Although artists Lynne Adams and Matthew Simons were neighbors at Easthampton’s Cottage Street Studios in Western Massachusetts, it was adversity and last year’s advocacy campaign to keep studio rents affordable that inevitably brought the two together. “None of us [at Cottage Street] really knew each other well,” Adams explained, “but once we started organizing against incoming extreme rent increases, relationships were built around a common goal. A year after the campaign, a handful of us who stayed at Cottage Street began coming together and critiquing each other’s artwork. That started many conversations — and for Matt and I — this inspiration for a new body of collaborative work.” “We also owe it to George,” Adams shared, referring to former Cottage Street Studios fellow tenant and mixed-media artist George Shaw. “He’s a founding member of Galatea Gallery in Boston. He connected … [Read more...] about THE VALUE OF COLLABORATION

The two different natures of contemporary American crafts are beautifully represented at the Fuller Craft Museum. Crafts fashioned as art-objects are exhibited in the museum members’ Biennial Exhibit. Crafts made as utilitarian-objects are displayed in the Museum’s Gift Shop. The concept of non-utilitarian contemporary craft art is relatively new in the art world and I’m sure someone is working on a PhD thesis on the topic as I write. An example of non-utilitarian craft, Mo Kelman’s “On Thin Ice,” uses wood sticks and bamboo to create a rectangular web of great intricacy. The sticks cross each other at right angles and are fastened at one end in two mesh-grids of wire. The object is most interesting when the viewer walks around to see it from different angles. The 3D crisscrossing of sticks at right angles casts an intricate shadow that is an important part of the work. But does it have … [Read more...] about CRAFTMAKING’S NEXT STEP