|
|
|
Purchase this issue
Purchase PDF of this issue
2006
Smithsonian Craft Show. Karen McCreary Galaxy
of Light. Beadwork Traditions of the Columbia River
Plateau Honor and Identity. Susan Brooks
A Mesmerizing World. Traditional Mauritanian Powder-Glass Kiffa
Beads. Artist Statement Christi Friesen. Exhibition
Art of Adornment: Tribal Beauty. Exhibition Thomas
Mann: Storm Cycle, An Artist Responds to Hurricane Katrina. Marketplace
Acme Designs.
|
|
2006
Smithsonian
Craft Show |
by
Carolyn L. E. Benesh |
|
|
2006
SMITHSONIAN CRAFT SHOW
While the development of craft in America occurred throughout the
twentieth century, it gathered force during its last fifty years.
And there was something especially extraordinary about the years dating
from the 1970s—that period somehow both coalesced the movement
and stimulated it, producing societies, conferences and symposiums,
new craft programs in schools and colleges, workshops, books and magazines,
craft shows and fairs. The crafted object achieved recognition for
its own intrinsic value, emerging from the hands of artisans who created
works with their unique spirit and animus. In all media, the Smithsonian
Craft Show artists still honor their historical antecedents. Even
though the contemporary craft movement places such a high value on
self-expression and individuality, it also respects the universal
language and communication of the handmade object. It is not a world
that defines itself through a particular medium but through the connection
made between the hand, the heart and the mind. The handmade object
is inextricably linked by the critical interrelationship of its form
(the way in which something is made) to its meaning (the purpose for
which it is made). It is an artform that transmits itself directly
and immediately with a timeless, inherent simplicity—the handmade
object is beautiful not despite its usefulness but because of it. Images courtesy of the artists.
|
|
Karen McCreary |
by
Pat Worrell
|
|
GALAXY
OF LIGHT
Star Trek meets the light sculpture Minimalism of the 1960s—a
complex concept difficult to wrap your mind around until, that is, you
experience the work of jeweler Karen McCreary. “My designs are
influenced by my fascination with science and technology, my love of
science fiction and my interest in light, color, transparency, and visual
illusion,” she explains. McCreary explores light, color, transparency,
and alternative materials in all of her pieces. In the decade of the
sixties, artists interested in light began to use it literally, dealing
with light as a form. Dan Flavin created new environments with his installations
of fluorescent light fixtures. John McCracken fashioned geometric wood
sculptures coated with resins in strong, beautiful colors. Cara Croninger
began making jewelry in cast resin. “In Southern California, a
lot of the artists were experimenting with resins, influenced by the
aerospace industry,” McCreary explains. “I think of the
sculptors who got into the technology of making fiberglass surfboards.”
She garnered more inspiration from British and German artists working
in plastics and resin but remember, she notes, the fun of Bakelite collectibles
from the 1920s to 1940s and the oversized plastic jewelry of the 1960s.
Photographs by
Karen McCreary and Hap Sakwa.
|
|
Beadwork
Traditions of the
Columbia River Plateau
|
by
Steven Grafe |
|
IDENTITY
AND HONOR
The American Indian peoples of the Columbia River Plateau have a long
history of adorning their clothing and personal accessories with beads.
These decorated items have been a source of pride and they have often
contained subtle references to the identity of both makers and wearers.
The Columbia Plateau lies between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains
in the interior Pacific Northwest. It is a high arid expanse that is
drained by the Columbia and Snake Rivers and their many tributaries.
The indigenous peoples of the region share related languages and a common
history and culture. Prior to the arrival of outsiders they lived peacefully
and devoted themselves to fishing and hunting, food gathering, and trading.
Horses appeared locally at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
A sophisticated equestrian culture then blossomed and southern Plateau
groups eventually developed larger horse herds than were present anywhere
else in Native North America. Glass beads arrived in the interior Northwest
during the late eighteenth century. Seagoing fur traders appeared on
the Oregon and Washington coasts at this time and the beads they traded
to coastal peoples soon found their way inland. Plateau residents had
their initial direct contact with outsiders in 1805, as Lewis and Clark
followed the Snake and Columbia Rivers downstream to the Pacific Ocean.
Explorers then found that blue and white Chinese glass beads were in
demand and being widely circulated. William Clark also noted that Nez
Perce women’s dresses were “ornemented with quilled brass,
Small peces of Brass Cut into different forms, Beeds, Shells & curios
bones &c.” Photographs courtesy of Lee and Lois Miner,
Yakima Valley Museum Association, Duane Alderman Collection, and Fred
L. Mitchell Collection.
|
|
Susan
Brooks |
by Chiori Santiago |
|
A
MESMERIZING WORLD
Near at hand lie a row of much-loved chasing hammers, their wooden handles
long and slender as drops of water, smoothed to satin from wear. Susan
Brooks flips a magnifying visor over her eyes and positions a small
silver rectangle on the workbench. She reaches for her chasing tools,
the slim metal rods tipped with the shapes of triangles and circles,
or simply honed to a fine line like the end of a miniature screwdriver.
She chooses one, places it on the metal and begins to tap with the hammer,
the first in a series of taps that become the rhythm of her day. You
could say Brooks is working, because this—hammering a Morse code
of pattern, line and portraiture into silver and gold—is how she
makes her living. Brooks would probably choose another verb to describe
what she is doing—playing, meditating, daydreaming. She is also
drawing, translating the sensibility of her paintings into jewelry.
Brooks has managed to weave all of the things she loves into a business
and a life. “I love what I do,” she says simply. Photographs
by Kate Cameron and George Post.
|
|
Traditional
Mauritanian
Powder-Glass Kiffa Beads
|
by
Evelyn Simak
|
|
|
|
TRADITIONAL
MAURITANIAN POWDER-GLASS KIFFA BEADS
Mauritania used to be part of the ancient Ghana Empire (750-1240 A.D.),
which grew rich from the trans-Saharan trade in gold, ivory and salt.
With the introduction of the camel, the region’s exclusive resources
could be sent to population centers in North Africa and the Middle East
in exchange for manufactured goods. Kumbi Saleh, whose ruins remain
near the town of Kiffa, is believed to have been the empire’s
capital, and in its heyday had a population of thirty thousand, mainly
Arab and Berber merchants and their families. Glass beads are still
found along the trade routes, in the vicinity of old trade centers of
the Ghana Empire, such as Tegadoust, Oualata, Tichitt and Akrejit, or
in the sand dunes covering the ruins of Kumbi Saleh, where women still
search for ancient treasures during the rainy season. Many ancient beads
recovered during archaeological excavations are believed to originate
from the Near East and from Egypt. A number of these were used as models
for creating indigenous powder-glass beads, also known today as Kiffa
beads. (The term Kiffa bead is fairly recent, introduced by bead collectors
during the second half of the twentieth century.) Images courtesy
of Evelyn Simak and Robert K. Liu.
|
|
|
|
|
|