Post # 21: Refuting Envy

Part 1: The Man in the Mirror

I must continue to circle back around to the point that my arguments against Garth’s Address: How Envy Killed The Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts, is in some ways an argument against the painful feelings I was met with when I listened to the address.  I think in truth, Garth may not have even intended for me or any other traditional craftsmen to be listening.  That is to say we were not his intended audience there at the Modern Museum of Craft (actually the venue was an Art college [PNCA] and the Craft Museum was the sponsor) in Portland.  However, though I wasn’t there, and intellectually I can grasp that perhaps Garth was speaking of some “Modern” or “Contemporary” Craft Movement and wasn’t talking about the traditional crafts and its “movement,” he must face the criticisms of those of us who feel wronged by his words.  The address entered into the wider public arena on the Internet, where I was able to access it.  Even overlooking us by referring to the Craft Movement as something inherently “modernist” seems to be a rhetorical failure on his part.  Or at the very least it seems “intellectually specious” to borrow one of Garth’s own favorite terms.  (Specious means technically accurate but lacking integrity; I had to look it up in the dictionary.) Traditional craft existed before the Arts and Crafts Movement began and this is where a portion of the movement still lives.  If Garth Clark regrets implying that traditional craft was ignored in his address, he should say so.  Or if he thinks traditional craft is part of the craft movement that he has pronounced dead, he needs to reevaluate his stance.  I see here in my home state that traditional craft and its movement are very much alive.

So as I listened to Garth’s words, thinking he meant them for me as well as any other practitioner of craft, I felt really depressed.  Many of the points Garth has raised already exist in my mind as doubts about my profession, and I have essentially been fighting a strand of my own thinking as I have combated Garth’s “Envy” address.  In fact, his words set off an unintentional existential crisis for me as a craftsman, and it is from this crisis of faith that I drew anger and inspiration to refute his claims.  It is for my love of craft (as I know it) and its attendant “movement” (which has nourished and supported me) that I argue.  But I don’t stop there.  I also argue for Garth Clark’s own sake.  Just as he put a mirror in my face and forced me to see how the art world might view craft and its movement, so must I now ask him to look into the mirror of my gaze; to examine more deeply my words and opinions to see what a “crafter” might see in him.  I think it was Michael Jackson who sang about coming to terms with the “Man in the Mirror” in order to “make the world a better place.”  (Note: I think Michael Jackson did through his music and dance make the world a better place, but I can’t imagine what he was struggling to find in his own mirror.)  

Part 2: Numbers and Pig Farmers

Let me turn my attention to this blurb from Post #6: Garth’s Response:

“Craft shops may proliferate in North Carolina but you know there are another 49 other states and in those the field is shrinking.  And in claiming the greatness for NC crafts (I partly agree with) you should know that a recent study showed that the average earnings of a crafter in NC was just above $25,000.  The poverty level is $22,350.  Booming it is not.”  -Garth Clark

There is a lot of info here, so let me break it down.  First, thank you Garth for partly agreeing with me on the greatness of NC craft.  I do wonder what you know about our state and its rich craft heritage.  I understand that you have visited Asheville and by some reports were impressed by the craft scene here.  But have you ever studied it enough to share what you have glimpsed with a wider audience?  Do you include us in the “Craft Movement?”  It may be our foolish pride, but we certainly include ourselves.

Now lets go to the money, which is something Garth seems very knowledgeable about.  Let me suggest a few ways his statistic may or may not be flawed.   Craft is of course practiced on many different levels.  I know dozens of potters who rightly consider themselves craftsmen but hold down part time or full time jobs on the side.  These jobs help them feel more secure or provide them with the benefits (health insurance and retirement plans) that many of us struggle to pay for.  Are these folks who are part-time crafters making part-time pay included in the average?  If so they weigh down the number for those of us who are full-time craftsmen and make two or three times the figure sighted.

Another question that should be raised with regard to this figure is this: does the 25k figure take into account that most crafters (or any small potatoes self-employed business for that matter) all over the country hide some sales from their banks so they won’t have to report income that will be taxed at the ridiculously high rate of 30% (incl. soc. security, state and federal income taxes) no matter how low your tax bracket.  If your number is low enough, you will get most of it back as a refund.  This seems a powerful incentive to report a low number.

But what if the statistic is correct, and there are a lot of potters and other craftsmen living at or near the poverty line.  In rural areas, where land was bought cheap or handed down through families, folks own their homes and land and are able to live on the cheap.  Lots of us grow gardens and raise animals to cut down on groceries or just because we like to be involved with our food.  Many go without insurance and forego travel and luxuries that urbanites view as necessities, but who can cast blame?  Craftsmen have lived without luxury for many thousands of years. 

