Somewhere between an Olympics medal ceremony and “Candid Camera” falls the annual Awards Walking Tour at the American Craft Council's Baltimore Show. Each year, we invite two specialists in the craft field to jury the show, selecting six Award of Excellence recipients and two winners in the Booth Design category. This year's jurors were Jane Milosch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Josephine Shea, curator of the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, a historic home near Detroit.

On Friday afternoon at 2pm, show attendees gathered together with the jurors and Council staff for a walking tour of the award winning booths. The selected artists had no idea that they had been chosen for an award, so each stop on the tour began with surprise and congratulations. Addressing both the artist and the attendees, Jane and Josephine explained why each booth stood out and what they found exceptional about the artist's work.

It was so illuminating to see what Jane and Josephine’s highly trained eyes picked up on in each winning artist’s work and booth design. As they discussed their choices, two main themes emerged - looking to the rich history of craft and drawing on nature as the primary sources of inspiration.

The first stop on our walking tour was Dan Mirer, a glass artist from Corning, NY. Jane mentioned that Dan's work had caught her eye in previous Baltimore Shows, so she was happy to have the opportunity to recognize him with an Award of Excellence. She noted that Dan carried on the Bauhaus tradition of clean design and impeccable craftsmanship, particularly in his clear glass vessels and stemware.



Our second Award of Excellence was given to Natalie Blake, a ceramic artist who creates beautifully embellished vessel forms and sculptural wall tiles. Josephine and Jane both appreciated the cohesive nature of Natalie's designs, in which she carves the sinuous lines of trees and underwater plants into the clay and highlights them in black on brightly colored vessels and 3-D wall works. The jurors also appreciated the modular nature of Natalie's wall tiles, which can be purchased individually or as groups, allowing a collector to build up a substantial installation over time. 
 


Our next stop on the Walking Tour was Gretchen Romey-Tanzer, a fiber artist from Massachusetts who received an Award of Excellence. Josephine and Jane likened the subtlety of Gretchen's attention to color and design, both in her small square weavings and her larger wall hangings, to iconic mid-century weaver Anni Albers. The jurors considered Gretchen's large double-sided wall hangings like Green Square to be absolute masterpieces, both in design and in execution.


Our fourth Award of Excellence was given to jeweler Linda Kindler Priest, a first-time exhibitor at our Baltimore Show. Jane noted the influence of Etruscan and Egyptian jewelry traditions in Linda's style and her use of the repoussé technique, and appreciated the artist's reverence for her chosen materials of gold and semi-precious and precious stones. Josephine loved the sense of movement and also a bit of humor that comes through in Linda's animal imagery. 



Next, we visited another jeweler selected for an Award of Excellence, New York artist Reiko Ishiyama. Jane praised Reiko's work for its sculptural qualities and the adaptability of her designs, many of which can be worn in various configurations and appear differently in changing light. Reiko responded that her background is actually in sculpture and she was never formally trained as a jeweler, a fact that Jane and Josephine agreed contributed to Reiko's fresh approach to the medium.



Our last award winner for excellence was woodworker Holly Tornheim, another primarily self-taught artist who crafts sculptural and functional works for the table. Josephine noted Holly's sensitivity to lightness and movement in her wood designs, which draw on the soft lines and curves found in nature. Jane also prized the seeming weightlessness of many of Holly's forms and the touchable surfaces of her polished wood creations.
 


Along our walking tour, we also visited two artists who were chosen for Booth Design awards. Cara Romano, a young artist who makes silver and felt jewelry, was singled out for her creative use of affordable materials and store-bought decorations to create a vibrant and cohesive booth design. Cara strung up brightly colored paper lanterns that not only enlivened her space but also visually connected to the balls of colored felt that she uses in her jewelry work. Jane and Josephine loved the clean, organic design sensibility that ran through the materials Cara chose for her booth, from the bamboo pattern on her tablecloth, to the black stained plywood squares on which her work was displayed, to the live plants on her tabletop. 



