RosettaStone: CRAFT A primary, secondary, and annotated source reader for functional craft. By: Randi O'Brien

It is precisely the break between the world of sensual immediacy and critical theory that the greatest of our ceramic makers and thinkers plunge. This “timeless urge that moves us again and again” should enter into mediation with critical theory, for what seems as oil and water is in fact the cream in our coffee on the four am shift of a brisk January firing. I’ve returned from the Critical Santa Fe symposium and have had the time and mentorship to productively reflect from this opportunity. The following are my observations, interpretations, and conclusions.
No three page summation would be able to satisfy your interest in the occurrence of the symposium, or the integral after hour table talk between historians, critics, and makers. Let’s be realistic; your assumptions are correct if you assumed that there would be stagnant conversations created by the individual insecurities of a maker, your assumptions are correct if you anticipated term twisting, and linguistic labyrinths that leave one lost in translation . Your assumptions are correct if you envisioned both impassioned arguments, and profound sincerity . Your next question would of course encourage me to divulge all of the insightful information received. While there were a variety of panels and individual speakers it would be safe to refine the overall context of the CSF symposium to two main discourses and disciplines: 1. Critical Theory of Modernity and 2. the act of writing in criticism (how words have been used in criticism, poetry, the growth of descriptive words, where criticism is published, where it has failed, etc) . As I can now safely presume your eyes may be glazing over and your final disappointed assumption; that there would be a divorce between process and critical theory, comes full circle. If it is the case that you assumed as much, then you are incorrect to a degree. I’m sorry to say that no presenter successfully touted the metaphorical significance of shaping clay, nor the importance of one’s journey. However; while I appreciate the significance of both, that wasn’t the point and rightfully so. Nevertheless this does not necessarily negate the avenues presenters offered for broader theoretical connections to materiality, process, and the journey.

In the community of woodfiring, it is my conclusion that you as a general group are the most insightful in continental philosophical awareness and, in the context of firing, carry on with most excellent discussions of love, poetry, and other forms of divine madness. Yet within this niche we lack quality control and broader interconnectivity of disciplines, which has sadly led to (you have of course heard this criticism before) incestuous reproductions both in writing and making. This of course leads me back to elaborating on the dialogue of CSF and the relationship of how ones specific discipline (in this specific case woodfiring) can and does in fact converge with a broader interconnectivity to theory.

If your aim (in terms of making or critiquing) is to redefine the relevance of woodfiring to the establishment of 21st century aesthetics then you must read and look at the development, growth, and current trends of modernity as a broad discipline; politics, faith, economy, and yes even ceramics. You must read Baudelair, Lacan, and Foucault. While it is not everyone’s aim to redefine relevance; the point of this example is, for one to dictate the nature of what is or should be, one must probe to the foundational basis of knowledge and experience. In terms of CSF and in terms of general artistic progression, modernity will always be a key theory. In general observation it seems that makers of a traditional vein cringe at the word modernity. Yet, I plead with all traditionalists to not assume that the idea of modernity equates to the severance of ties with historic practice. If one were to probe the dialogue of modernity, they would find encouragement to understand and reflect on the historic, and to further analyze and respond to ones immediate surroundings through a historic and educated understanding.

I would argue that while woodfiring and ceramics is of a rich historic linage, the connection to modernity is still applicable. If we were to briefly evaluate the socio-political concerns and trends of today (aka: modernity) the dialogue would be bombard by ideas of conserving, sustaining, and developing communities on both global and individual levels. Of course these communities include everything from environmental, financial, educational, to smaller communities like the “Church of Craft” , my Montana fishing community, and to the extent of this article the woodfiring community. This connection to community is vague, often over played, and incorrectly inserted in woodfiring. However, CSF’s conclusion and my point are for the woodfiring niche to look at the qualities of their discipline and connect these qualities to alternative and broader disciplines. Take a moment to look at trends with Hugo Boss nominees (The Hugo Boss award is overseen by the Guggenheim Museum and is revered and honored as a leading contemporary art award): Roman Ondák, Caofei, Rirkrit Tiravanija. Caofei has developed a utopic interactive cyber world to compensate for the pitfalls of contemporary society, lack of community, and a disconnection to place. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work assesses the socio-political role of the artist through a literalization of “art’s primitive functions: sustenance, healing, and communion” , by empting out galleries and inserting makeshift kitchens or homes for viewers to simply eat, live, or converse at will. These acts of contemporary community construction and inquiry mirror acts of woodfirer’s who gather local weathered rock fragments to construct the simplest of serving objects- a bowl. This act of community assessment mirrors many woodfirer’s sentiment that local clay “provides the richest connection to place”. The labor and process of woodfiring is by no accidental chance a commentary on the value of one’s community and should be recognized as such. This is just one brief and oversimplified connection that the woodfirer’s processes’ have to modernity and contemporary critical theory.

While the niche of woodfiring further specializes itself with myopic technical or aesthetic alterations, we can of course argue with each other about the need for progression versus mastery, or we can look at how your processes, metaphors, and journey’s are overwhelmingly connected to the broader conversation of modernity and the general discipline of art. Ultimately for the discussion of woodfire aesthetics to regain its integrity in contemporary conversations artist and critics must address the unity of theories, traditions, processes, and objects as a working whole. Only then will woodfire practices redefine its relevance to the establishment of 21st century aesthetics, and only then will woodfired objects transcend their quantifiable parts.

The bottom line of CSF and myself is not to encourage the counteractive conflict of art versus craft, tradition versus modernity, or colorful pots versus brown pots because all of these conversation could be sorted out and transcended by a maker-critic who proudly engages and analyzes his (or her) discipline, tradition, process, etc., and of course his relevance to a broader social picture. A simplistic brown bowl may seem empty and irrelevant in comparison to the complex conceptual endeavors of the ultramodern. Yet it is in the subtle curve and emptiness of your bowl that the actual and cultural function depends. It is in emptiness of a bowl that we can recognize our own societal emptiness, where we can see both the product of and answer to suffering. It is in the articulation of your clays connection to place, that society’s dislocation to place is best analyzed and evaluated.

When you sit down at your studio this week do some quality control. Look at your surface. Are you just another flash versus ash, or is their more you can to do better articulate your end goals. Honestly analyze your intentions and object. Maybe your conclusion is that you do in fact fit to a broader social dialogue and should thus be recognized for it, or maybe you’re simply making another Voulkos sculpture or MacKenzie tea bowl and woodfiring it because it reduces your accountability to surface. To either end this self realization will only better the visual culture of woodfiring. To either end this self actualization will help to marry critical theory and process in a union where we can examine the conditions of possibility.