back from craft-land

I spent the weekend in Minneapolis for the American Craft Council Conference and it was so intense that felt like a month but was really only 2 days. The luxury of just being able to think and talk (to anyone around you) about craft was really indulgent and amazing and so helpful in thinking about what direction and refine the focus of what it is I am most interested in Craft.

I am still unpacking alot of what was said and discussed. I knew that there could be some drama in the craft world and the drama was there in effect and really interesting, especially in the context of feeling a little like an outsider, not making a living via craft or coming from an institution. Above everything, the weekend reaffirmed the approach that I want to stay posited right where I am - one foot in the design world (where collaboration and commerce meet craft) and one foot in a DIY mode of learning and perfecting and making the work. The two spaces reinforce each other, and though its perhaps slower going than if I could devote all my time to it, with ready mentors, its already generating alot of interesting ideas and questions I want to explore.

I think that they will be posting podcasts of the lectures on the ACC website at some point in the future - for now I will be deciphering my notes and will write about my impressions in the next two weeks.

the problem of making a thing, but not selling a thing.

all the questions we are taught to use when you first meet someone:

what do you do?
where do you live?
what are your hobbies?

are designed to help you quickly put them in a definable box.

what is your place in our economy?
what sort of consumption patterns so you participate in?
not looking at everything every person as a commodity
is a really hard thing in our society.

In the craft world at large, more than likely meeting folks will lead to the questions:
"do you sell?"

My "correct" answer is 'I dont." I say that, and alot of the time there is a pause. oh. ok. Its a weird pause, like if youre not selling it...well...? Then what?

Sometimes its an enthusiastic: "you SHOULD!"

Is the more correct answer: "oh no, I just buy stuff. My role is the consumer."

I do purchase yarn, support local artisans in the community by purchasing tools I need from from them. I try to purchase the raw fiber from local dye artists who are dyeing and processing fiber on a small scale on their own terms. I am also a maker too - just not participating in the commodity exchange at the end of my project.

Somehow that answer bothers me.

Despite 40+ hour dayjob, I still cant help but make things in every other moment of my life. Even if during the day I have to use my hands on a keyboard and not on a wheel or needle for work.

Is the validation for being a craftsman in that you make something to sell? Can it be for the enjoyment of the work, the learning, the expression?

As you know, this is all about process an learning for me. I do this for the preservation and the desire and impetus to learn more, to keep the knowledge alive a flowing. There are not a ton of people out there who find spinning yarn (for example, for which I am most passionate) particularly fascinating, and I feel like I am one of the lucky few who do. (If you go to a spinning conference, you will find many many others) and its an obligation to the craft to learn everything I can about it, caretake what knowledge I can absorb, perhaps add my own spin to it, but more importantly keep it alive.

The best answer I can come up with right now is to borrow from my friend Zoe: "No, but I am a major Enthusiast." (its not assertive enough somehow.)

Or perhaps I would like to assert a reclamation of the term "AMATEUR" as one who gives themselves fully and devotionally to a subject while otherwise financially employed in an entirely different venture.

So,
how do you talk about what you do?
does it matter to sell a thing?
where does the thing you make go to live its potential?