panel session F1
WELL ROUNDED: INTERDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE
OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT IN PRINTMAking
FRIDAY MARCH 20, 12:00-1:30PM
KNOXVILLE CONVENTION CENTER, BALLROOM ABC
Session Chairs: Ashton Ludden and Amy Hand, independent artists, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Email: SGC2015WellRounded@gmail.com
This panel initiates a conversation on the shared elements of practice between traditional craft mediums such as printmaking, bookmaking, ceramics, glass, fibers/textiles, wood, and metals/jewelry and the outcomes of integrating these mediums. What are the current and future prospects of craft integration? Many of these craft mediums prospered in factories with a purpose of commercialism and thus have an inherited quality of reproducibility. They primarily use matrices, casts, molds, stencils, patterns, or simply a practiced muscle-memory in order to create multiples. With crafts’ shared historical role as functional objects and mass production, these mediums have struggled to be seen as high or fine art. How has the need for craftsmanship subsided with machinery and new technology? In the contemporary world of concept, has the practice of craft been superseded by the idea of the artist or has the artist revolutionized craft? Unique to these craft mediums is their sense of community. Within their historical settings of guilds or factories, these mediums are typically created with many workers requiring a team effort. Many contemporary craft mediums still necessitate the aid of other artists to create work or a communal space with shared equipment. When different craft communities begin to integrate, in what way do they influence each other?
Presenter 1: Lara Henderson and Beth Brandon, AS220 Industries, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Paper Title: AS220 Industries: A Maker Movement in Providence
AS220 Industries, located in downtown Providence, RI, provides affordable access to printmaking, photography, digital media, and digital fabrication equipment and education. Combining these resources under one umbrella is a result of and a catalyst to collaboration and community building. In partnership with The Steel Yard (metal and ceramics studio) and Keeseh Studios (woodworking studio), AS220Industries is a national model for what a maker community can and should be: a broad set of resources, and the coexistence of craft, concept, and commercial production.
Presenter 2: Andrew Raftery, Rhode Island School of Art and Design, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Paper Title: From Staffordshire to Providence: A Transferware Project by Andrew Raftery
From the last quarter of the 18th century to the end of the 20th century, the potteries of Staffordshire in England produced massive amounts of prints on clay. Andrew Raftery will present his research into historical transfer printed wares and his own recent work on a set of twelve transfer printed earthenware plates.
Presenter 3: Andrew Saftel, Pikeville, Tennessee, USA
Paper Title: Work in Mexico: from Prints to Tapestries
Saftel will present his work work in printmaking and its connections with his recent tapestries produced in Mexico. The tapestry project evolved using imagery initially created for a series of prints in woodcut, drypoint and collagraph. He will also discuss the different crafts produced in an area of central Mexico where he has spent part of each year doing studio work since 2009.