Our second booth design award went to Brad Smith of Bradford Woodworking, who crafts furniture inspired by the old farm where his studio is located. Our jurors pointed out that it can be difficult to stage large furniture in a small booth space without it feeling crowded or imposing. They loved Brad's intimate arrangements and the fact that he used elements like the headboard for a bed and a scaled-down version of his standard farm table to represent the whole designs. The end result was a booth with warm lighting that invited you to come in and have a seat.

Congratulations to all of our award winners, and thank you to Jane and Josephine for your hard work! If you were a juror, who would be your top picks for excellence and booth design?

Our flagship show in Baltimore is now in full swing! We're all holding our breath, but so far we've been spared by the snowstorm, except for a smattering of flurries this morning. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather through the weekend!

Now that I've had a chance to take in more of it, I've been struck by the wonderful balance between the old and the new at our Baltimore Show. As you wander your way through the aisles, you can find 30-year show veterans like David Bacharach and Seymour Mondshein next to up-and-coming crafters exhibiting their wares in Baltimore for the first time. There are so many exciting first-time exhibitors this year, it would be impossible to highlight them all, but here are a few that particularly caught my eye.

I loved Myung Urso's mixed media necklaces (booth 300), assembled from various fibers, handmade papers and organic materials like sponges and loofas. Some of her designs reference sea life, while others incorporate paper that has been painted with calligraphy then compressed into assemblages that bring to mind industrial byproducts like used air filters.

Ceramic artist Wendy Gingell (booth 2107) decorates her pottery using the sgraffito technique, in which a dark slip is applied to the piece and then scraped off to reveal the white clay body underneath. Wendy's distinctive designs range from whimsical to bizarre, like her dinner plates decorated with anatomical imagery like lungs and muscle structures.

Our expanded AltCraft section features up and coming makers that typically show at smaller shows on the indie craft circuit. These are making their Baltimore Show debut in an open marketplace style space. Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press is one AltCraft exhibitor that stood out to me. She creates letterpress prints and handmade books from woodcuts, often of ravens, owls and other bird imagery.

New York fashion designer Selma Karaca of MAAC, LLC (booth 709) designs edgy wearables which she hand-sews in her Brooklyn studio. She combines various fabrics and surface design techniques to create her garments, letting each construction evolve organically as she works on it.

Local artist Shin-Yeon Jeon (booth 3002) sculpts expressive figurative sculptures, some of which include wheel-thrown sections taken from pottery pieces. Shin-Yeon's work draws on her interest in psychology, using ambiguous facial expressions to suggest the range of complexity in human emotions.

Another great new clay exhibitor Leora Brecher (booth 2509) creates beautifully articulated vessels referencing seashells. Leora crafts her undulating forms by coil building each crisply defined section, allowing the shape to evolve and emerge as she works. Leora explained, "They just grow and become what they want to become."

Emily Johnson of EC Design (booth 3905) is exhibiting her metal jewelry for the first time at our Baltimore Show. I love the hand-hammered surfaces of her Cells and Windows collection, which focuses on soft geometric shapes and subtle organic textures.

I sat in on a demonstration by another first-time ceramics exhibitor, local Baltimore artist Lenore Lampi (booth 3303). Lenore demonstrated the hand-building techniques she uses to create her signature birch bark inspired stoneware and porcelain vessels.

Aside from all these fabulous new artists, a few other fun things caught my eye:

Joline El-hai of Bella Luz Studio (booth 1513) creates distinctive art glass and back-lit decorative glass lighting. I love her series of illuminated suitcases and small wall-mounted glass and copper Luminette night lights.

Jim Rosenau of This Into That (2210) builds shelves, birdhouses and wall sculptures from vintage books, often pairing them with objects that relate to the books' subject matter, like a shelf made out of cookbooks with a whisk incorporated into the base.

Those are just a few of my favorites. What about you? Show visitors, share your picks with us!

For a first-time visitor, the American Craft Council’s Baltimore Show can be somewhat overwhelming - in the best possible way. I experienced that today when I entered the Baltimore Convention Center for a sneak peek at the exhibitors in our 34th annual show. I was immediately struck not only by the sheer number of artists, but also by the eclectic variety of the work on display. It’s an incredible sensory experience to encounter exquisitely handcrafted goods in such a range of colors, shapes, textures and materials. I found it hard to make any progress through the show - I kept wanting to stop and touch things, look more closely, hear each artist's story, learn how the work was made.

