artists.” With a capital “A.” It’s neither romantic nor exciting nor even interesting. It’s boring in that it mistook destructivity as the ultimate catalyst and origin of creativity. Those days, those years, are nothing to be proud of, even though I have scores of friends and colleagues who have the same tales. It’s just wasted time, wasted promises, wasted breath.

samo

But it was craft, that saved me.

You see, there is no myth of the tortured crafter. Its roots in utilitarianism, need and progress had little time for chaos. Little time for upper middle-class time wasting in the pursuit of the perfectly executed cocktail or party or hazy work. While we were all destroying ourselves and claiming to be authentic, the real authenticity was covering our beds, in our kitchen cupboards, hidden in dusty trunks. The real authenticity, the real creativity, was craft.

I often joke that my life didn’t start until I was 26, when I started knitting. Well, it’s not such much a joke as it is the whole and honest truth.

Those nights of wrapping wool around a needle to create something with my own two hands sutured me together more than all the reams of paper I had written in haste trying to recall what had happened the night before thinking that I was onto something. That I was really living. Those holey crooked scarves were not just creations that kept me warm, they were reaffirmations that creativity was real, true and honest. As I watched the fabric grow in my lap, the scarves getting longer and longer, I was pushing away false myths and idols, and embracing something more stronger and powerful.

And with each night of knitting, I moved more and more into the sacred space of creativity. I joined the women of Gee’s Bend and the arpilleristas of Chile and a long line of my own female ancestors as my fingers created and bled and made items that weren’t called art and were deemed a lesser creation. In time, as I began to learn more about myself and about craft I began to see the truth in craft, even though it’s not always aesthetically pleasing for galleries and white walls.

lifeofpei

[photo via Flickr user life of pei]

The creative work of soldiers and warriors, Afghan war rugs, the Just Work Economic Initiative, Emerge, Fine Cell Work, Vollis Simpson along with others taught me the true power, potential and gift that is craft.

They taught me that true creativity begets joy not pain, and is born out of hope, not destruction. They obliterated the myth of the tortured artist and allowed me to see craft for what it is. A gift. Positivity. Enjoyment. Fulfillment. Love. Life.

While I’ll always love the former list of creatives in this post, I’ll always draw strength and the spirit of life from the latter. Because craft is not about destruction or pain, it’s a gift to be invited in, savored and celebrated. And in that celebration, thankfully, there is no space for negativity and false hopes.

There’s nothing but love and creating and laughing and living, in full, in beauty and in the light.

“Making.” “Seeing.” “Being.” Boldly.

| Betsy

When I was in 10th grade in 1990, one of our assignments was to do a report on an artist, someone we admired. I remember that everyone else chose people like John Lennon or Jerry Garcia, and I chose Keith Haring, who I had read about in Sassy magazine. That was the moment when I truly realized that people are emboldened and intrigued and excited about pushing the envelope, speaking up for what you believe in, for following what makes your heart skip a beat and question the big picture all at the same time.

In 1996, Keith Haring: Journals was published by Penguin Putnam in a building I would work in 5 years later. Reading his journals, while in one sense voyeuristic, gave me the permission and planted the seed to create without fear or worry. I think lately I’ve been caught up in so many things that I forgot that fierceness and joy that comes with not being afraid or worried. Somehow I got wrapped up in external chaos that had me doubting and unsure and therefore, idle. I stopped listening to me and got caught up in the thoughts of everyone else leaving me apprehensive and afraid. So, in case you might need this reminder, too, I thought I’d share the bit from one of his entries from October 1, 1979, I have circled, with a star:

THINKING ABOUT BOXES
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
TO MAKE “GOOD” ART?
MEANING IS A
PRESUPPOSITION OF FUNCTION.
WITTGENSTEIN.
WHO CARES IF YOU DO
OR DON’T. SOMEONE
IS IN THE SUBWAY
TALKING TO THEMSELF.
TALKING ABOUT
TALKING. TALKING
ABOUT NOBODY
LISTENING. WHO CARES
IF YOU “MAKE” ART.
WHAT IS “MAKING”?
SEEING IS MAKING
ONLY IF SOMEONE
IS SEEING. THE PERSON
IN THE SUBWAY
IS SCREAMING, “NOBODY
IS LISTENING,” BUT
EVERYONE IS LISTENING
AND SEEING AND
MAKING AND BEING.

Thirteen years later after making that star and circling those words, I come back to them as my cat always picks his Journals to knock off the bookshelf when she’s hungry. Morning after morning, I pick up Keith Haring’s Journals and put it back on the shelf, even though I haven’t opened the book itself in over a decade.

Yesterday I decided to not put it back on the bookshelf, and this morning I decided to have a look at the passages that had moved me back when I was 21. This passage jumped out because it speaks to how everyone “makes” and “sees.” Elementary? Yes. But I think sometimes we forget the importance of “making” even if we think no one is “seeing” it. Because just like the person screaming on the subway, we all have deep currents of thought running underneath that are, from the outside, invisible.

Therefore, we never know who truly “sees” our work and how it resonates. We only see the person screaming on the subway or hear “Nobody is listening” in our own heads. We forget that our creations have nothing to do with either of those things. They have to do with the “making,” which leads to our “seeing” the deepest and most loveliest truths of “being.” We “make” because we “see” through the cracks and perceptions of “being.” We “see” because we “make.” So we step can forward fearlessly and safely into that place and create, knowing that it allows us to truly feel the depth and weight and joy of “being.”

to be bold.

| Betsy

Today I came across the work of Ariana Russell via Design for Mankind. Russell has a skin condition called dermatographia which causes her skin, when scratched, to raise in welts. Instead of hiding this condition, she transforms it into something celebrated and beautiful. She does a much better job of explaining both the condition and her process here.

The Design for Mankind post asks, “What an example Ariana is to the rest of our community. Are we allowing our originality to shape our artwork? Or are we holding back the “conditions” that we each have, afraid that we’ll be deemed too different, outdated or amateur?”

This is a lovely question to ask, because while we may have piercings or tattoos or other adornments we add ourselves, what differences do we have as individuals that we don’t share with others? The differences we didn’t pick, but were genetically given? We can adorn ourselves with all sorts of wonderful things and lovely artwork, but what do we not want the world to see?

Russell is using her “difference” to create lovely work not only in a literal sense but also in one more conceptual. By allowing her condition to be the center of attention, she is demystifying it and making that line between cultural conceptions of “different” and “normal” that much harder to find.

I think it’s there in that spot where you feel ashamed or weird or alone where you can really get in touch with your own creativity in ways you might not have done before. That spot is where boldness lies, and wherein taking some time to sit with it, we can create and heal simultaneously. What could we all make with our own hands if we were truly bold?