Cranbrook's Metalsmithing Department: The Story Behind Monomater

Davira S Taragin

At its most basic level, Monomater posed a challenge to current Cranbrook students in the metalsmithing department and a few select alumni: think differently about contemporary jewelry. Eichenberg’s concept involved asking them to create a cogent statement in one material; if multiple materials were used, they had to have similar sensibilities. The idea was based upon Eichenberg’s view that jewelry today is primarily about collage.

Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design

Damian Skinner

This exhibition opens up the possibility that we can no longer clearly see the role of craft in the postwar period, since we always impose a cluster of issues from the present (is craft art or not?) onto the evidence of the past. Craft and its relation to art and design is our problem, not a concern endemic to the postwar period. They didn’t worry about it, but we do – and in our worry we impose a certain awkward framework onto the period itself, which makes us less able to see what’s going on.

Metal Zero

Gabriel Craig

The ability of a material to embody and convey meaning is central to our understanding of culture and of the objects with which we surround ourselves. Metal is a natural and effortless container for meaning, more so than almost any other material. In Western culture, metal is the material receptacle for most highly charged emotions. It is so often that we commemorate through the use of metal that we are desensitized to its ability to actively convey meaning.