And that’s exactly how a show like this should be experienced. This year, our retail show opens on Thursday for the first time, so come early to beat the weekend crowds and take your time browsing the wares. Keep on the lookout for a few of my favorites from today's rounds:

One of our Green Craft exhibitors, ‘e ko logic (booth 906), turns recycled post-consumer textiles like old cashmere sweaters into unique handcrafted apparel. Husband and wife team Kathleen and Charlie Tesnakis sort preexisting garments from the local area in their Troy, NY, studio, where each item is washed and deconstructed, then hand-sewn into a new creation that combines various colors and textures in a painterly way. You'll feel good in more ways than one when you wear their luxuriously soft and environmentally conscious sweaters, dresses, hats and gloves.

Joanna Gollberg Jewelry (booth 812) takes inspiration from the repetition of basic geometric shapes. The resulting designs are bold, architectural constructions of metal and semi-precious stones, some of which are hand faceted by the artist using traditional lapidary techniques.

I love the muted color palette and delicate patterning of Penelope Wurr's glass works (booth 1609). "I tend to work with earth tones," said Penelope, in her charming British accent. "I really love subtle colors and textures."

Our School to Market section near booth 100 features exciting new work by craft media students from Rhode Island School of Design and Savannah College of Art & Design. The RISD display, exploring the theme "Principles of Nature," includes a dynamic series of necklaces inspired by spider webs, skeletons and other natural forms. Christopher Johnson, a senior in the RISD furniture design department, made a collapsible wood and plastic chair inspired by the expansion and contraction of duck's feet. The SCAD booth features a lively mix of jewelry, fibers and furniture selected from a juried exhibition held in conjunction with our recent SCAD symposium, "Making Meaning in the Marketplace."

Michael Bauermeister (booth 1805) is a veteran Baltimore Show artist who creates large-scale turned and hand-carved wood vessels. I've seen his work in print before and must say that the near human scale of many of his creations is quite impressive in person. Michael uses a variety of finishes on his vessels, sometimes choosing to showcase the wood itself, sometimes opting for bright blue and yellow stains.

Across from Michael, you'll find Justin Rothshank's stoneware ceramics (booth 1705), which are hand-thrown and decorated with underglaze and overglaze decals. I love Justin's stackable mug sets with faces of American presidents (Lincoln, Johnson and, of course, Obama). What would happen if you mixed and matched them?!

Damian Velasquez (booth 1902) is another veteran Baltimore exhibitor who designs gorgeous handcrafted furniture. Most of his work combines brushed steel and wood, but he's also exhibiting funky chairs and a coffee table made of brightly colored wire mesh.

Laura Peery (booth 3400) creates whimsical porcelain teapots inspired by memories from her grandmother's dressmaking shop in New Orleans. I love the bright colors, velvety surfaces and cloth-like textures in Laura's work.

As I was making my rounds, I found a hotspot of great glass artists near the restaurant on the left of the exhibit hall. I've heard other people who work in clay say that they find themselves seduced by glass, and I found myself drawn to this medium over and over again at the Baltimore Show. Devin Burgess of DB Glassworks (booth 3903) has a terrific sense of design that is apparent not just in his work but also in his booth design, which includes an elegant cluster of tall colored vases. I also loved Dan Mirer's hand-blown clear glass vessels accented with gold leaf (booth 3604). Richard Jones of Studio Paran (booth 2502) pressmolds then twists his glass bottles to create a gorgeous undulating texture on the surface, then adds a signature coil of colored glass at the top to finish off the neck of the bottle.

When you visit the show, don't forget to take a break from your browsing to check out the many hands-on demonstrations on the Demo Stage across from Booth 2140. We'll have wheel-throwing demos courtesy of Baltimore Clayworks all day Friday and hands-on workshops with DC Craft Mafia on Saturday. On Sunday, don't miss two veteran woodturners Jerry Kermode and Mark Supik dueling it out on the lathe.

