Expert: Jeni Andrews-Fraser - 1/4/2007

Question
How does the gender issue in crafts as a whole be it ceramics, textiles, jewellery enhance our analysis of the subject?
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

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Hi, Could you possibly help with some advice.  I am looking in to how the woman practitioner has changed the face of crafts since post Arts & Crafts ( when they were over shadowed by their husbands etc).  Could you recommend any reading material or web sites.  Thank you very much.
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Hi Donna - and thank you for your question.  It's a little too broad for me to give you a specific answers - nor do I have the space to be able to address it fully - however, here are some ideas for you to work on:  first define 'crafts' - post-modernists will tell you that one of the aims of art these day to to democratise the arts, so that there is no categorisation.  So unless you know exactly what 'craft' you are interested in investigating, your search may be long and somewhat arduous.  If you want to look at the development of textile arts for example, then start with the V&A in London - an excellent resource, but be aware that many of today's textile artists are men!!!  Gets complicated, doesn't it?  Apart from considering the medium, consider also the audiences, the site, the marketplace and the theorists that might underpin certain women artists work - Feminism, as a movement, can be said to have levelled the playing field on one hand, while drawing attention to gender (implict or explicit in the art produced) on the other - the work of Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas, for example.  Recommended reading:  anything by Griselda Pollock and Rosika Parker, Rosalind Krauss, Linda Nochlin; my favourite website can be found by typing in 'art history' at your search engine and opening up the entry that is titled 'Art History Resources on the Web' run by Chris Witcombe of Sweetbriar College; that will lead you to a variety of entries - by historical period - written by experts.   I hope you enjoy your search.

Answer
Hello again Donna.  This is a 'biggie' -- I suppose you might start to answer this question by asking whether knowing the gender of the making 'enhances' anything?  There are so many levels to consider:  an obvious starting point could be what is the object and what is it purporting to represent (if it is representational); so -- take a work by Cathy de Montchaux or Louise Bourgeois for example:  both are 'feminist' sculptors - both use latex and leather but incorporate themes of entrapment; so the 'reading' here (the 'enhancement'?) might run along the lines of women using their inherent wiles to trap (like Bourgeois's 'spiders') - a feminist enhancement, perhaps?  There are - conversely - some beautiful pieces, made by men, on similar themes.  Their viewpoint will be different.  So - a superficial answer to your question might be that the gender issue should not necessarily enhance one's analysis of the subject ... although it sometimes, clearly, adds value to a 'reading' and may, indeed, bias the appreciation of the object - depending on whether a male or a female audience is involved (and the level of that involvement!)  These are fascinating debates - I hope something of what I've offered here helps.  Come back to me if not .. or if you want to open this up further!  Cheers, Jeni