Crafts at Their Basic Best

For a quarter-century, crafts have edged toward the finer arts. Pots acquired the gloss of precious artifacts. Glass was admired as sculptural form on gallery shelves. Works in wood fostered conversation about artistic conviction, rather than neat joinery.

Now, in a welcome turn of the potter’s wheel, the American Craft Museum has put the focus back on basics. Instead of showcasing craft as self-expression, it is shining its prestigious light on craft work as essential object.

More than 400 modern artifacts have been gathered for “Objects for Use: Handmade by Design.” They are made of traditional craft materials: wood, metal, glass, ceramics, textiles and even woven grasses. And they strike stunning poses in the museum’s clean, Modernist installation. But the tradition on display dates back a century to the Arts and Crafts movement. These everyday objects--forks, knives, spoons, plates, cups, pitchers and more--were created to be beautiful, useful and good for the soul.

“I felt it was important to honor people addressing function,” says curator Paul J. Smith, the museum’s director emeritus. “There is nothing here just to look at.”

Smooth-finish wooden storage boxes will hold treasures neatly. Simple, modern stoneware is suitable for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Milky stemware can be dusted off when company comes. Satin-finished nickel door pulls shaped like gulls open a roomful of possibilities.

“The works celebrate the handmade, one-of-a-kind and small-production workshops and a uniquely American spirit of creativity,” says Smith.

They would be so nice to come home to, if one could afford them. The show doesn’t provide prices, but one-of-a-kind workmanship defies mass-market affordability, lifting crafts to the status of elite collectibles.

Smith made the craft show rounds and networked for years to select the 189 studios represented. He left out wearables and jewelry, two favorites on a juried craft circuit. Furniture is more expressive than the cleanly designed tableware. But Smith’s subtext is that crafts reveal the touch of the hand, and these pieces do that.

Far more interesting is the way Smith extends the definition of craft to classical music instruments, such as an exquisitely crafted pear wood Steinway grand piano, a cello and a harpsichord. The museum also gives space to a playful burst of Americana: handcrafted marbles, canoes, a saddle, kites, salmon flies, trout rods and surfboards.

The show is the second in a series whose title states its overarching goal: “Defining Craft.” The museum and Smith have plenty to say: The show sprawls over all three floors of the museum and into a neighboring bank lobby. A companion book from Harry N. Abrams makes the exhibition accessible, which is a good thing. This is craft at its back-to-basics best.

These days, an estimated 127,000 Americans make their living selling crafts, according to the first-ever survey by the Craft Organization Directors Assn. Their annual sales total an estimated $14 billion.

Among the successful artisans is Robert Coogan, whose Damascus steel-and-rosewood carving set is artful, and the knife sharp. Edward S. Wohl’s bird’s-eye maple breadboards are beautiful enough for display but were made for slicing. Mary A. Jackson’s South Carolina sweetgrass baskets are masterful exercises in form, but her family tradition emphasizes “that a beautiful basket is to be used for everyday living.” Smith notes that he pours his breakfast coffee into a mug by ceramicist Karen Karnes, whose tableware is on display.

The curator explains decades of emphasis on craft as art as a result of market forces. For example, art glass is a moneymaker, and glass artists rank at the top of the median income scale ($38,237).

The linkage of craft and design is not as clear. American Craft Museum Director Holly Hotchner and Chief Curator David Revere McFadden have talked up craft as part of a growing convergence of art, architecture and design. And design critic Akiko Busch, a contributing editor to Metropolis, a well-known chronicle of industrial design, was asked to contribute an essay in the catalog. “I am not a craft person,” she acknowledges. But she does see “something about the hand process that’s really, really relevant in the digital age.”

There are reasons to hope for a melding of worlds and skills. European artisans have long offered their talents to manufacturers. French crystal, German porcelain, Danish teak and IKEA textiles come to mind. By comparison, American industry has yet to tap its own artistic resources. The show continues through Jan. 6.