Members/subscribers - remember that our shows are always free for you. Bring your membership card if you have it, but if you don't we can look you up when you get to the show. See you there!

BY JENNY GILL

In the December/January issue of American Craft, freelance writer Meribah Knight looked back on her grandmother's sewing circle as a source of early inspiration for her own craft practice. The American Craft Council’s News & Views asked Meribah to share her favorite holiday craft tradition, memory or object. She wrote, "I have many holiday craft memories—gold spray-painted macaroni tree ornaments, angels made out of Sculpey—but the most consistent is my grandmother Hortense Lasky’s embroidered Christmas stocking. This object, with its intricate stitching of a jolly snowman reading a book to a fox, a bunny and a fawn, was my gateway into sewing. It made me ask my first, and most important, question about crafts: How did she do that?"

We asked the ACC’s Facebook fans and the readers of our monthly e-newsletter to share their favorite holiday craft traditions or memories. Here are some of our favorites:

My favorite holiday tradition as a child was making dough ornaments, baking them in the oven and hand-painting them. I've considered trying it again as an adult, but I'm sure the results would not be as wonderful!
-Cervini Haas

Starting at age 10, I began painting porcelain tree ornaments for my family members each year. Every Thursday night I would be dropped off at Mrs. Carol Sandean's house in Jamestown, NY, (usually in blustery snow) and sit at her large wooden dining table with about four other women painting away and firing my ornaments in her electric kiln.
-Keelin Burrows

Making pomander balls: an orange with cloves covering it. You tie a ribbon around it and it can be hung or placed in a closet, drawer or shelf.
-Nancy Liedl

I recently encountered some beaded and sequined ornaments in a shop, which really brought back my grandmother to me in a way I hadn't thought of her in a long time. She used to make them for everyone and at the time I thought they were "gaudy"—styrofoam balls beribboned with beads and sequins attached on long pins. The salesgirl called them vintage and, indeed, they did look beautiful. A new perspective on the ornaments, a new memory and perspective of my grandmother.
-Sheila Sagert

My Nana made some really creepy ornaments of old Polish ladies' faces out of pantyhose and scrap fabric. I love them, even though they're creepy. They scared me (a little) as a kid, but now they are celebrated ornaments on our tree and my family comments on them every year! "Oh! You have the weird Nana ornaments! Ha!" I say, "Yeah, jealous?"
-Lauren Wojenski Bernazza

Every year around the holidays, I baked bread from scratch with my dad, about 15 loaves—some to eat, some to give to food pantries and homeless shelters and some to give as gifts.
-Rebecca Brockman

My grandmother used to make me gowns for Christmas and she always made a matching gown for my doll. I loved it. When I grew up and had kids of my own, my daughters and I used to make matching sweatshirts on Christmas, with Santas, snowmen, etc. We wore them for our special Christmas celebration. That is how memories are made.
-Susan Utter

DJ Pommes Frites spun entrancing music and the beers on ice were an added bonus to one of my more interesting recent craft fairs. According to the e-mail announcement from Chris and Jennifer Daltry, the owners of What Cheer? Antiques + Vintage and coordinators of the early November Rock & Roll Yard Sale of vinyl records and local DIY craft, the purpose of the fair was to prove that “vinyl is not dead and the DIY handmade movement is raging.” Inspecting the vacant storefront in downtown Providence transformed into an urban yard sale with more than 30 vendors—half music merchants, half DIY artisans and most somewhere in the middle—I wondered: why market vinyl records and handmade art in the same space?

I went to find out. Immediately to the right of my functional pottery booth was a vinyl record enthusiast selling from his personal collection. When I asked which albums he was most proud of, he promptly pulled out early Sinatra. Asked why, my neighbor scratched his chin and took his time to answer. “Because Sinatra was a real craftsman,” he said.

