The Handmade vs. The Brainmade (Idea)

I like to build my own stretchers, stretch and size my own canvas, frame my own work. I like my work to be mine from start to finish. There's a real satisfaction in becoming the process of your work. When you get your hands dirty, you become invested in what you're doing. I also really like to get my brain involved, and the result is usually a muddled, twisting, wrenching argument with myself.

On May 20th I went to an open house and day of demonstrations at the Berkeley Art Museum. The open house went in conjunction with Allison Smith's Notion Nanny exhibit, which I stumbled across a few days prior. The primary message of the exhibit was a study in the idea of the "itinerant apprentice": someone who travels from town to town, learning the skills and crafts of the local tradespeople, and offering up his/her creative ideas in turn. In this case, Allison Smith, a Brooklyn artist was the Itinerant Apprentice, who offers an exhibit of a collection of handmade objects, on display at BAM until August 12, 2007.

I found the collaborative nature of the show to be the most thought-provoking, although there were times that I felt a sense of ambivalence. The woven tapestries were exquisite, and on the placard it read "Allison Smith", and below it read the name of the artist who actually wove the piece, thus giving a somewhat secondary credit to the contibuting Artisan. This leads me to the ever-pervasive debate between Idea vs. Craft; Conceptual vs. Modernist. When the two are polarized as they are in Contemporary Art, it's usually the Idea or Concept that wins favor in the eyes of the critics. But then, I do tire of the "Wow - all those dots and lines must have taken days" - OCD-style works that are "so hot right now". Again, this is an argument I'm having with myself, and this show was a great catalyst for further exploration, polarization, and perhaps the discovery that I have multiple personalities. And we are IN Gemini, and I AM a Gemini after all.. whoa!

Meanwhile, the vast range of exhibitors at the open house were kind, open and earnest in their love for their Craft. I think that was the most inspiring aspect of the show, and I'm really glad I went. Here are some photos I took:


Ehren Tool, an ex-Marine and MFA from Berkeley, makes ceramic cups with grim images of war.


Jeremey (last name?) works with a Letterpress


Travis J. Meinolf works on a loom. He's in the MFA program at CCA in textiles, and his wool blankets are something to see!


If you caught the CCA MFA exhibit, you probably couldn't have missed the giant fence covered in hot-pink knitted I-cords. Here's the artist, Lacey Jane Roberts demonstrating her technique.

One of the most fascinating and beautiful aspects of the open house is that some of these poeple just give their product away for free. Ehren was giving out his ceramic cups, and Travis gives away his wool blankets during his exhibits. Jeremey had GLOBAL WARMING prints to hand out, there were samples of homemade cheese, and free cookies. Amazing.