Makers: A History of American Studio Craft by Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf will officially go on sale in July 2010 with a cover price of $65.
Due in bookstores in July 2010 is the long-awaited textbook designed to be the definitive word on Studio Craft in the U.S. Entitled Makers: A History of American Studio Craft ( 2010, University of North Carolina Press, $65), and co-authored by the tag-team of art critic Janet Koplos and jewelry designer Bruce Metcalf, the book’s publication will be the culmination of an almost decade-long project hatched during a 2002 retreat at The University of North Carolina Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, where some of the 21st century’s heaviest thinkers on contemporary craft including Glenn Adamson gathered to discuss “how to place craft into a larger cultural context.” First on the official white paper’s list of recommendations was to create a book. “The idea for this survey text is overwhelmingly considered the most important charge,” read the executive summary. But what to make of both authors’ strongly worded lectures delivered at Glass Art Society conferences that openly challenged much of the artwork made from the material of glass and its suitability as a medium for fine art? Many in the glass field are anxious to see how Studio Glass will fare in this important book designed to be a major textbook used in colleges and universities for years to come.
The cause for concern will be obvious to anyone who may have heard the authors’ lectures about art made from glass. How will Studio Glass be positioned in relation to the work made from the materials of ceramics, wood, metal, and fiber that Koplos has championed in her many reviews for Art in America, where she was a longtime senior editor before leaving to edit American Craft for a year? Koplos has made no secret of her visceral distaste for much of the work made from the material of glass, most notably in her remarks during the Strattman Lecture at the 2006 Glass Art Society conference in St. Louis. In a presentation she entitled “Reconsidering Glass,” Koplos bravely put forward her personal reasons for not liking most of the artwork she had seen in the material of glass which she blamed on surfaces that “speak of tools, not hands” and too much concern with technique over metaphor.
Three years later, her co-author, Bruce Metcalf, made a presentation at the 2009 Glass Art Society conference at Corning which he entitled “The Glass Art Conundrum.” In his talk, Metcalf argued that many glass artists who present their work as sculpture would be better off calling themselves “decorative artists” because their objects lack a convincing conceptual framework. (For the record, Metcalf called his own work as a jeweler “decorative art” as well.) Metcalf was especially scathing in his dismissal of glass that he felt offered little to viewers besides cheap optical effects.
Having left little room for doubt about their strong reservations about much of what is presented as glass art in their individual presentations, one cannot help but be concerned that Koplos and Metcalf might have only reinforced in one another a strong skepticism about work in this material. How this may have played out in what is supposed to be the definitive text about Studio Craft will only become clear when copies of Makers become available.
Order the book before June 1st for a special pre-publication discounted price of $48.75 at the Center for Craft Creativity and Design Website.
It’s not that Janet Koplos and I love glass or not. Love is not a useful quality when it comes to writing a history. What matters is scholarship, good writing, fairness, and a willingness to entertain work seriously, no matter what one might feel about it personally. If it’s love you want, then resign yourself to the kind of uncritical cheerleading that used to characterized most writing about glass.
In “Makers,” we traced the history of studio glass from LaFarge and Tiffany, Carder and Steuben, the Higgenses and Glen Lukens and Edris Eckhardt – even before we took up the hot glass movement in the late 60s. The standard accounts of American studio glass have never covered this older history in one book. I’m biased, but I believe we performed an important service to the field here.
I think we were fair. Most of the usual suspects are covered in detail, from Littleton on. For instance, in the last chapter on the 1990s, we wrote about Dorothy Hafner, Ginny Ruffner, Josiah McElheny, Dante Maroni, William Morris, Daniel Clayman, Jack Wax, and Judith Schaechter. That’s a decent representation, isn’t it? One might complain that certain figures were not included, but it was impossible to include every worthy artist. (The book is 529 pages long as it is!) Just for the record, The book doesn’t include me, either.
I also think our tone was even-handed and respectful. This is a history, and it will be judged on how well it explains the field. It was not our job to advocate for anything. If readers detect the faintest hint of promotion, the credibility of the entire project will be called into question.
