Hand-Made In this course we will explore the terrain of the hand-made, beginning with contemporary ventures expanding traditional craft. Many works of radical craft, by individual artists and designers as well as collectives, will be explored. We will shift back and forth across the line of art and design until it blurs, tracing histories from Ruskin and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Industrial Revolution London, to the present. Sustainability and environmental considerations will be linked to these practices. The interdependence of hand-craft and technology will be considered, as current hand-craft endeavors can be partially understood as a reaction to our culture's predominant and impersonal corporate design; while at the same time a craft community is brought together via blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
An important component of the class will be learning a variety of hand making skills that extend particular crafts, such as knitting & sewing among others. There will also be presentations, readings and discussions with visiting artists and shop faculty. As a project-based studio workshop, the class will emphasize learning through making, focused on creating work using particular hand making skills.