Critical Craft Forum

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Critical Craft Forum
Over the past several years, we have noticed a significantly increasing number of panels, presentations, exhibitions, and conferences focused on craft

RIse of the Designer Maker Craftsman

In a post-industrial culture that romanticises the handmade, designers are being called upon to do something they haven't for a century – make stuff themselves

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/aug/01/rise-designer-maker-craftsman-handmade

Tool Chest with an Arts & Crafts Legacy - videos - Fine Woodworking

Tool Chest with an Arts & Crafts Legacy - videos - Fine Woodworking

Baulines Craft Guild photos S.F.

Journeys

Please join me at the opening reception of Journeys, a group exhibition at Art at the Cheese Factory in Nicasco, CA on Sunday, March 14 from 2-4 PM. Artists Reception performance by Diana Marto. Curators tour and artists talk: Sunday, April 11 from 2-4 pm. Closing performance by Aileen McCormack/Monty Monty: Saturday, May 22 from 2-4 PM. Outdoor installation open 12-5 every day. Gallery exhibition open 11am - 4 pm Friday through Sunday. For more information and directions visit: http://artatthecheesefactory.blogspot.com

Lovely Stepchild

Some of us know how under-represented textile arts are in our educational systems and world of fine craft, except as art to wear. Garry Bennett, at a recent guild meeting,
Jan Moore "the Green Man" detail
commented in his inimitable fashion on our lack of positive exposure to collectors and markets. Tapestry, especially, gets small notice, even in publications devoted to textile arts. This month, there are some notable remedies to the situation, including the representation of tapestry in an article in Vogue
Alex Friedman,"Flow 3"
magazine! The article features contemporary hand woven tapestry adorning the walls of a New York penthouse, and uses a detail of the work as the background for a collage of other photos. Well, it hardly gets better than Vogue. The texture and nature of the work is clearly visible. The work of Alex Freidman, tapestry weaver and member of BCG and the American Tapestry Alliance, will be featured in FiberArts just in time for the Baulines Craft Guild's Spring Showcase at 600 Townsend, April 19-June 10.
Tapestry is slow cloth. No doubt about it. Yet, the high quality of design combined with the unequaled textures and details of tapestry construction make it a form worth musing upon, for long hours, by candlelight. Currently at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, CA, I have a piece in the show "Mosaic" juried and installed by Ted Cohen. It's possible to understand media as a theme, and without changing what we do, find a way to interpret it. I tend to see tapestry as small bits of local color, adding up to a whole, thus, mosaic. Imagery is important to me. The depth of meaning, the narrative, the opportunity for figuration and representation is important in my work. Call me old school.
Jan Moore

Presentation about the Costumes of Burning Man

Please join me at the de Young in San Francisco

Hi Jan, can you please share this with the BCG members for me? Thanks! Linda

Presentation about the Costumes of Burning Man
Friday March 13 at 7 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium, de Young Museum, San Francisco

I'm giving a presentation as part of "Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young celebrates Yves Saint Laurent and Warhol Live." A departure from my usual environmental art about water theme, this presentation is pure fun about outrageous creativity and some serious costumes. It's entitled "Radical Self Expression: The Costumes of Burning Man." Last year I wrote an article by the same title for Fiberarts Magazine and I'm tickled to be invited to speak at the de Young in conjunction with the two current exhibitions. Although I've never thought about it until now, some of the costumes of Burning Man could very well be described as "Andy Warhol meets Yves Saint Laurent." I'll be showing a lot of photographs I've taken over the years as well as the work of other photographers.

Friday nights at the de Young are always hopping with lots of activities and there are three additional happenings going on in the museum that evening for you to enjoy: live Moroccan music by Aza, hands on activities to Make Your Own Top Hat and henna-tatoo good-luck charms for your home. There will also be two Andy Warhol film screenings at 6 pm and 8 pm: "Couch" and "Andy Warhol Screen Tests." The programs are free after museum admission. For more information, click here (scroll down to March 13 and then click on that for the full description). And if you want to read the article I wrote for Fiberarts, click here.