Category
Transcripts
Transcribed conversations with individual makers about their preoccupations, and how a definition of craft acts in service of or in opposition to their practice.
Participatory Invitations
A series of prompts generated from conversation, each one an open invitation to the public to participate in varied manners of making.
Extended Notes
Collected supplementary notes meant to encapsulate each maker’s definition of craft and the varied content that inspires their individual creative pursuits.
Jonathan Mark Jackson
Craft as Subject to Chance
It’s kind of romantic, a spiritual experience, in a way, to look back and see that it’s taken 200 years for me to be the one to construct the image or hold the camera.
21 November 2023
Ambient Beginning
A Collection by Jonathan Mark Jackson
I'm working on a prose-piece right now that has two refrains that have become like mantras, one is "This is not a grand art work." The second is, "what is a simple picture?
Jonathan Mark Jackson
Craft /kraft/: noun, verb
Craft might be thought of in parallel with practice. It is something that involves an element of manual construction. In my photography this “manipulation” occurs in the construction of a scene. I shape the light and re-stage things. Prior to the physical production of the photograph however, there are blurry methods of envisioning things or coming upon images. Whether that should be defined as my practice or craft, I try to leave enough space open in my days for those moments of sudden clarity. Often they occur when I am taking a long walk.
Federico Pérez Villoro
Craft as Collective Knowledge
My projects tend to come from a sense of curiosity and a quality of experimentation that often leads me to a multiplicity of things, to knowledge in plural.
15 November 2023
Tierra Piece
A Collection by Federico Peréz Villoro
En esa época yo escuchaba a los viejos como espectador. Hasta que comencé a tener los mismos sueño premonitorios al mirar las rutas, los tractores y las motosierras que iban llegando; el ruido de estas cortando los grandes árboles, la revuelta de los ríos. Empecé a escuchar a los ríos hablando, a veces con rabia, a veces ofendidos.
Ailton Krenak
Craft /kraft/: noun
Understood as having a close relationship with disciplinary precision. However, we can expand the term beyond disciplines and think about its profound relationship to caring ways of making or thinking. We can understand “making” beyond materiality, of course. Yet "craft' always refers us to back material cultures and to the understanding that socio-technical knowledge and trades are ways to preserve and defend the memory of places and traditions that are grounded in specific territories.
Ariel Wood
Craft as Potentially Non-Symmetrical
I'm interested in the ways that making or remaking certain objects by hand allows them to become non-symmetrical, non-functional, non-fill-in-the-blank.
10 November 2023
Alchemical Vessel Piece
A Collection by Ariel Wood
Craft is a form of alchemy.
Rachael Starbuck
Craft /kraft/: noun
A manifestation of physical/technical knowledge. It can mean a level of care toward a material or object, and it can also mean a display of ego, but sometimes a balance can be established—one can utilize craft when it's also the conceptual frame for the piece.
John Sherman
Craft as Permanent Impermanence
It’s almost like leaving out a bowl of nuts. I just walk by and add a little something here and there. You don't really finish a meal that way, but sometimes a snack fills you up.
6 November 2023
Containers for Comic Relief
A Collection by John Sherman
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
Martha Graham
Craft /kraft/: noun
Something practiced and improved, the products of which are covered in fingerprints and other marks of makership, and possess a clear use—beauty, function, instruction, record-keeping, the human and the personal.
Georgia Cloepful
Craft as Channeling Voice
The words are never going to be the same shape as the idea. But that's the whole adventure and ambition of writing. Without that, I might stop.
30 October 2023
Blank Pages
A Collection by Georgia Cloepfil
But I cannot stand all day in the sun with my eyes on the ball; I cannot feel the flight of the ball through my body and think only of the ball. I shall be a clinger to the outsides of words all my life. Yet I could not live with him and suffer his stupidity. He will coarsen and snore. He will marry and there will be scenes of tenderness at breakfast. But now he is young. Not a thread, not a sheet of paper lies between him and the sun, between him and the rain, between him and the moon as he lies naked, tumbled, hot, on his bed. Now as they drive along the high road in their brake his face is mottled red and yellow. He will throw off his coat and stand with his legs apart, with his hands ready, watching the wicket. And he will pray, “Lord let us win”; he will think of one thing only, that they should win.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Craft /kraft/: noun
Careful attention to the sound and the balance of a sentence.