{"id":171,"date":"2013-02-08T08:47:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T08:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk:\/studiodiary\/?p=171"},"modified":"2013-02-08T10:00:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T10:00:36","slug":"but-is-it-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/?p=171","title":{"rendered":"But is it Art?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20130205_144225\"<\/a>
Is this art, craft or something else?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve just accepted a booking to give a talk about my work as a printmaker. The reply was that the group were looking forward to it \u2018although some of the members will need to be persuaded that printmaking is art\u2019. I was a bit floored by this. Art seems sometimes to be more class ridden than a day out at Ascot. I\u2019m used, as a printmaker, to being considered fairly low on the scale. Indeed, as a linocut printer, I am sometimes given the impression that I\u2019m a grubby tag-along at best. The idea that what I do for a living isn\u2019t even art was a novelty though.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m my father\u2019s daughter. As a self made man with a desperately hard childhood he would say \u2018Who gives a damn what you call it as long as they get their wallets out\u2019. I\u2019m not going to lose any sleep: my work sells, my teaching is in demand and I\u2019m confident in my work. However I wonder if the good members of the group think perhaps printing is more \u2018craft\u2019?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be the first to agree that there is a strong element of craftsmanship in printmaking and craft skills are something I am seriously proud to have: craft, like printmaking, tends to be dismissed. Craft has suffered from being used as a catch-all name for the peddling of tat at what used to be called \u2018Bring and Buy\u2019 and now are inevitably \u2018Craft Shows\u2019. So printmakers are confused with the button pressing of the modern computer printer and mindless mass reproduction. I now have to explain that my work is entirely hand cut and hand pulled by me which generates true astonishment at times.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to reclaim both art and craft for printmaking in the true sense of the words. The craft is in the process. It is a very highly skilled job to be a good printmaker and it requires years of practice learning the craft. The process skills can be taught to anyone given the time and I\u2019m confident I could produce a craftsman from the man in the street (should he wish to be kidnapped and kept in a studio for a very long time), but that wouldn\u2019t make him an artist. The art bit is knowing what to do with those skills when you have them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that this thinking would change much in the hierarchy of the art world where conceptual fine art seems to be top of the heap at the moment, but at least I have my thoughts in order for the talk I have to give…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just accepted a booking to give a talk about my work as a printmaker. The reply was that the group were looking forward to it \u2018although some of the members will need to be persuaded that printmaking is art\u2019. I was a bit floored by this. Art seems sometimes to be more class ridden … Continue reading “But is it Art?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}