Review of 2 Crafts Videos:Crafts Traditions Part 3 and The Chinese New Years.

CRAFTS TRADITIONS PART 3

Susan Harmon, April 11, 2016

Traditional Crafts (online) Futur Atkins, Professor

This film was selected for the Ulster American Society's "Northern Ireland Film Festival" that was held on November 7 & 8, 2008 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. This film is about the pleasures of working with wood. It highlights two people who love working with wood and teaching young people to work with local wood in Ireland. The first person crated  table with oak highlighted timber and creating decoration and contrast by inlaying walnut, a darker local wood. He uses the darker inlaid wood to also give symmetry to the piece. It adds richness to the surface because of its darker color. He talks about his love of working with wood especial local timber and his love for working with his hands in creating something from nothing. He talks about his love of using the rich outdoors in Ireland and making something to enrich the indoor space. He discusses the consumer in today’s society and mass production and that he thinks people want something handmade that has more meaning and will survive from generation to generation not simply a bought mass produced table with no meaning, that will be thrown away and forgotten in a few years. The second person is making a chair and teaches young people how to make something important and valuable out of timber. She discusses the importance of teaching this skill to those less fortunate with low self-esteem and who may never even passed an exam so the gratification of creating something from a long is immense. The sensual quality of working with wood and the wonderful smell of wood only enhance the experience and process. She feels that the more of yourself you invest in the final product the more you get out of it. The way the light reflects on the wood impresses her greatly and the process and patience of making a table or chair from wood is immense. The pleasure of the process and knowing that you transformed something is so pleasing. They love using oak and creating a unique one.This was a beautiful film and I was actually surprised at my love of this process of woodworking as it is so different from mine.this movie ws beautiful with the imagery and the personal touch of the artists that yes I would show it to a class who was beginning to work in woodwork as it shows the way a log can be transformed into a beautiful table or chair.I do not think my family would benefit or be interested in the film.I don't think it changed the way i work in my studio.I was impressed by the quality of the final inlaid decoration of the table and I will take away that woodworking is a beautiful artist process.

CELEBRATION Episode

55:06 Aired: 12/11/15" Rating: NR Discover the role craft plays in our winter holiday traditions, rituals, and festivities. Featuring lion dancers and float builders for San Francisco’s acclaimed Chinese New Year Parade, artists in Michigan making ceramics for the holidays at Pewabic  (Detroit) and Motawi Tile works (Ann Arbor), Kwanzaa celebrations with artists in Chicago and Oakland, and Christmas card making with Yoshiko Yamamoto." This video is about The Chinese New Year’s but begins with the making of a beautiful printed Christmas card.This is a beautiful movie, the costumes the parade are so beautifully made.The inside details to how the costumes of the lions are made is amazing.This is a movie to show your class and your family.The lion dancer and artist shows us how he fixes the broken costume with bamboo and tape it is 20 years old and he is fixing it.The demonstration of the painting of the lioness and the blending of the colors is beautifully explained.The artists discusses, for example why they use green to paint the nose as it stands for benevolence and he says what an honor it is to be passed this responsibility.I don't think this changed the way I work in my studio but it was a beautiful video with wonderful lively colors.

BOOK REVIEW:THE WHITE ROAD BY EDMUND DEWAAL

The White Road by Edmund De Waal is about porcelain;a love affair between a potter,Edmund De Waal and porcelain and his journey to China and other countries,England and Germany to visit the villages and people who make the porcelain.H e openly shares his many personal moments in this very very detailed diary of his travels and his many encounters are simply  memorable and intimate.He begins his journey in China page 38.."There are a mass of poor families...many young workers and weaker people..the blind and the crippled who spend their lives grinding pigments........18,000 families,possibly 100,000 people making a living from porcelain...walking through this densely packed city with it's narrow streets was like being in the middle of a carnival..."

He talks about the weather and how it affects the porcelain..it so cold in the winter that it freezes and is useless.He calls this his "white hill"..he spends 10 days here,he has a driver who takes him allover and .he comes down from the mountains into the city of white porcelain,Jingdzhen. Everyone here makes porcelain and his/her children and his /her parents and their parents and so on.They begin with each morning rolling ropes of porcelain and the potters make petals and so on..This is a famous city and is where his story  about porcelain begins"It is the city of secrets,a millennium of skills,fifty generations digging and cleaning and mixing white earth,making,knowing porcelain,full of workshops,potters,glazers and decorators. H e talks even about the food,you really feel as if you are in china in this village covered with white powder,walking through the factories and the streets where people know nothing else but a life which begins and ends with the making of porcelain.There are so many stories about the commissioned pots and those who commissioned them.
This is a 400 page book so I am trying to simply post what I take away from reading it,what impresses me and what surprises me.Well, everything surprises me about this book because I was totally ignorant about porcelain,the making of anything porcelain.

