emiko-o reware

Friday Schedule

DAY 1
7:45 AM Friday: The early bird catches the worm and a whole lot of presentations here in the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Minneapolis MN. Arrived LATE last night (my need to take public transit everywhere) and signed in way too early this morning, thermos in hand. Harriete Estel Berman and I are Ready for action, and it didn’t take long for the atrium to be buzzing with anticipation (for the Thursday tours and pre-conference scoop, check  out Harriete’s blog). Used to the cattle rush of SNAG conferences, it is refreshing to be a part of a smaller group here at this conference (imagine half as many or less); surprising, actually since Craft embodies so many more fields of interest than just metals. Perhaps it’s the recession, time of year, or location, but I have a feeling that after people hear about this year’s conference, the next one will have a much larger attendance. (Yes, that is an img of today’s schedule: 9+ events, not including the evening craft tours!)

Many familiar faces in the crowd, many from the Philadelphia SNAG conference that for a moment I forgot what conference I was really at, and as Harriete and I were mentally preparing ourselves, a few stopped by to say hi and wish us luck: Sienna Patti, Namita Gupta Wiggers (who will be presenting a panel tomorrow about internet marketing for which I’m SO excited), and Lena Vigna (she co-authored with Namita the recent Metalsmith article, Ornamentalism Revisited, and is curating an upcoming exhibition with a similiar feel at Miami University Art Museum).
Lena tells me that she was part of one of 7 Convenings dialogues, small gatherings of specialized groups such as curators, educators, writers, of which the participants were specially invited by ACC. Forums for people to get to know one another and begin to raise questions. This arose due to feedback from the 2006 ACC Conference. Some of the issues that came out of Lena’s curators’ forum:
-What happens when artists don’t identify themselves as craftspeople?
-Recognizing that 20th Century Craft should be regarded as a Historical movement (and move forward with 21st Century craft as a new one).

8:30 AM: ACC Board Chair, Leilani Lattin Duke, opened this years conference speaking of the themes to Creating a Craft Culture:
-Thinking about Craft and the Individual, the Community, and the Marketplace
-The Idea of Making: how it address the rapidly changing world and Crafts place in it

Dr. Richard Sennet, Keynote

8:45 AM: Keynote Speaker: Dr. Richard Sennett. A little background: Sociologist and writer,  the most recently published book is The Craftsman. He founded, with Susan Sontag and Joseph Brodsky, The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, was an advisor to UNESCO & president of the American Council on Work; teaches at New York University and the London School of Economics.
The Craftsman argues that the craftsman’s realm is far broader than skilled manual labor; the computer programmer, the doctor, the parent, and the citizen need to learn the values of good craftsmanship today.

OK, enough background, let’s get down to it–I was glad the Dr. prefaced his talk with “You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m a Night Person” (so am I, Richard; trying to speak before 10 am IS challenging)–so I forgave him for the sluggish, somewhat philosophical sputterings at the beginning, comparing computer engineers to craftsmen, and Linux as public craft. I mean, I get it since my fiancé is a techie, but many artists glaze over after more than a few minutes of techie speak.

The question of the hour (and theme for the day) is: Why is it that Mediocracy tends to dominate over Quality in our society? In the modern workplace, delivering Quality is regarded/rewarded less than delivering Results. Thus we don’t reward craftsmanship since we don’t reward quality. How do we maintain the balance of Quality and Democracy?

Craft is exploratory; in craftsmen, there is a deep relationship between problem solving and problem finding–good craftsmen want to see what opens up when solving problems. It’s about the craftsmanship in learning, in stopping to dwell on things and find out what’s interesting and possible.  Unfortunately our society doesn’t look kindly upon learning at this pace.

What’s the solution?–Remove craftsmen from the need to produce Products and return importance to Process.

See what Harriete has to say on her blog here.

Gallery Panel SNAG

The last segment of the PDS program, The Evolving Role of the Gallery in a Virtual World of Commerce, gave us the insider perspective of what it takes to run a gallery in this age of internet commerce, not to mention a bad economy. Each gallery owner had 5 minutes to show a powerpoint presentation about their gallery and mission. From left to right: Ruth Synderman of Works Gallery, Beth Ann Gerstein of Society of Arts and Crafts, Sienna Patti of Sienna Gallery, Whitney Couch of ObjectFetish, Patti Bleicher of Gallery Loupe, Karen Lorene of Facére.

Questions posed to the group were:

1. What does a Brick and Mortar Store (all are physical sites, except for ObjectFetish being the sole online-only store) have to offer that justifies the 50/50 split on sales? Why wouldn’t an artist just sell retail through their own site or on Etsy?

2. How are they finding and educating new, young collectors?

3. And how is the internet affecting their sales?

Answers (higlights):

1. “the gallery is there to facilitate the future of the artist,”-Sienna Patti. “It’s ALL of our jobs to be the advocate for art jewelry,”-Karen Lorene.

2. Co-sponsoring important art jewelry exhibitions with local art museums, as Patti Bleicher did with the recent Helen Drutt Collection show; brings in new audiences. “All my customers are collectors,” says Karen, who makes a point to educate every customer about the artist they are purchasing from, even with a letter welcoming them to the world of art jewelry collecting.

3. Whitney finds that the competition, like Etsy, pushes her to work even harder to promote her artists; she encourages the competition!

Thanks to the PDS organizers for all of their hard work: w

SNAG PDS organizers

From left to right: Andy Cooperman, Harriete Estel Berman, Don Friedlich, Ken Bova. Also, much thanks to Etsy and MJSA for sponsoring this program.

This will be the last year that the PDS will be a Pre-Conference event. Next year, PDS will be incorporated into the SNAG conference itself (no more flying in the night before, maybe…)