Glenn Adamson

From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects that have nurtured human development for thousands of years. The objects are still here, but we seem to care less and know less about them. In his presentations to groups, he often asks an audience member what he or she knows about the chair the person is sitting in. Few people know much more than whether it's made of wood, plastic, or metal. If we know little about how things are made, it's hard to remain connected to the world around us. Fewer, Better Things explores the history of craft in its many forms, explaining how raw materials, tools, design, and technique come together to produce beauty and utility in handmade or manufactured items. Whether describing the implements used in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the use of woodworking tools, or the use of new fabrication technologies, Adamson writes expertly and lovingly about the aesthetics of objects, and the care and attention that goes into producing them. Reading this wise and elegant book is a truly transformative experience.

The Hidden Wisdom of Objects

Fewer, Better Things

A groundbreaking and authoritative history of American craft and its role in the fight for social progress, from the nation's origins to the present day. The United States has always been a nation of makers. From initial settlement through successive waves of immigration, craft has been crucial to America's economy and identity, appealing to deeply held ideas of individuality and self-sufficiency. But while handmade objects are often valued as evocations of a bygone past, they have also played another, under-recognized role in our history, as forward-looking symbols and ethical guideposts, pointing firmly toward the future. In an important work of scholarship that is also entertainingly peopled and rich with illustrations and visual detail, leading historian Glenn Adamson unspools the story of craft in the United States, and argues for its importance as an activist force in American life. Beginning with Indian wampum and Revolutionary Era silver, Craft: An American History transports readers through the 19th-century utopianism of the Shaker community and the Arts & Crafts Movement, and on to the DIY creativity of contemporary organizing. Adamson's examination reveals that the artisan ethos is inextricable from the history of our nation, and our collective striving toward a more perfect union. In more ways than one, as this timely and absorbing history shows, America from the beginning had to be-and still remains to be-crafted.

An American History

Craft

Glenn Adamson's last book, Thinking Through Craft, offered an influential account of craft's position within modern and contemporary art. Now, in his engaging sequel, The Invention of Craft, his theoretical discussion of skilled work is extended back in time and across numerous disciplines. Adamson searches out the origins of modern craft, locating its emergence in the period of the industrial revolution. He demonstrates how craft was invented as industry's "other", a necessary counterpart to ideas of progress and upheaval. In the process, the magical and secretive culture of artisans was gradually dominated through division and explication. This left craft with an oppositional stance, a traditional or anti-modern position. The Invention of Craft ranges widely across media, from lock-making, wood-carving and iron-casting to fashion, architecture and design. It also moves back and forth between periods, from the 18th century to the present day, demonstrating how contemporary practice can be informed through the study of modern craft in its moment of invention.

The Invention of Craft

From the canonical texts of the Arts and Crafts Movement to the radical thinking of today's "DIY" movement, from theoretical writings on the position of craft in distinction to Art and Design to how-to texts from renowned practitioners, from feminist histories of textiles to descriptions of the innovation born of necessity in Soviet factories and African auto-repair shops...The Craft Reader presents the first comprehensive anthology of writings on modern craft. Covering the period from the Industrial Revolution to today, the Reader draws on craft practice and theory from America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The world of craft is considered in its full breadth -- from pottery and weaving, to couture and chocolate-making, to contemporary art, architecture and curation. The writings are themed into sections and all extracts are individually introduced, placing each in its historical, cultural and artistic context. Bringing together an astonishing range of both classic and contemporary texts, The Craft Reader will be invaluable to any student or practitioner of Craft and also to readers in Art and Design. AUTHORS INCLUDE: Theodor Adorno, Anni Albers, Amadou Hâmpaté Bâ, Charles Babbage, Roland Barthes, Andrea Branzi, Alison Britton, Rafael Cardoso, Johanna Drucker, Charles Eames, Salvatore Ferragamo, Kenneth Frampton, Alfred Gell, Walter Gropius, Tanya Harrod, Martin Heidegger, Patrick Heron, Bernard Leach, Esther Leslie, W. R. Lethaby, Lucy Lippard, Adolf Loos, Karl Marx, William Morris, Robert Morris, László Moholy-Nagy, Stefan Muthesius, George Nakashima, Octavio Paz, Grayson Perry, M. C. Richards, John Ruskin, Raphael Samuel, Ellen Gates Starr, Debbie Stoller, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lee Ufan, Frank Lloyd Wright

The Craft Reader

Justin McGuirk

Tim Marlow

Charlotte Perriand

Octavio Camargo

the Modern Life

handcrafted modernist furniture in Turkey --

Global Design History

Julia Bryan-Wilson

The first book to address the significance of the materials and methods used to make contemporary artworks

Artists and Their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing

Art in the Making

Virginia Chieffo Raguin

Jessica Marten

Diane C. Wright

Des Moines Art Center Staff

The first monograph on the work of a groundbreaking artist in stained glass.

