Jon Jon Here

After the wayward rambling of Mr. Finkelstein I must implore the reader to explore the reader before the reader is sore.  This sort of a reader must enjoy verbal gerbilizings and wanton craftwork. I digress.

I recently explored two pamphlets of the right wing of literati of the Arts and Crafts War, namely, Metcalf's "Evolutionary Biology and Its Implications For Craft", and Jivan Astfalck's "Jewellery Art as a Fine Art Practice." Indeed with any war truth is the first casualty and the Arts and Crafts War remains no different. 

With the exploration of cultural mores inherent in human nature one must jump to the unenviable conclusion of craft as a sympathetic trade.  When coupled with the proclaimed genetic/evolutionary based differences referenced between men and women as hunter vs gatherer, this trade of sympathy grows bosoms. (A fitting counterpoint to another essay in the book Objects and Meaning, titled "Beyond the Binary") Why men should aspire to women's work I may never understand.

I read the title of the flyer with the preconception that the argument would be substantially evolutionarily based, i.e. on tool development and usage thus an easy argument for the development of utilitarian craft.  Only to find damaged brain discussions without a discussion on plasticity, an evolutionary case for sleaze and a craft-based panacea for the salvation of our rotten society.  Looking beyond the discursive nature of the text, I was continually delighted by the contempt or distortion for artistic conceit or content.

Turning to Astfalck's article in New Directions in Jewellery, I had found my Claudius to drink the poison.  Beyond the misprint in the title, the complete subjugation of jewelry as an hierarchical subcategory beneath a larger Fine Art world could only leave one mute and funny in the head.  When Fine Art subsumed the wearable and even the framed conceptual object my neighbors complained about the "awful wretching next door. Sounds like he's got a mountain lion with a hairball."  Such gore I had not seen since Calder fed Sam Kramer to his hogs.  The insinuation of the relegation of pure utility to the workman and as inappropriate for the artist churns the stomach of any well known crafter.  Had Jivan not heard of Dali? Dada? Cage? Kinkade? Rauschenberg? Indeed Astfalck had drawn the line in the sand.  And he has claimed Craftasia for FineLand. 

Every artist may show good craft; indeed, I do bite my thumb sir.

The Red Coats of Craft shall prevail!  May the savages of the Fine Arts drown in a shallow grave.  (Leave the hammer, take the cannoli.)