On my left was another vinyl aficionado and record label producer who was happy to explain his collection and showcase his creative album artwork. His company, Tor Johnson Records, produces and distributes local Providence music that is often “loud and heavy” and recorded on beautifully crafted vinyl records. Most are small print editions and many of his products have intricate layers of different colored vinyl with creative, dynamic graphics on both the album and sleeve. This record producer next to me approached his craft as would any artisan: with a keen understanding of his mediums of music and vinyl, creativity and—as Richard Sennett believes—with the desire to do a job well for its own sake.

In contrast, the ceramic work that I was selling at the Rock & Roll Yard Sale was not music-themed. It was simple and functional—jars, mugs and bowls with heavy rims, strong handles, and straightforward designs. My work is informed by an early Arts and Craft Movement that eschewed machines and emerged in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. But here on either side of me were music-lovers collecting, producing and selling craft of a very different kind—created not by hand, but by the work of gigantic industrial presses.

My idea of craft has been informed by populism and nostalgia for an antiquated movement. The definition of craft on display at the Rock & Roll Yard Sale was open-ended, democratic, nonhierarchical. There were DJs spinning records next to knitters, a graphic designer selling robot stickers next to a music-themed magnet maker, and a record producer selling vinyl next to a potter. In this world, the crafts tent is left wide open and hand-made pottery claims no more of a stake on the world of craft than such musicians as Frank Sinatra or Joey Ramone.

Fairs like the Rock & Roll Yard Sale illustrate the groundswell of interest for creative goods made with skill, discipline and a high degree of craftsmanship. As does Etsy, an online craft marketplace which last year grossed $87 million in sales and has already topped $130 million this year. According to Amy Shaw of The Found Curve blog, craft is a dirty word no more. “There are no two ways about it: craftiness is definitely having a moment.”

For a potter like me, rooted in a more traditional crafts movement of a bygone era, this means a broader potential market for my work. It also means sharing the stage and craft venues with nontraditional craftspeople and DIY artisans—whether musicians, record producers or makers of handmade cards. I believe the stage—and the crafts movement itself—is large enough to hold us all.

In addition to enjoying a cold beer and the live music at the fair, I was able to pick up a birthday card for my grandmother. I hope she likes the Sex Pistols. . .

Jeremy Ogusky is a craftsman living in Somerville, MA, producing honest and functional pottery. www.oguskyceramics.com

Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design
DVD, 65 minutes, Director, Faythe Levine
$19.95

Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design
By Faythe Levine and Cortney Heimerl
Princeton Architectural Press
$24.95

Ah, youth! It is impossible to watch Handmade Nation and not be affected by its spirit: passionate, upbeat, idealistic and above all energetic. The frenetic pixilated opening credit sequence almost suggests that the title might be Over-Caffeinated Nation. It is also impossible not to be struck by déjà vu all over again, for most of the ideas seem more than familiar. The artists and others interviewed are, gosh!, in favor of the handmade versus the mass-produced. They prefer the tactile. They seek an alternative to the corporate. Oh well, to each generation its own rebellion against the forces of darkness. The film does offer a lively sampling of the indie craft movement from around the country, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, New York City and elsewhere, covering a lot of ground in crafty as well as geographical terms.

It is perhaps not surprising that there is little historical or critical perspective: the spirit of now reigns, as if anything done by these babes in arms is entirely original. Yoko Ott in fact says we have entered a “completely new era.” Maybe. The comment did make me wonder what exactly is new this time, as opposed to all the other movements espousing similar values, going back to good old William Morris. Above all, it seems, the Internet, which makes organization and promotion so much easier. As Garth Johnson remarks in the companion book, after noting the irony of having people reclaiming handicraft by using technology, “For the time being, it’s the Internet that holds the craft world together. Show me a crafter without a website, and I’ll show you a crafter who will probably have a website within six months.”* Also relatively new—although Earth Day will celebrate its 40th birthday in 2010—is the emphasis on environmental consciousness and a green perspective, in particular recycled materials.

Most of the makers appear to be individuals who kept up their craft and art activities after school, outside of the MFA teaching world or the mainstream art world. Some have been able to turn a part-time avocation into a full-time vocation. The sales spaces shown include gallery-boutiques that, along with the alternative craft shows, provide hip havens from corporate retailing and from a mainstream craft world identified with upscale craft galleries, museum sales shops and the ACC shows.