I guess my point here is that this state has an enormous rural culture of folks who live within their means and don’t think they lack much, even though they aren’t making much money by urban standards.  In fact we are a state of pig farmers, but we aren’t ashamed of that, we love barbeque!

Part 3: Different Numbers and a Question about Facts

But let me throw down some numbers from a different study called: Economic Impact of the Professional Craft Industry In Western North Carolina.  (Thank you Lisa Bucki for pointing me to this study)  This report shows that in the 25 counties of WNC, craft’s economic impact grew from $122 million in 1995 (curiously, this is the year Garth claims the craft movement committed suicide) to $206.5 million annually in 2008 (the year Garth gave his address in Portland).  This survey cites the median income for craft artists as $48,000.  This report was commissioned by what might be described as Pro-craft organizations and may have some bias because of that, but that is a problem with statistics and numbers.  Science prides itself on running triple blind studies, but the very studies that are run indicate hypotheses with inherent perspectives. 

As David Byrne noted in the song Cross-Eyed and Painless from the Talking Heads’ 1980 album Remain in Light:

“Facts all come with points of view;

Facts don’t do what I want them to.

Facts just twist the truth around;

Facts are an integer inside out”

I love this silly little rhyme, because it shows how slippery information is.  All information is tainted with bias, and if we ignore that “fact,” we do so at our peril.  If Garth Clark makes an argument about the “Craft Movement” being dead and assumes that all listeners will infer that he only means the modernist wing of the craft movement, his bias can be interpreted as deluded.  Those of us who are less interested in the modernists, and hear Clark referring to the roots of the Craft Movement going back to the 19^th century Arts and Crafts movement in England and its importation to various parts of this country through the 1930s may not even see how the Modernists connect with the craft movement.  

I would even go so far as to say that though many of these modernists had craft backgrounds, they became ceramic artists, (or glass artists or whatever media you might want to put here) not really craftsmen at all.  I know Garth will bristle at this assertion, but it is not a value judgment.  I don’t dislike ceramic artists.  I just see them as an independent development that emerged from craft that became its own separate and unique conundrum.  In my biased observation it is ironic that these are the very folks Garth was most interested in promoting because they were the ones who most envied the prestige and financial rewards of the art world.  But I do not deny that these ceramic artists did make art, and perhaps their envy led them inexorably to open the art world’s door and try walking through.  Was there anything wrong with that?  I don’t think so.  Is it possible that envy has played a positive role in ceramic art?  I’d be very interested to hear Garth address that specific point. 

Part 4: Conceit

One of the central conceits of Garth Clark’s Envy argument is that craft and its movement exist independently of one another.  His closing statement is “The Craft Movement is Dead; Long live Craft!”  It has a nice ring to it, but I wonder can craft be so easily separated from its movement?  

I am a potter but also a grass-roots organizer and educator in the “movement.”  Whenever I go do retail shows or have a kiln-opening sale, I am there to sell pots, but I am also raising awareness about what craft has been and continues to be here in North Carolina.  At my kiln openings people come see the kiln and watch videos of it being fired; they see the dump-truck loads of clay that were hauled from a field eight miles away.  They see the ware-racks and the fired pots and unfired pots that didn’t make it into the kiln, the piles of pine and poplar slabs waiting to be sawed for the next firing, and they ask questions about the decorative work (Do you use stencils?) and leave with a greater appreciation for what they have just purchased and become a part of.  Indeed the customers must be counted as part of the movement, because without them, craft would wither quickly.

But I also haul my wheel to Church basements and schools and have scout groups, school groups, retirees and other groups schedule visits so that they can see what it means to make pottery for a living in the twenty-first century.  But this work is just my small contribution.  Here in WNC, we have many organizations actively promoting an awareness of craft: the Southern Highlands Graft Guild, Handmade in America, the Asheville Arts Council, the Penland School of Crafts, Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Program, UNC-Asheville, Highwater Clays and its subsidiary: Odyssey Center and many others.  These organizations actively promote an understanding of craft in the area.  Then there are the fifty plus galleries around our small town and dozens more in the other counties of WNC that carry and sell art and craft made throughout our region.  Asheville is very like Garth’s new hometown Santa Fe, NM in that it is an “Art Destination.”  Art and Craft tourism has become a big part of WNC’s economy.

