Knowledge for the Rebellion
In an attempt to educate us, one of the Profs. in the Jewelry department has instead managed to give us (us = students in the 20-something age group) some names and definitions of what it is about this department's philosophy that bothers us.
Firstly theres a generational gap occuring in the art world. the people in control of what is mainstream, like owners and curators of galleries, museums, magazines, grants and monies, group up in the modernist mindset. Fine art is idealistic, philisophical, pure. They tend to see "Craft" as something a bit less. An at-home hobby, unskilled meanderings, a celebration of material rather than of thought. Fine art looks inward, and craft only reflects what is outward.
My age group, the Us previously noted, don't see the bloody difference in the two, or at the least don't believe that Craft is a lesser form of art. We're products of Post-modernist artists, who didn't need pedistals, fine materials, or even context, to be fine artists.
So the battle we're now able to wage against the faculty isn't simply based on an uneasiness with our lack of industry skills like designing and drawing before construction ever starts, it now also involves our fight for the integration of craft ideals. Many of us are here to learn to be commercial jewelers (think your local mall-shop jewelery store) and not 'Art Jewelers' who think high thoughts and rely on collectors and galleries to pay for their work. We find material celebration and the search for asthetic and precision to be just as rewarding as creating universal symbolsim out of our childhood memories. Like craft, we want to build upon what foundation has already evolved, not reject history in order to be completely new as fine art styles have done for so long.
We've already had one success. One of the full time Profs, Pei-Jung Chen, has decided to place a stronger emphasis on designing before projects in her studio classes, and is concidering creating an expirimental Special Topics class specifically for the descriptive drawing skills we glazed gently over in the already-mandatory Rendering class.
And not one of us loudmouths can complain about the extra homework ^ .^
Firstly theres a generational gap occuring in the art world. the people in control of what is mainstream, like owners and curators of galleries, museums, magazines, grants and monies, group up in the modernist mindset. Fine art is idealistic, philisophical, pure. They tend to see "Craft" as something a bit less. An at-home hobby, unskilled meanderings, a celebration of material rather than of thought. Fine art looks inward, and craft only reflects what is outward.
My age group, the Us previously noted, don't see the bloody difference in the two, or at the least don't believe that Craft is a lesser form of art. We're products of Post-modernist artists, who didn't need pedistals, fine materials, or even context, to be fine artists.
So the battle we're now able to wage against the faculty isn't simply based on an uneasiness with our lack of industry skills like designing and drawing before construction ever starts, it now also involves our fight for the integration of craft ideals. Many of us are here to learn to be commercial jewelers (think your local mall-shop jewelery store) and not 'Art Jewelers' who think high thoughts and rely on collectors and galleries to pay for their work. We find material celebration and the search for asthetic and precision to be just as rewarding as creating universal symbolsim out of our childhood memories. Like craft, we want to build upon what foundation has already evolved, not reject history in order to be completely new as fine art styles have done for so long.
We've already had one success. One of the full time Profs, Pei-Jung Chen, has decided to place a stronger emphasis on designing before projects in her studio classes, and is concidering creating an expirimental Special Topics class specifically for the descriptive drawing skills we glazed gently over in the already-mandatory Rendering class.
And not one of us loudmouths can complain about the extra homework ^ .^