Studies in modern craft regularly offer new perspectives on broad material, social and economic issues, whether this relates to craft and the construction of national or regional identities, canonical movements within art and design, the representation of craft in consumer cultures, or bodies of thought that put making center-stage. The articles for this issue address these matters and more through the narrow lens of particular individuals; women and men who mobilized hand, head, tools and material to negotiate the complex world around them. The individuals focused on here are, however, not the conventional well-known stars of modern craft, like William Morris, Lucie Rie, Bernard Leach, Peter Voulkos or Sheila Hicks.
Elizabeth Perrill’s double article brings our attention to the pottery produced by Maria Martinez, the famous twentieth-century Pueblo potter from the American Southwest and to Nesta Nala, a Zulu potter who came to prominence in the 1980s–1990s. Picking up on the observation that the matriarchal lineage of the Nala potters has been linked by commentators to similar familial structures that support the indigenous craft of Martinez and of her descendants, Perrill brought together descendants of both of these two pioneers of black, burnished ceramic traditions (Barbara Gonzalez, Jabulile Nala, Thembile Nala) through a Skype conversation. The edited transcript of this cross-cultural dialog is preceded by an historical overview of the Martinez and Nala lineages, detailing the introduction of their pots to non-indigenous markets in the 1910s–1920s, and 1980s–1990s, respectively. Perrill shows how Martinez and Nala navigated the market pressures and critical discourses of their time, which often positioned their work as part of an unchanging tradition and distant from everything modern or contemporary. Examples include the use of the culturally static label “ethnic potter” to describe Nala, or the presentation of Martinez’s work as a part of “social Darwinist portrayals of American Indian cultures at world fairs.” Perrill’s analysis contextualizes each potter’s work in relation to changing political conditions—Martinez’s position within increasing Pueblo self-determination, and Nala’s popularity in South Africa as the “Rainbow Nation” forged ahead with a post-apartheid, multi-cultural identity—and draws attention to each potter’s negotiation of tourist markets. In addition to offering an appropriate methodology for the study of cross-cultural dialog, the Skype conversation reveals the continued difficulty of operating as a Zulu potter today, Gonzalez’s business acumen and experience of selling her work at folk and Indian fairs, and the goodwill between these two pottery lineages.
From burnished ceramics to needlepoint, the second article introduces the critic, social commentator, editor of Harper’s magazine from 1947 to 1967, and avowed embroiderer, Russell Lynes. Joseph McBrinn (our Book Review Editor) discusses Lynes’ contribution to debates about needlework’s position within the hierarchy of the arts and the craft’s popularity in the 1950s, and provides an overview of the postwar culture of panic in the USA prompted by men practicing embroidery. Lynes’ challenge to this status quo often took the form of direct parody of his contemporary, and hugely influential critic of the day, Clement Greenberg, who insisted on craft and art’s separation. Craft—and in particular needlecraft—signified for Greenberg the banality of the middlebrow, and a lack of originality, seriousness and authority; all things that he felt art should be. Whether it was through articles that poked fun at Greenberg’s rigid dichotomies between avant-garde and kitsch or a New York exhibition of needlepoint designs produced by notable artists of the era, McBrinn shows how Lynes explored the ambiguities of postwar US male subjectivity through an investigation of stitching’s relation to both modern art works and, more importantly, the discourses surrounding them.
Our third article represents a continuation of the effort to foreground the importance of women in the history of modern craft. Travelling further back into the past, and before the mid-century women who featured in Pathmakers special issue (The Journal of Modern Craft, 8.2, July 2015), Caroline Riley introduces us to the work of Alice Austin, a photographer active from 1900 to the 1930s. In order to secure her status as a professional practitioner, Austin advocated photography as a craft, harnessing the term’s homespun, domestic connotations in order to secure commissions within familial environments. Riley’s article explores how Austin’s techniques and approach to the medium ran counter to developments within modernist “straight photography” favored by Alfred Stieglitz, and outlines the many challenges she faced. In addition, Riley describes Austin’s critical role in the development of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts.
As usual, our Statement of Practice provides the opportunity for individual reflection on making, and in this issue Phoebe Cummings describes her peripatetic approach to working with clay. Her career in ceramics started with a declaration of bankruptcy, just months after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Equipped with one leftover bag of clay, Cummings explored the potential of using and reusing this same quantity of clay in a series of temporary, recursive installations: each time she finished an exhibition, the unfired clay could be returned to a state of use, ready for the next project. Cummings’ eloquent descriptions of her projects, from work inspired by the hostile landscapes of Greenland, to her two installations in Stoke-on-Trent’s monumental Spode China Hall, reveal a sensitivity to clay’s material qualities and its effectiveness as a metaphor for fading memory, the precariousness of skilled labor in postindustrial society, and reinvention.
Our final feature article—the Primary Text and Commentary—returns the spotlight to one of modern craft’s well-known pioneering individuals: the calligrapher, influential teacher, and one-time member of Ditchling’s Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, Edward Johnston. Yet, we do not read Johnston’s words, but instead those of one of his students, Margaret Alexander, who had private lessons with the calligrapher from 1930 to 1933. Given the huge influence Johnston’s teaching had on subsequent generations of calligraphers, scribes, bookbinders, engravers, and other practitioners, and anticipating the 100-year anniversary of his world-famous London underground typeface and “Bull’s-eye” logo in 2016, it is fitting to read a student’s perspective. In his commentary, Ewan Clayton, a former resident of Ditchling himself, provides remarkable insights into Johnston’s influence, incorporating fragments of the calligrapher’sreflections on his craft, his teaching philosophy, and his preference for thinking in threes.