Judith Schaechter's Stained-Glass Art

The Path to Paradise

T'ai Smith

Jenelle Porter

This lavish book documents the developments in the field of fiber-related art over the past half century. The 1960s saw a revolution in fiber art. Where once the focus was on knotting, twining, and coiling thread into works that were immediately recognizable, and therefore connected to utilitarian crafts, fiber artists of the later 20th-century began to experiment with abstract forms that were closer to sculpture than craft. Influenced by postmodernist ideas, these works are the product of experimentation with materials and technique while at the same time confronting important cultural issues. This book traces that development from the mid-twentieth century to the present. In the words of Bauhaus weaver Anni Albers, the expressive quality of fiber is essentially a "language of thread." That language is beautifully displayed in full-color spreads and individual illustrations in this book. Scholarly essays address the feminist movement of the 1970s; the expanded use of materials in the '80s and '90s; and the more recent employment of fiber as one more material in the creation of freestanding works. In addition to a section of full color illustrations, this book also includes profiles of all of the genre's most influential artists.

Sculpture 1960-Present

Fiber

Philip Baldwin

Petah Coyne

"Great Meadows" explores the home of Episcopal priest and contemporary art collector Al Shands, designed by architect David Morton and completed in 1988. The spectacular collection includes site-specific commissions by Petah Coyne, Sol LeWitt, Maya Lin, Stephen Vitiello and Betty Woodman.

The Making of Here

Great Meadows

Tanya Harrod

Edward S. Cooke, Jr.

The Journal of Modern Craft is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum in its subject area. It addresses all forms of making that self-consciously set themselves apart from mass production-whether in the making of designed objects, artworks, buildings, or other artefacts. The journal covers craft in all its historical and contemporary manifestations, from the mid-nineteenth century, when handwork was first consciously framed in opposition to industrialization, through to the present day, when ideas once confined to the 'applied arts' have come to seem vital across a huge range of cultural activities. Special emphasis is placed on studio practice, and on the transformations of indigenous forms of craft activity throughout the world. The journal also reviews and analyses the relevance of craft within new media, folk art, architecture, design, contemporary art, and other fields. The Journal of Modern Craft is the main scholarly voice on the subject of craft, conceived both as an idea and as a field of practice in its own right.

The Journal of Modern Craft

Simon Olding

Martina Droth

For nearly a century British potters have invigorated traditional ceramic forms by developing or reinventing techniques, materials, and means of display. Things of Beauty Growing explores major typologies of the vessel--such as bowl, vase, and charger--that have defined studio ceramics since the early 20th century. It places British studio pottery within the context of objects from Europe, Japan, and Korea and presents essays by an international team of scholars and experts. The book highlights the objects themselves, including new works by Adam Buick, Halima Cassell, and Nao Matsunago, featured alongside works by William Staite Murray, Lucie Rie, Edmund de Waal, and others, many published here for the first time. Rounding out the beautifully illustrated volume is an interview with renowned collector John Driscoll and approximately fifty illustrated short biographies of significant makers.

British Studio Pottery

Things of Beauty Growing

Edward S. Cooke

Robert Slifkin

This comprehensive survey of Paul Evans's work encourages a fresh look at the practice of making objects in the third quarter of the twentieth century, as it examines the dynamic career of an artist who evolved from metal-smith to furniture maker to designer, shifting his focus from the New York craft world to the national world of design.

Crossing Boundaries and Crafting Modernism

Paul Evans

Cindi Strauss

Garth Clark

Keelin Burrows

Published to coincide with an exhibition held at the the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Mar. 4-June 17, 2012.

The Garth Clark & Mark Del Vecchio Collection

Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Ceramics

Edmund De Waal

Victoria and Albert Museum

Alun Graves

Edmund de Waal is one of the leading artists working with ceramics today. He has also specialised in various large-scale installations which show groups of ceramic vessels, often in historic architectural settings. Signs and Wonders will be the largest and most ambitious installation commission, to date, by any single artist in a public or private space, which will be placed at the heart of the recently reopened ceramic galleries in the V+A. This beautifully illustrated book provides a very personal narrative on how the galleries have generated new ways of working. Archival pictures and newly commissioned photography of the installation made up of 425 pieces, are shown alongside examples from the V+A's world famous ceramics collection,which have in turn inspired Signs and Wonders.

Edmund de Waal and the V&A Ceramics Galleries

Signs & Wonders

Florian Hufnagl

Bernhard Schobinger

This overview of rings made by the Swiss Bernhard Schobinger illustrates why he is considered as one of the most expressive, critical and inspiring contemporary exponents of art jewelery.

The Rings of Saturn

Jen Padgett

"A companion to the exhibition Crafting America curated at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, this publication explores the interdisciplinary contexts of the assembled works, featuring contributions from scholars with expertise in art history, American studies, folklore, and museum studies. Essay topics include the significance of craft within Native American histories and explorations of craft's relationship to ritual and memory, personal independence, and abstraction"--

Artists and Objects, 1940 to Today

Crafting America

Ursula Ilse-Neuman

Julie M. Muñiz

Margaret De Patta

This publication is the catalogue of a retrospective exhibition on the work of pioneer jeweller Margaret De Patta. A seminal figure in the American Modernist Jewellery movement, De Patta trained as a painter in the Bay Area and at the Art Students League

The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta

Space, Light, Structure

Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London This book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today's visual arts, when high 'production values' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft's centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with clichéd arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft's role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.

Glenn Adamson

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