Catch-up Post

I never got around to posting for chapter 10 and 11 or the review of Craft in America so this is my catch-up post. I want to apologize to all of you for not doing this sooner but I want to make sure I get it done. 

I'm going to start with the Craft in America series. I watched my first one during my 6th period. I put it on the projector while they worked and watched. I explained to them it was a part of my grad school work and explained what we were learning. It ended up being a perfect for our clay unit we started. We watched Memory first and I loved it. Memory is what drives a lot of my artwork and pottery. I loved learning more about artists like Mary Jackson and her sweetgrass weaving and seeing how Sam Maloof's woodshop operates. This episode was so good we went on to watch in the days to come Service, Orgins, Process and Communities. I want to own this series for my class. The students (middle schoolers) were enamored with the things they were seeing. In all honesty, I wish I would have watched these in the first weeks of this class. I felt like after watching it I went back through my book and reconnected with works I had studied before. I feel like if I had watched them before I would have a foundation for what I would have read. I would feel more connected to things I knew nothing about. Reading has never been my strong suit. I enjoy it on rare occasions and part of that is because I am not good at it. I've never been the best reader even in grade school. When I read about topics I know something about from other sources, I feel more inspired to read further about them. As silly as this is, it reminds me I have students that are the same way. I loved this series though. I want to watch them all. Service was definitely one of my favorites. I loved hearing about the work soldiers made when they came back from war. Pottery influenced by war and how something so "craft" became conceptually deep in an artistic way. Ehren Tool was my favorite artist from the series. If you haven't looked at his work I would encourage you to do so and to watch the Service episode. 

Chapter 10 and 11. I'll be honest. The week this was assigned was the last week of the six weeks for me and I never got around to reading it that week. I read it after I watched Craft in America and as I was reading I saw many artists I had seen in the series. Like I said before, I connected more with the reading because of the prior knowledge I had gained from Craft in America. Mary Jackson's sweetgrass baskets are in here, I loved that section. I think her work is beautiful and I love the tradition she carries on with every piece she painstakingly makes. Basket weaving is HARD! It's a laborious task that has to be backed by passion and respect for the craft. I am in awe of her work. I noticed in this chapter there was a lot of blurred lines between functionality and design. You question the function of the piece because of how complex the design is like in John Cederquists piece and Wendy Maruyama's piece in chapter 10. I was surprised to see woodworking that made me feel a connection to clay like in Ellsworth's piece. The turning of wood, or blind turning in his case, is so closely related to the throwing of a pot and that fascinates me. Over all I saw a shift in design in these two chapters. I felt the functionality fade a bit for the sake of design. Things became more sculptural. I enjoyed the work of Paul Stankard and the intricacy of his glass. I feel like I enjoyed other chapters more than these because how conceptual some of these pieces are. I enjoy traditional craft and much of this felt unconventional. I like both but my preference is more towards traditional as a whole. 

I am in the process of finishing my project up. I will post that as soon as I finish :) I'm excited to show you all!