Would Frankenstein Be Art or Craft?

Anchorage is Hopping! Daddy-O needed to be on the Mountain for ski clinics this weekend and Gus and I decided to stay in Anchorage and be townies. Daddy-O just called us from Girdwood and said it DUMPED snow last night and he’s getting ready to take some freshies in the POW! A winter storm last week dropped a record setting blanket of snow just in time for everyone. Friday kicked off the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Festival through March 6. Organizers were smart to time Fur Rondy

with the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race coming this Saturday, March 6 at 10:00 am. These Rondy pictures are of The Running of the Reindeer and the Sprint Dog Sled Races downtown. Lots of folks are in town for both, big events and Anchorage is hopping! From our house we could catch a glimpse of the Fur Rondy fire works that went off last night in downtown Anchorage. Gus is all about anything classic monster so he really, really, really wanted to see the original Frankenstein movie on the big screen at Bear Tooth Theatre Pub Saturday afternoon. His big brother Will, and Will’s girlfriend Kim came too and all of us shared a large booth. The black & white movie was fun and the Nachos, Cheese pizza, Gyro’s, Hard Apple Ale and Wild Country Raspberry Wheat Beer (Gus had Sprite) even better!

Gus and I were going to head downtown to catch some of the Rondy events before the movie but the temperature dropped a bit and we opted to go to Barnes & Noble instead (I know, we were weather wimps!) I did pick up the March issue of Art Calendar and the February/March issue of American Craft. Art Calendar has a special section on "Landing Grants," which may prove handy for my upcoming deadline tomorrow. American Craft has a good essay in the Critic’s Corner, “Further Notes on the Art/Craft Debate"

that has me rethinking my thoughts on Art vs. Craft. On my grant application I needed to check a box that described my discipline and I automatically checked “Crafts” until I read how the Foundation (on page 5) described each discipline and found my discipline fit better under “Visual Arts.” Interestingly, metal works and ceramics fall under “Visual Arts.” I can really get going on this debate and tend to probably try and simplify it a bit too much. Functionality and non-functionality aside, my simplified thought has always been Art is predominately created by using one hand and Craft predominately created by two hands. Probably a bit too simplified. Much to my chagrin, after reading the essay my brain has been spinning this debate again. I also think the category of “Visual Arts” tends to negate the debate between Art vs. Craft. Your thoughts on Art vs. Craft? Does the debate even matter?

Here are some of the images I had professional photographer Chris Arend take of my clay and steel pieces. The images were wonderful and a bit tricky to shoot because of their size. Though I felt that since these were some of my first mixed medium pieces I’ve really progressed with the clay in the last few months. The “Humboldt Squid” piece is large and heavy, about 55” wide and the companion piece “Nautilus” is about 38” wide. The "Tree Spirit" is 23" tall and all three use plasma cut and welded steel with hand formed ^04-05 clay components.