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.