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

This is an annotated evaluation of the following:

Neo Craft: Modernity and the Crafts edited by Sandra Alfoldy
Sandra Alfoldy, ed. Neo Craft: Modernity and the Crafts (Nova Scotia: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2007)

Reviewed by Randi O’Brien

Neo Craft: Modernity and the Crafts edited by the assistant professor of craft history at NSCDA University Sandra Alfoldy, assembles a collection of articles that builds a comprehensive book that calls attention to the multiple approaches linking craft history, discourse, and theory to modernity. The collection of authors presents their assessment for an audience that far surpasses the field of craftsmen, to include topics of politics, nationality, identity, anthropology, and technology. Alfoldy gathers themed essays to convey perspectives on the craft field under threat (Cultural Redundancy or the Genre Under Threat), Global Craft, Crafts and the Political Economy, the Invention of Tradition, and Craft, the Sences, and New Technologies which Alfoldy believes is fundamental to the position of craft in relation to modernity. My overall impression is that the Alfoldy has compiled and selected a collection of writings that has expanded the current craft dialogue in an engaging way while utilizing a well structured, relevant, and eloquent layout.

In this book, Alfoldy has relied on critics, authors, professors, and makers to present their position on craft themes that link to broader contemporary life. The authors contend a variety of positions that develop the discourse of craft as a collective whole (I have reviewed and highlighted several of the articles more specifically; see annotations from Neo Craft). Multiple disciplines would find this book useful for contemporary craft trends, concerns, and theoretical developments as would craftsmen looking to break down assumptions of the relationship between craft and modernity to develop and engage a broader visual culture.

Alfoldy has been able to expand scholarship within the crafting field which gives support to Alfoldy’s key claim that; “I believe that the strength of the writing in relation to the crafts, with its own set of concerns and approaches, indicates that we are in the process of developing our own unique discourse”.