The Museum of Art and Design (MAD) opens its Crafting Modernism show this week. This is the first big show to cover the years 1945-1969 and in a very real way makes history. That is, it forms the narrative (or narratives) of history that will and do help us understand what handmade objects mean in our culture.
The spirit of craft rocks on if Rick Turner is any indication.
He made this guitar (image from MAD blog) that appears on the show’s blog in a post about the excitement of objects coming in. Rick posted to comment that after he picked it up from his son’s house to bring to the museum, he played it a bit and noticed he had forgotten to include side position dots – so now he’s adding them! 42 years after he originally made it!
Isn’t that great!?! Now the piece dates 1969-2011. In craft, there is always work to be done. Objects we live with can be thought through and changed. This is the dynamic interweaving of objects into our lives. It’s also making as offering provisional solutions. Do painters touch up their work before dropping it off at the museum? Is craft process more than genius? This kind of paying attention on Rick’s part is the genius of craft: it contains the space for us to think in this – a quintesstially human – way.
October 11, 2011 at 6:56 am
Sequoia, I am so glad I discovered your blog. What a treat to follow your beautiful thought process this way. It is the great stuff we sometimes get to when we visit when life permits. Hope all your studies and activicities allow you to blog often. I’ll keep checking in . You have made me want to get down to the City for the show at the MAD. I’ll let you know if I am coming.
Toby
October 14, 2011 at 7:38 am
MAD guitar maker here! Thanks for the comment…and yes, what I make are constantly subject to change, wear, repair, improvement and hopefully long life. I want to make guitars that last longer than it took the trees to grow that yield up the beautiful wood that I’m able to use.
Another observation…I’m one of the few artist/crafters in the MAD show who makes the tools of other artists’ trade. In a very real way, what I build is a secondary participant in art; it’s not a visual art, but an aural one. I have first to satisfy sonic criteria, then ergonomic standards of playability and comfort, and only then can I think in visual terms…as important as those aspects are to my work even being considered by my clients.