2016 Summer craft forum, University of oregon

back-to-school

I contributed an essay, “Back-to-School” discussing my experiences at multiple residencies in 2016 and 2017: 2016 Summer Craft Forum at University of Oregon; “The Object’s Not the Point” with The Brick Factory at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts; Visiting Critic at ox-Box School of Art; and a multi-week residency with Norwegian Crafts, all in 2017.

DISCURSIVE (published in 2018) evidences a range of craft practices and ways that these intersect, challenge, and amplify each other through proximity and discourse. The artists and writers in this publication first came together for the 2016 Summer Craft Forum at the University of Oregon, During the two0week event, UO Faculty and visitors working in such media as ceramics, metalsmithing, fibers, and print occupied UP studies to make art and think collectively about craft, its relationship to discrete disciplines, and the individual practices of participants, After the forum, these people continued to work together in a number of capacities: lectures and panel discussions at th 2017 National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Conference, a Conversation on Craft at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, an exhibition entitled Made in Oregon at the White Box Galley, collaboratively teaching a class called Object Permanence at the Ox-Bow School of Art in Michigan, participation in an American Craft Council Think Tank, and a culminating exhibition, Discursive, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

DISCURSIVE is so titled to capture the spirit of this group’s engagements, which come from a place of expansive discourse, frequently moves from topic to topic without a formal order, and often resolves complex issues and expressions into simpler ones. This publication is meant to operate similiary while providing a space for contributors to show their work and concerns related to their practice.

Participants: Danielle Knapp, Ben Levy, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Rebekah Meyers and Tim Berg, Noah Breuer, Sonja Dahl, Jovenico de la Paz, Brian Gillis, Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Anya Kivarkis, Charlene Liu, Ian McDonald, Jeanne Medina, Stacy Jo Scott, Lori Talcott