10-28-08 Lecture

Garth Johnson's Extreme Crafts website

Garth Johnson knows how to give a lecture. He was upbeat and amusing, and clearly cares about the work he does, and the work he displays from other artists on his website. I thought that he divided the work up very interestingly, after giving us a taste of different "extreme crafts" he showed us work that was "Art masquerading as craft" "Craft masquerading as art" and "Craft extending it's middle finger". While obviously any piece in any of these categories could cross over into another, I thought the titles alone were clever. The work of his wife, who sprinkles glitter over glue to make large, detailed images in a very Buddhist monk making a mandala sort of way, blew my mind. I know I would go insane if I ever tried that. The concentration that the people who make some of the crafts we saw was mind boggling and showed extreme dedication. One woman had done a needle point of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which took her about ten years. I thought the most intriguing section was the "Cozies" that we got to see. Though the cozy for the missile was shown last as if it was the best, I felt the lengths the artist went through to get permission to make the cozy and adorn the missile with it was more impressive than the work itself. The image we were shown before that one was a tank covered in a cozy of several shades of pink, and a fluffy pink ball hanging from the opening of the cannon. Garth's described this as delightfully emasculating because all the cannon could do was "poot" out the ball of fluff. I thought that piece had a lot more concept wrapped into it than many of the other pieces we saw. I am excited to see the book he plans to put out which will feature a number of crafts made from recycled/ready-made items.