Although the film is not an instructional “how to” guide, it does incorporate vignettes showing process, including Whitney Lee’s demonstration of how she uses a latch-hook to make rugs that feature images of women appropriated from pornography, and Deb Dormody at work bookbinding in a clip from a promotional video made with her friends that is one of the highlights of the film. The actual creations are usually presented efficiently if quickly, but at times they receive limited treatment. The work of Ileana Rodriguez, whose day at the Renegade Craft Show in Chicago provides a narrative thread, is not much more than glimpsed. And the T-shirts, calendars, beads, rock posters, earrings, artists’ books, embroidered clothing and other items on view appear remarkably modest; the larger sculptural works of Mandy Greer, who speaks of moving toward installation, are the exception.

There is a nagging question: does this latest incarnation of the craft spirit reflect a lack of ambition, in professional and aesthetic terms? My concern is that for all its positive qualities, the movement, at least as Levine presents it, may also represent something circumscribed, a club-y refuge that offers a not entirely happy compromise, with the artistic side subordinated to a social side that can appear closer to an updated Jane Austen-era sewing circle than to something radical and new. Granted, whenever I hear the word “empowerment,” my skepticism kicks in. Especially when used in relation to women (95 percent of those interviewed by Levine for the project), the term is too often part of an advertising pitch aimed at exploiting a sense of disempowerment and insecurity, or of Oprah-istic self-fulfillment rhetoric. Levine begins her preface to the book by announcing that she wants to tell why creativity and the DIY ethos “can empower you and change your life.” I do not want to underestimate the dedication necessary for the indie crafters to pursue their real interests, often after putting in regular hours for a paycheck, or to fault Levine’s zealous dedication. All the same, I was taken aback when Sabrina Gschwandtner says, in the film, that she found the first Indie craft fair she attended, the Punk Rock Craft Fair outside Boston, “so fun” because “the emphasis was not on selling things. The emphasis was on hanging out, listening to music, eating vegan food, and that was it.”

If it’s all just about hanging out, Levine’s messianic fervor seems overblown. If sales do not matter all that much, it may be because the activity is (only) a hobby, and not just in IRS terms—no offense to hobbyists—and the “nation” is primarily a psychological support group, with artistic, economic and political concerns of secondary importance. Of course, good times with like-minded people matter, too. A sense of community and an enjoyment of the social side of things have always been part of the craft world. And “hanging out” may imply another contemporary fixation, networking—professional as well as personal. In any event, the Obama-era youth culture lifestyle mash-up of environmentalism-music-anticorporatism-etc. does not seem all that new (even if it is not entirely a ’60s rerun), as if we’ve moved from Hippie counterculture to Yuppiedom and back again.

The new “alternative” fairs may differ socially and artistically from the ACC shows and other more established and maybe Establishment versions. That is understandable and healthy. There is a generational shift underway. At the risk of putting it too simply, I would say that we are at the end of the era of high modernist studio craft. Yet, as with the Indie film movement or the alternative rock scene, it is difficult to gauge how Establishment the alternatives themselves have become, or aspire to be, and how much their difference and significance are exaggerated by advocates and the media. Handmade Nation is a nifty tag, and the actual phenomenon is no doubt preferable to Prozac Nation, Fast Food Nation (if not Slow Food Nation), Porn Nation, Play Station Nation, Foreclosure Nation, Poker Nation or many of the other pop cultural phenomena identified using that formula. Was Woodstock Nation the first? Probably not.

Gschwandtner asks whether the movement really is powerful enough to threaten Nike and Adidas, even as Dennis Stevens says it is subverting the capitalistic big box retailing system. Symbolic gestures can be more than merely symbolic, so the important point is not that the entire economy represented by Handmade Nation is probably not even a blip on the Wal-Mart screen. The larger issue is—as it has been since the Industrial Revolution—the actual role of the handmade. To stress the handmade in clothing or a few other personal or domestic items is one thing, but the status of the handmade in other areas is something else again, especially in the digital age. Handmade (not custom-made or customized) computers? Solar panels? Cars? Okay, maybe not. Leaving that aside, there remains the question of whether this new nation is one where all people attempt to create handmade things for their own use, or whether some make them and others buy them, in a version of cottage crafts updated for the Internet age. To make an obvious, but in this film and book often overlooked distinction: “DIY” and “handmade” are not perfectly interchangeable terms. (Andrew Wagner asks at the beginning of his introduction to the book, "Aren't the words "craft" and "DIY" interchangeable?" I think not. But he is presumably being rhetorical.)

