What is Craft....

one resource I've appreciated is the American Craft Council
http://www.craftcouncil.org/

..There is an inherent pleasure in making. We might call this joie de faire (like joie de vivre) to indicate that there is something important, even urgent, to be said about the sheer enjoyment of making something exist that didn't exist before, of using one's own agency, dexterity, feelings and judgment to mold, form, touch, hold and craft physical materials, apart from anticipating the fact of its eventual beauty, uniqueness or usefulness.
Ellen Dissanayake, "The Pleasure and Meaning of Making"
AMERICAN CRAFT, April/May 1995

Projects - buttons

Mary and I made buttons, here are a few we made:
polymer clay, around 1 1/4" in diameter.

Lots more experimenting to do...
These came out more gold than we intended, still need some sanding down around the edges.  Next: play more with texture and shapes.

Handmade Nation

There is a documentary
(trailer at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evDFo6-RBVc) called Handmade Nation that documents the movement of artists, crafters and designers, the new DIY movement (do it yourself), fueled by the common thread of creating.

It's about people and why the make what they make, and selling on Etsy.com,  and how handmade is better than corporate production.....

Idea Sharing

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” ~George Bernard Shaw

Lately I seem to have an abundance of ideas, and need to figure out what to do with them all!  so, I started this blog to try and collect ideas to be able to take action on them!

Another Artist Statement: Elise Winters

I like her descriptive words, and some of them feel right to me as well.  Color, light, what a material feels like when I work with it...

Elise Winters,  her artist’s statement reads:

“Concern for color and light has followed me through every phase of my artistic career.
Early on, my first masters’ project addressed light patterns in translucent porcelain which I created by manipulating thickness and texture.  As I potter, I found joy in twisting, pulling and shaping that pliable material into full organic forms. Then, years as a photographer allowed me to explore the ephemeral quality of light and color in nature… the reflective shimmer off a rippling stream, the delicate shifting colors of the evening sky, the iridescences of creatures in a tidal pool, the blush of color on the skin of rip fruit.
My current work in polymer affords me the opportunity to merge all these concerns. I use specially formulated metallic acrylic paints and iridescent glazes to create shimmering luminous color effects over the polymer. The result is a seductive convergence of additive and subtractive color mixture allowing me to play with all the dimensions of color and light over the surface of my jewelry.”
with this piece: Red RUFFLE Ruche, 2009
polymer, acrylic
8 x 9 x 1″, promised gift, Newark Museum
http://polymerartarchive.com/2009/10/23/winters-bishoff-a-final-look-at-sculpting-color/

Beauty and the NOW

One of the books on the floor by my bed, waiting to be read is "The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters" by Sarah Susanka.    I was skimming thru the book, and the following caught my eye

"Beauty, when you experience it fully, opens the door to being in the Now just as surely as any death defying act, by stunning the senses equally as powerfully."

Which is what happens in the natural world, when I catch sight of the moon, or stop to see a beautiful sunrise or sunset.  And when I pick up a something that feels good.  It reconnects me with being in the present.


I got a little distracted by looking up beauty on the web, and bumped into http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/   which is in sort of a wikipedia for philosophers.

This is a picture I took this summer of Mt Rainier with a great lenticular cloud over it.