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Craft Week DC - Mt. Ranier

April 27, 2009

That good-looking Tate guy

Margaret Boozer, the spirit of Red Dirt

The first but surely not the last Craft Week DC just cranked to a close and it was an auspicious beginning. Hatched in the fevered brain of Tim Tate the Glass Guy and some cohorts, the series of events staged in galleries and museums and studios throughout our region seems like it should have been around forever.

Mike Janis demonstrating

We’ve had the most exclusive and prestigious annual national event in the high-rent craft calendar in the country for years, the Smithsonian Craft Show, but now we also have a whole festival focusing on the local talent staged around the Smithsonian event, and there is a lot of local talent.

Erwin Timmers demonstrating

Mila Kagan's textured white porcelain with plastic icicles. Gorgeous

A lot of that local talent is right here in lovely Mt. Ranier in my own studio complex, where three of the premier studios – the Washington Glass School and ceramic ateliers Red Dirt Studio and Flux Studio – opened to the public for demonstrations and exhibitions last Friday.

Leila Holtsman's new work

Novie Trump shows how to make a reliquary

But before I show you the pictures, can we just briefly discuss that eternal question: What's a "craft" and what's a "art?" The distinction seems to originally have had something to do with whether the object in question has a utilitarian function, since "art" can apparently never be useful. But virtually none of the objects made in any of the studios here can be eaten on, drunk from or used as a depository for blossoms, so that obviously can't be the current operative definition.

Andrea Roberson

Sandy the Rubber Girl

Can it just be that they are made from materials like glass and clay that used to be reserved for useful things? That just seems dumb as a definitional criterion. "A craft is made from something that used to be utilitarian?" I don't think there's any good answer to this conundrum. But I love using that word. Conundrum conundrum conundrum.

Paige Billin-Frye and Chris Shea

???

I think I’ll just show you some pictures since that’s what it’s all about.

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