Stevens argues that the movement at its core comes out of punk, and therefore will keep recreating itself. He may be right, on both the movement’s origins and its dynamic. As a youthful, grassroots, alternative movement with a rough-and-ready side, the new-style “extreme” craft might resemble punk, but as far as I can tell it lacks punk’s aggressive, nihilistic rawness. Some of the work in Handmade Nation is hardly radical, however unusual it might seem compared to the offerings at Wal-Mart or the gift shop at MoMA. Some would have been right at home in a craft fair decades ago, and a fair share is closer to “cutesy” than “edgy.” That may be why, though I found a great deal of the work appealing, such as Kathie Sever’s embroidered cowgirl/cowboy shirts, I was especially drawn to the more political efforts. To mention two: Knitta in Houston is a group that knits “tags” (in the graffiti sense), combining warmth with “a dangerous urban edge,” as in a “stop sign cozy,” and Stephanie Syjuco’s “Anti-factory” affixes a label reading “Because Sweatshops Suck” to one-of-a-kind creations that use recycled materials. Syjuco has also organized home-based crocheters in a group project involving trademarked brand-name materials; she puckishly describes it as a “domestic counterfeiting ring.”

Although girls (yes, I know: women) and guys may just want to have fun, I wish the movement could get beyond “weird” and “quirky.” Those terms are repeatedly used to define the special character of the new creations and the sensibility of the makers, but they come to seem an indication of an oddly conformist anti-conformist aesthetic: Welcome to the Tim Burton Fan Club.

Levine was not a professional filmmaker, but she practiced what she preached when she decided to do it herself (with help from some talented collaborators), and the results are impressive. To paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, at times there is a whole lot of handheld shaking and zooming going on, but it would have been all wrong to aim for the earnest refinement of a Ken Burns-style documentary. The music by Wooden Robot, a group that describes its approach as “Experimental-Folk-Americana,” features Levine herself contributing theremin-y whines on the musical saw, and provides an appropriately offbeat accompaniment. No “’Tis the gift to be simple” here: Handmade Nation is a welcome complement, in an entirely different key, to Craft in America, and an excellent introduction to the indie craft movement.

In the near term it will probably be the economy as much as anything that determines the movement’s fate. The real estate crisis is no doubt offering up dirt cheap boutique-gallery-coffee shop storefront spaces. I do not know whether that good news is being matched by corresponding bad news, the loss of even the unloved jobs that provide basic support for many of the makers. Nor do I know whether the market for craft as more personal creations will suffer as people cut back on discretionary spending, or will benefit as people decide they deserve a little treat to help get them through the hard times. Yet I can only admire and support a movement that gives rise to statements like this one in the book, by Emily Kircher, which overrides most if not all of my concerns: “I am never going to get rich doing this. But I am happier than I have ever been in my life, so it is definitely worth it.”

*The book includes longer excerpts from the interviews and illustrations of some of the work, but it differs from the movie primarily because it includes texts by Johnson, Andrew Wagner, Betsy Greer, Callie Janoff and Susan Beal. The book title includes “design,” but that is a stretch. Even the introduction of “art” is ambiguous at best, although a figure like Syjuco is at least as much conceptual artist as craftsperson—for whatever such labels are worth.

Robert Silberman teaches film history and other subjects at the University of Minnesota.

Scrapbook, an occasional posting, will feature reader-contributed photos of craft events of general interest. Click on the heading to see larger image and caption. Send your digital image and caption information to letters@craftcouncil.org, with Scrapbook in the subject line. We must reserve the right to select for appropriateness and interest.