The book dedicates some pages to some stories about those who made"white pots"I feel I would be remiss to not retell at least one or maybe two....
There is a story of an emperor who loved white porcelain and the story goes something like a Muslim ruler gave a gift of jade bowls but the emperor refused the gift because he said this..."The Chinese porcelain that I use everyday is pure white and translucent, and it pleases me greatly.There is no need to use jade bowls"page 79.This was the Yongle emperor born in 1360,there are many stories told in this book about him.Many pages dedicated to his leadership and achievements as this author continually includes historical accounts in these chapters.He talks about the rain and the rain and how he cannot sleep in the rain...."The rain comes down....""So it is three in the morning and I try to count post that is what I do when I cannot sleep and it rains....now let us move on to Dresden,"it is my Second Porcelain City"he says....and he goes on and on again about the rain....He talks about the city and his sightseeing adventures there in the city of king Augustus II who kept those Chinese kilns going all night and  due to his obsession with porcelain.He goes on and on for pages about King Augustus,his mistresses and habits etc...and all the money he spends and all of his women..then he says"and now he spends on porcelain".... so the author talks about the porcelain in the royal collections.so by the time the king dies he has collected...35,798 pieces of porcelain.page 151.He says he has "porcelain sickness" and that he could never get enough of porcelain,it is a sickness."He is the emperor of white".He goes on and on about how Dresden is affecting him.he discusses the Albrechtsburg castle which is high above Meissen where Bottger was a prisoner and where the king's madness grew due to his obsession with porcelain.This is a castle on cliffs 7 stories high on a bluff "it is perfect for keeping secrets,but as a study in how time and motion work and of course how to make and decorate and fire the very delicate porcelain.page 196."The white clay comes down the river from Colditz,mined in the Erzberg mountains, and is carried up the hillside to the lowest of cellars to be washed of impurities....Wet clay is kept in another cellar and then is brought up to the throwers and the modellers on the top floor,up a dramatic Gothic spiral staircase......."This book is so very visual I picture everything which is described in such detail....."But try carrying a basket of kaolin up 200 steps on your shoulder.Then try going downwards and round,with a board of pots"page 197..he discussed the making of porcelain in great depth.."The porcelain recipe is a secret" so he says that  broken pieces even have to be thrown away in secrecy."Meissen becomes the white hill...I stoop,and embedded in the compacted floor are crescents of white"page 198.

Next.... England,his home and to find "his third white cup"....so England and porcelain is where we will end this summary. De Waal  discusses the Quaker ,Cookworthy (who practically suffers a mental breakdown due to his constant and De Waal does find his first piece of porcelain ever made in England.I have to stp even thoughI could go on and on..I leave you with this thought.."thoughts of whiteness"page 260

"What is white?It is the colour of mourning,because it folds all colours within it.Mourning is also endless refraction,breaking you up into bits,fragments".....The End....Yes this book has moved me and yes it is now is in my head and yes it is now in my heart and his words will come now into my work....

The 3 Art Projects and Essay Informed by Our Textbook

and the dead can dance,3'x1',sand on sand paper,triptych

THE ESSAY ABOUT MY PROCESS

MY PROCESS in creating art is always the same; whether I am making a clay piece or a painting or a photograph. I always begin by writing words on my studio walls,LARGE AND LARGER and then  small and smaller. The words continue spilling out in the book or books which are informing the art, and on small and on large pieces of paper. I am beginning to  to prepare my subconscious for making art. In this case, I kept thinking about the text book; the content, the guilds, the progress in crafts education, the individual artists/mentors/instructors. But that did not get me the end outcome that I hoped for, which as always,for me,is a work of art which is emotive. So I turned off the lights in my studio,I sat on the floor and crossed my legs and closed my eyes to clear my mind and start again. I asked myself the same questions we were asked in class about each chapter:What surprised me? What Impressed me? What did I take away? This was too broad as there is just too much material in this book...so I decided to say to myself,What is the most important thing about this book to me?

I kept seeing in my head and hearing(what I assumed)would sound like  the chanting of Hosten Klah (Pages 109-110)."He wove sand painting rugs only for the chants that he was qualified to sing,including Night way,Shooting way and Mountain way."..."So here is the emotion to me these emotional haunting and meaningful chants.Then I liked this.."His family looms for weaving ordinary rugs were not large enough to siuit Klah,who had one built that would hold a rug twelve feet square."I also work very very large so now I am relating bigtime,I have emotion I have large size...now color,all my work focses on intense color..."Other colors were derived from Mexican indigo and cochineal dyes."page 110.

Hosteen Klah in middle age.
Born	Navajo: Hastiin Tłʼa, Awééʼ ashkii 1867 Bear Mountain, near Fort Wingate, New Mexico
Died	February 27, 1937
Nationality	American / Navajo
Known for	Weaver, artist and medicine man (chanting and sandpainting)
Movement	Founded the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indianwith Mary Cabot Wheelwright

From Wikipedia

Hosteen Klah in middle age.

Navajo: Hastiin Tłʼa, Awééʼ ashkii
1867
Bear Mountain, near Fort Wingate, New Mexico

February 27, 1937

American / Navajo

Weaver, artist and medicine man (chanting and sandpainting)

Founded the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indianwith Mary Cabot Wheelwright

and the cold tightened it's fist,mixed on muslin,7'x3'
Informed also by the book by Ruta Sepetys,between shades of gray about Stalin's ethnic cleansing of Lithuania

INFORMED BY THE BOOK< DAUGHTERS OF JUAREZ

the dead can dance,mixed on muslin,7'x3'

informed by the music "til it happens to you",informed by the book The Daughters Of JuarezMIXED MEDIA PAINTING,7'x4',SMEARING THE RED

"til it happens to you",informed by the video/song by Lady Gagaand the book,The Daughters of Juarez

Relating to the reading in several ways:

• The content of the song is about college students being raped ,inhumane acts done to women which relates to the ideas in the book,helping make people aware of inhumane acts on women.
• Relating to Native American Tapestry creator who uses emotional chants to inform his work

SMEARING THE RED,7'X5',mixed on canvas

PIECES

This is an image I photographed from  side walk lines and edited. I will now listen to the emotional and religious chant of The a member of The Navajo Tribe along the emotional religious chant of the Jewish Prayer for the dead ,The Kaddish.I am Jewish so this chant resonates with me.My work is informed by stories of women who suffer trauma and their journey to heal.So I wanted this piece to relate to my work..This is the first of a three part piece.

into hiding

Informed by the movie,A Girl in the River,about Honor Killings.this is a photograph I have taken and edited of lines in the sidewalks,cracks.This piece relates to the readings about emotional art making and crafts becoming more abstract and focused on important content and serious ideas.