bags and tidbits

[purlewe]

I started reading the Artist's Way this morning. I've been planning on reading it for a long time. I finally decided that with the plethora of yahoogroups available to help me read it, I should stop procrastinating. I read the 2 introductions this morning. I think that this is something that Cassa would love reading too. She just got an old Underwood so she can start writing again. In alot of ways I think I am like the blocked artist. I used to create so much more. Now I knit. And while I think I am a very good knitter, I think I could be making art again. Photography, Scherenschnitte, fiberwork, etc. My mother likes to tell me over and over again how talented I am. How whatever I pick up seems to just work for me. I have seen that fail though. I took a wonderful course in glassblowing about a year ago. I loved it and hated it. I loved it because I had always wanted to do it and it was a reality. I hated it because I wasn't good at it. I made medicore items. There were several reasons for this (notice I did not say excuses), 1) glassblowing is mean, hard, physical labor. And I am just not a weightlifter by anyone's imagination. 2) it is not something you are just "good" at. You take YEARS to develop glasswork. My teacher said that they never pass someone right away to take the intermediate classes simply because you can't. You must take the beginner level class over and over until you master it, then you can pass to the next level. This frustrated me, even though I loved what I made and took home. I still have all my work from class. I would love to take another, but one class is about 3/4 of a monthly paycheck. I cannot justify it even though I love it so much.

Spinning is another thing that is elusive to me right now. Woolflowers blogger, Leigh, was kind enough to teach me some basics. And I was HORRIBLE. I made a small, tiny, infinitesimal ball of string. I just don't have the memory for it yet. I've heard that spinning on a wheel is actually easier, but if I cannot produce a ball of yarn with a spindle, then how can I justify the cost of a wheel? (and then there is the space thing.. none right now, so I put the whole thing on the back burner) SO, I know that I am not good at EVERYTHING. I would say that I am really good at fine motor skilled crafts. Things like embroidery, quilling, sherenschnitte, etc. Things that people consider as a craft and not so much as art. Sometimes I think that is the most disheartening part of what I love. What I need to do is get beyond what other people think.

I finished the frogged beaded bag this weekend. I re-knit it in 2 days. I have decided that this is a lovely quickie project that can be used for all sorts of presents. Stick some soap in it and viola! stick a nice brooch in it and viola! stick some money in it and its mine! heehee I really love this bag. I think that the green is very spring like, and the beads show up like dew.

Comments

Spin off letter

[jackiemanni.livejournal.com]

Here it is! It's from the Winter 2004 isuue. Let me know what you think of it :)

The Fall 2003 Editor's Letter in Spin Off got me thinking. So what is fiber art, and how is it different from craft, and why does any of this matter? Over the past twenty years, the term "fiber art" has been used so much that it's hard to know precisely what it means. When people first began to distinguish fiber from other media, it meant raw fiber, yarn, fabric and basketry. Later the definition broadened to include beads and paper. It seems to me that fiber is whatever makers say it is.

Art and craft have become two very distinctive categories, although the distinction varies from person to person. I think that we can differentiate them on the basis of intent - if you want to make art, then your intent should be originality. Intent is about purpose; what you are thinking about when you decide to make something, and originality means making something that come entirely from within yourself. While you may have designed a sweater from two or three different commercial patterns, then used a couple of stitch patterns from Barbara Walker's books, your sweater isn't original because you used other people's ideas. To make that sweater yours and yours alone, in my mind, you would have to create your own sweater pattern or use a shape so basic that it's become generic and then create your own stitch pattern or create a design with colors that have never been used together before.

Since I am proposing that the fundamental characteristic of art is originality, its basis has to be design or concept. Craft, on the other hand, is about technique. Spinning yarn is a craft, because you are focused on technical factors that go into turning raw fiber into yarn. And there is everything right with that kind of work. I am tired of people diminishing craft becasue it isn't a video installation of four monitors showing six hour films of people's toes!

Craft is a extremely satisfying past of life, but it isn't art and it doesn't need to be. It is, however, an essential component of art. You need to have confident mastery of your techniques before you can use them to create the visions of your mind.

When we try to make craft into art, we diminish them both. Making things is one of the few intensely personal and private activities left in our world. So it doesn't matter if we do craft work, art work, or travel between them. What matters is that we make what we want to make how we want to make it, and that we don't let anyone get in our way.

Empress Cindy
Rochester Hills, Michigan