Not to flog a dead horse, but what about Garth’s own books and thousands of others that raise craft awareness?  What about the various magazines that cover craft?  Every reader may not love every one of them, but they are certainly part of the living craft movement.  What about Carol Sauvion’s wonderful PBS documentary series Craft in America?  Craft and its movement are Siamese twins joined at the heart.  They cannot be separated.

Part 5: An Ominous Metaphor

The other conceit of Garth’s Envy argument that troubles me is that the craft movement is not just ailing but “dead.”  I know that this assertion is meant to be provocative and perhaps not necessarily an accurate assessment of the situation, but he does pronounce the movement dead and states that the cause of death was suicide.  

His “autopsy” claims that envy was the primary weapon of self-destruction, but that traces of diabetes and incest were contributing factors.  Diabetes refers to craft “overdosing” on the sickening sweetness of nostalgia and whimsy, and for my part I must plead guilty here.  I am somewhat prone to fits of nostalgia, and I don’t even mind the odd bit of whimsy either (but I barely get a buzz off of them, so I know I haven’t overdosed).  And the incest refers to the fact that too many crafters were writing favorable reviews for their friends and colleagues.  Again, without anger, I must note that this assertion appears a bit ironic, because it seems that this comes perilously close to writing favorable criticism for people whose work you intend to sell and profit from.  It certainly makes for fun writing and perhaps good reading too, (I did giggle a bit the second time I listened to the address), but I think he has gone a little too far.  

Using death as a metaphor gets people’s attention and holds it well, but it also invites criticism.  

**NOTE TO GARTH**   Yes, I know your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek almost as frequently as you were making serious observations about craft, and I hope you can feel my own dark sense of humor as I write my opinions for my audience.

In an earlier post, I indicated that Garth has played the role of Judas Iscariot, betraying the movement so that it can be reborn, but let me turn now to a darker metaphor from Greek Mythology:

In Homer’s Odyssey, the cunning hero Odysseus is (for his sin of hubris) kept wandering the Mediterranean ten years after the other Greek heroes have returned from the Trojan War.  His son Telemachus and wife Penelope want to believe he still lives and will return, but a host of greedy suitors has descended on their household eating and drinking their way through Odysseus’s vast estate, and many want Penelope to declare Odysseus dead and choose a suitor to marry who will inherit what is left of Odysseus’s wealth.   When Odysseus does finally return, Athena disguises him as a beggar, so that he might learn who of his servants remain faithful and who have sided with the suitors.  What he learns is that Telemachus aches for vengeance but has no allies, Penelope is caught in a terribly precarious situation, and that only one pig keeper remains faithful to him.  In a masterfully wrought plot, after suffering many rebukes and abuses as the disguised vagabond, Odysseus reveals himself to the suitors who have pronounced him dead, and together with Telemachus and the faithful swineherd slaughter them all without mercy.

The ancient Greek notion of vengeance is obviously too powerful to apply to Garth Clark’s Envy argument, but there is some part of me that wants him to hear the power of the metaphor.  One should be careful when making pronouncements of death that cannot be defended with certainty.  

The metaphor doesn’t fit in some important ways.  I think of Odysseus as craft and its movement, whose life seems to be held by some as in question.  Garth seems to be playing the part of the suitors by declaring the movement dead.  But unlike the suitors, I don’t think he does so in order to gain some advantage or possible wealth  that rightfully belongs to craft and its movement (indeed, Garth’s insistence that there is little wealth associated with craft is quite accurate).  Rather he does so to force Craft to reevaluate itself in a time when he is concerned for its future. To me, this is the saving grace of his argument and why I can forgive him for his conceits.  The swineherd in my interpretation represents traditional craft (which I feel Garth has underestimated), and in my specific community that is NC pottery.  As I mentioned earlier, North Carolina is a state of pig farmers, and there are many potters here humbly keeping to the faith of practicing a traditional craft for near “poverty” wages without envying art.  

These craftsmen have been my heroes, and when Garth said in his “Envy” address that craft “has sacrificed one of its most sterling qualities: authenticity,” I just about had to choke.  I later realized that he was talking about academic crafters and crafters in large urban areas who scheme to invade the prestigious and wealthy domain of the art world.  But what does that have to do with the craft world and movement I am a part of?  And I must repeat here without any of the anger that Garth might want to project on to me, that I believe that NC pottery is as valid a part of the craft movement as the part he is castigating, and that “my” part of the craft movement never really engaged in the “envy” or “incest” he charges the movement with.  So I am back to my opinion that the argument was poorly constructed and flawed from takeoff, because it all but ignores traditional or (as Garth prefers to call it) “classical” craft.  

