art vs. craft
I started my new job this week. At ETSY. I love etsy for many reasons...
- they (we!) make posters that say "end mass production" and have pictures of a boy throwing a brick at a factory
- they (we!) have a manifesto that says, in part: " ...together, our intention is to create viable alternatives to ecologically unfriendly, mass-produced objects in the worlds marketplace, and give all independent artists the technology they need to make a living, making things."
It's been interesting for me to have my feet both in the world of "fine art" or "contemporary art" or whatever you want to call it - the world comprised of galleries, grants, my MFA program, museums, big art fairs (not that I have been involved in those -- just describing that world!) with its epicenters in the big coastal US cities --- and the world of crafters, artists selling work online, untrained and folk artists, who are decentralized and everywhere. They are two very different worlds with really different value systems, though the overlap/boundary zones are big. I'm really interested in what's happening in those overlapping spaces. There is great resistance amongst artists in the "art world" to associate themselves with creative communities outside of it (unless it is for the purpose of co-opting, assimilating, etc which happens all the time). I have found the opposite to be true in the crafting communities...there is a big welcome for all kinds of artists.
I have a lot of confusion, some clarity, and a lot of ideas about how these art worlds are made and what they say about the class system, mass culture, the role of artists in post-industrial (whatever that it) society. I hope to use this blog to explore such things, in little easy-to-bake bite sized chunks.