From time to time, we were skeptical of the claims made by and for certain makers. Should we accept the writing of James Krenov uncritically? How about Rose Slivka’s mythologizing of Peter Voulkos? Or the puffery about this or that glass artist? No.
There’s a vast amount of good information in “Makers.” A reader can trace the story of a single medium if they like, but that would be to miss the point. The other stories – the way craft was invented in the 19th century as a response to industrialization, the way craft entered the educational system in this country, the way craft represents both the grass-roots and the elite – all these threads play into the history of any one medium.
I think most people will be satisfied with our account of studio glass. Speaking strictly for myself, in writing the book I came to a deeper respect for a number of glass artists – Edris Eckhardt, Robert Kehlmann, Dante Maroni and Daniel Clayman among them. It was, as they say, a learning experience.
I LEFT THIS REVIEW ON AMAZON.COM. IF YOU THINK IT’S HELPFUL, GO TO THEIR WEB SITE, CLICK TO “MAKERS”, AND AT THE END OF THE REVIEW CLICK “YES, IT WAS HELPFUL”
When it was announced that Bruce Metcalf would team up with Janet Koplos on this very important project, we were curious as to the decision as Ms. Koplos has a long held, very verbal prejudice against the world of glass. 20 years ago, the Art Alliance For Contemporary Glass funded Glass Magazine to commission critical essays by art critics as a way to get them to do research into the emerging world of artists using glass as an art-making medium. Janet Koplos was commissioned and what she had to say was that THERE ARE NO PEOPLE WORKING IN GLASS WHOSE WORK RISES TO THE LEVEL OF ART. She was talking about the 20 – 25 people she now covers in this book. 5 years ago, when William Warmus did a major show of art made from glass at the Norton Museum, Palm Beach, we invited Ms. Koplos to come as our guest to see how wrong she was. She declined saying that NOTHING HAD CHANGED.
I bought this beautiful, large book to see how it came out and spent yesterday reading the parts about glass. I was pleased to see that many of the short pieces written about the glass people were accurate and not written from the perspective of an art critic…………but some were. Let me say, however, that what was written wasn’t very informative.
What shocked me, but it wasn’t a surprise, were the entries about Dale Chihuly, William Morris and Michael
Glancy. Ms. Koplos just couldn’t get through this project without her critic’s barbed tongue. Instead of talking about Chihuly as the engine that powered the Studio Glass Movement. Instead of talking about how he developed a vocabulary with his small work and let it take him naturally into his designs for grand installations. Instead of writing about the huge community of glass craftsmen who followed him to Seattle and worked for him over the years as they honed their skills, she concentrates on the economics of his business and the Disneyland effect of some of his major installations that have drawn millions of people. She never even covers “Chihuly Over Venice” or “Chihuly In The Light Of Jerusalem” which were spectacular projects. I guess Ms. Koplos just can’t get over people who begin in the Studio Crafts Movement and who use their skills to break out into the art world. Maybe it has to do with money. Maybe Ms. Koplos is more comfortable with potters and weavers who eek out a living and uncomfortable with “craftspeople” who work in the world of large money where their work commands hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that’s something for her to deal with……………but not in this book.
As for her review of William Morris who she says is probably the most skillful gaffer of his time, it’s horrifying to read “praised by his apologists as a spriitual sensitive man. It is an image hard to reconcile with the marketing of a hunky glassblower. Being photographed in tank tops to muscular advantage in the hot shop…….”. Give me a break. And the idea that the limited work from his Canopic Jar series commands more than a quarter of a million dollars ruins it for Ms. Koplos again, because she’s more comfortable in the company of craftspeople who haven’t “made it”.
Given this kind of personal prejudice, it’s hard for me to want to really read this book in its entirety but I shall in the coming weeks.
So how do I rate this book……..”In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”. Jansen it ain’t.
DOUG ANDERSON
doug@d2anderson.com
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