Part 6:  Telemachus or Hamlet?

Let me return to the mirror for some personal introspection.  I must concede that I am not really a humble or loyal pig farmer.  I did not grow up in clay; I was educated at a private liberal arts college, and pottery was a choice for me.  And I practice it with great pride in the visual language I have assembled and constructed for myself.  Perhaps most significantly, I have listened to and become upset by Garth Clark’s Envy address.  If I am feeling terribly honest I must concede that I occasionally long for wider acceptance and understanding.  That may be a type of envy, but I don’t think I really want to be considered an Artist.  I make pots and want to be understood as a fine craftsman, not an unknown craftsman.  Indeed I stamp all of my work and have been signing most of the slip-trailed pots of any size right on their sides for several years.  Is there vanity or pride in that?  Pride I will claim.

All of this points to an interpretation in my Odyssey metaphor of me as Telemachus.  He is proud, angry, vengeful and uncertain of how to proceed.  Fortunately for him, his father returns and he is able to fight the injustice he sees with one of the strongest and most intelligent heroes in all of Literature.

I wonder if Garth Clark might see people like me as more closely resembling Shakespeare’s Hamlet?  There are some wonderful though superficial similarities in the characters’ stories.  They both are struggling to come up with a decisive plan to deal with the injustice surrounding their fathers’ deaths (or perceived death in the case of Telemachus) and the usurped inheritance of their fathers’ wealth and legacy by men who marry (or seek to marry) their mothers.  But Telemachus is not an orphan; Hamlet is.  Unfortunately for Hamlet, his father only ever speaks as a ghost, and his mother at times seems complicit in his father’s betrayal.  This sets Hamlet in a much more confusing situation, and the untidy plot leads to a tragic resolution: all of the central actors are slain including Hamlet and many others who don’t seem to “deserve” that fate.

Literary critics have been a little harsh at times concerning Hamlet’s dilemma.  Many have promulgated the opinion that Hamlet is to blame for the awful and tragic bloodbath.  These critics say that Hamlet is morose (or self-hating), vengeful (angry), possibly insane but above all uncertain, and that these “flaws” drive or force the tragedy.  My feeling is that these critics are trying to force the play to fit into an ancient Greek tragedy formula, and that doesn’t quite work.  This is a more subtle and complex psychological study that builds upon the legacy of Greek drama but achieves something less definitive but perhaps more powerfully realistic, something that presages an existential and dare I say “modern” understanding of reality.  I think that Hamlet’s problem is that the “truth” is murky.  A ghost’s testimony is not enough to induce him to murder his uncle.  He must struggle to find more proof before he can take that course of action.  

---{Hamlet plot digression}--- 

The plot thickens as Hamlet becomes more certain that Claudius (his uncle) is his father’s murderer and usurper.  Hamlet blows a golden opportunity to kill Claudius while he is praying because he wants to be certain Claudius goes to hell for his crime.  Hamlet then mistakenly kills Polonius, which along with his increasingly erratic behavior, sadly leads to his love Ophelia’s (Polonius was her father?) suicide, and this event sets up an alliance between Ophelia’s brother Laertes (a warrior) and the villain Claudius who conspire to kill Hamlet by treachery with a poisoned blade or poisoned cup of wine.  Hamlet’s mother drinks the poisoned wine, and Hamlet, Laertes and Claudius are all mortally wounded with the poisoned blade.

I have loved and struggled with this play over the years, and though I can see that Hamlet’s behavior ultimately does lead to the colossal tragedy, it also wipes the Danish royal slate clean for a new beginning.  And perhaps most importantly, I don’t think Hamlet is crazy or irrational any more than I think I would be if I were thrust into that ugly and complex situation.  I don’t see uncertainty in a confusing situation as a sin or a flaw.  Rather I see it as an emotionally honest way forward to a state of greater clarity.

Part 7: Conclusion

But Hamlet and Telemachus are both characters in stories with lives in the balance.  I am just a potter who yearns for recognition and a few precious ducats to ease my existential tension.  I am neither Hamlet nor Telemachus.  I would pick Telemachus as a more appropriate match for me, because though I write alone, I have a warm community of readers and craftspeople who nurture and support me like a father, and if they deem it necessary, they will come to my defense in a heartbeat.  That is a great comfort to me and something I would like Garth to witness if he can make the trip to North Carolina in January or any other time that might be convenient.

Peace.

Matt Jones