Read my 21st Century Silversmith which I presented at the SNAG conference in Seattle: http://www.silversmithing.com/1century.htm.
I very much enjoyed reading Jeff Herman’s paper that was given at
the SNAG conference ten years ago. We do not seem to be getting very
much of this kind of content from SNAG anymore, but maybe I just have
not been looking closely enough.
According to my advertising guru, it is often a more powerful
statement of who and what you are to say what you are not. We see
this all the time in politics, culture and consumer advertising. In
competitive and sometimes confrontational efforts to communicate what
makes something special this can be unfortunate. I believe much of
the current sorry state of art education is a result of art programs
taking a hard line about what they are not. Being original,
visionary, free and creative is not learning the basics. Being
inclusive of non-traditional materials and forms is too often a
rejection of traditional materials and forms. Being cutting edge
requires a bad attitude about mainstream values.
When I was a freshman in art school (1976) one of my professors
began a series of sculpted portraits that were very recognizable as
which individuals they were meant to represent. He even had the
audacity to teach these skills to his students. It was a real eye
opener to hear the other faculty members get very indignant about how
“this is not the kind of art we are all about here.” Although this
actually was the kind of thing I was hoping to learn at art school,
the man was pretty much shunned and humiliated for crossing over to
some kind of cultural backwardness that came from practicing a
traditional form with traditional skills and materials. I am afraid
this sort of thinking is all too common in many places in academia.
I believe that much of the recent criticism of SNAG on this forum is
a result of SNAG defining itself so strongly as to what it is not
that many of us who would be very happy to be involved in what SNAG
was originally was are finding our needs and interests left out of
the content of the current publications and conference topics.
Stephen Walker