Glass Catalyst at the WCU Fine Arts Museum - Reading List

Here is the first comprehensive survey of modern craft in the United States. Makers follows the development of studio craft--objects in fiber, clay, glass, wood, and metal--from its roots in nineteenth-century reform movements to the rich diversity of expression at the end of the twentieth century.

Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design is an in-depth examination of the American studio craft movement in the decades following World War II, with a focus on the major mediums (clay, wood, fiber, metal, jewelry, and glass) favored by the greatest craftspeople of the period. Published to coincide with an exhibition opening in October 2011 at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, this book explores the origins of the studio craft movement, the international influences that helped it grow in this country and abroad, and its convergence with the fine arts and design. This examination of the movement in the postwar years reveals how a new generation of craftspeople began to express cultural identity and artistic innovation through their work, which led to a proliferation of the craft movement in museums and exhibitions worldwide. A few of the many artists represented include Dale Chihuly, Charles and Ray Eames, Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima, and Peter Voulkos.

Marking its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1997, the Renwick Gallery has become the nation's premier showcase and study center for objects made of metal, fiber, wood, clay, and glass. This book serves as an introduction to the world of modern crafts, exploring in both words and pictures the vibrant diversity of objects that have entered the Renwick Gallery's collection.

Companion book to the PBS series of the same name, Craft in America highlights the work of America's craft artists, past and present. Illustrated with more than 200 images and signature objects from furniture, wood, ceramics, and glass, to fiber, quilts, jewelry, metal, and basketry, this work shows how crafts, long admired for their marriage of functionality and creativity, also reflect our nation's history and the remarkable people who passed on their traditions.

In The Persistence of Craft, contributors discuss the development of not only six specific crafts--glass, ceramics, jewelry, wood, textiles, and metal--but also the trends and movements that have helped shape their developments. Includes 180 full-color illustrations.

What is craft? How is it different from fine art or design? In A Theory of Craft, Howard Risatti examines these issues by comparing handmade ceramics, glass, metalwork, weaving, and furniture to painting, sculpture, photography, and machine-made design from Bauhaus to the Memphis Group. He describes craft as uniquely blending function with a deeper expression of human values that transcend culture, time, and space. Craft must articulate a role for itself in contemporary society, says Risatti; otherwise it will be absorbed by fine art or design, and its singular approach to understanding the world will be lost.

Exploring amateur craft in the modern era, from nineteenth century Sunday painters and amateur carpenters to modern day guerilla knitters and IKEA hackers, to put forward a historical and theoretical framework for understanding amateur craft as an integral element of capitalist modernity, and arguing for the importance of things made outside the increasingly standardized and rationalized world of professional everyday life.