The hand is implicated in both the traditional and digitized processes of craft object making. Further the digitized photographic image is now used either as a precursor to viewing the tangible object or as the object itself. In this paper the hand as a craft maker is considered in the context of these two forms - as a collaborator with traditional hand tools and in association with digitized technology. Two photographic works by the Australian jeweller Tiffany Parbs are used to encapsulate the above contentions and visually explore the diverse roles the hand plays in contemporary object making.

Craft Practice: The hand and technology

The hand is both the actual and symbolic interface between craft and the visual craft/art object. The hand guides the process when things are made; it is the point where the maker’s store of skill and knowledge is released to the task at hand. It is also the point where inherent characteristics built into technical apparatus are released. Andreas Strohl[i] theorised this notion in a paper delivered at a conference concerning “the ideology of the imaginary in the 21^st century,” where he argued that apparatus—the devices used to make art/craft objects especially those of a technical nature such as the camera and the computer—come complete with inbuilt ideologies which must be accepted, confronted or assaulted by the craft/art maker. I am arguing that the acceptance of the notion that digitized apparatus is ideologically laden can demonstrate the importance of traditional skills, tools and craft materials to the way craft/art objects are understood. Digital and traditional crafting can be considered as one, simply as assemblages of apparatus with a capacity to mediate ideas into objects and which remain open to view in the finished craft/art object.

This is not new: design scholar Malcolm McCullough[ii] saw the advent of digitized technologies as adding to and opening up new vistas for craft practice by positing that operating a program (in collaboration with the program maker) with a mouse or keyboard is merely another act of crafting. In their essay on “Integrating Craft Materials and Computing,” Glenn Blauvelt, Tom Wrensch and Mike Eisenberg also connected digital technology with traditional craft, claiming that “the advent of computation both enhances the expressive capabilities of existing materials, and supports the development of intelligent materials that form the basis of entirely new branches of craftwork. Perhaps less obviously, on the computational side, a focus on craft materials can lead to a re-evaluation of some of the basic concepts of traditional computer science: a ‘computational crafter’ may well begin to rethink the very ideas of programming languages, software engineering, computer architecture, and peripheral devices.”[iii]

Considering digitized technologies such as the computer and camera as ideologically-laden craft materials adds to understanding the relations between traditional craft practices and all forms of visual art. Computer based art object production can serve as a model for asserting the importance of all craft processes in art object making because it cannot be denied by practitioners, it has obvious influence on the finished art work, it is  available for recreational use by non professionals and attracts an audiences familiar with its form. It is thus argued that craft, traditional or digitized, and its ideological associations are embodied elements in all visual craft/art objects.

Craft/Art Practice

The theoretical contexts in which traditional and digital hand tools have so far been discussed can be opened up by exploring existing examples of a craft/art practice. In this case a jeweller whose work occupies the outer limits of the craft of jewellery making is ideal to explore the hand in a craft/art site. Her work asks what can be considered as jewellery and brings to the fore the skills, processes, materials and presentation that materialize it. Two pieces by the Australian jeweller Tiffany Parbs are used as conceptualized instances of the effect of making (the craft) on the hand and the impact their presentation as digitized artworks has on how they are received.

The first Etched (Cut) (Fig. 1) applies process and technique often employed by jewellers to make finger rings (etch and cut), using them to both name and become the work. The incised word on the finger-ring site tells about the potentially damaging (to maker/wearer) but necessary craft processes used in jewellery making. On another level the art work itself requires its own set of skills and knowledge (craft) for it to be made, skills to work the material (human skin and flesh) with tools and knowledge of the dangers of working on the human body. Etched (Cut) illustrates the ambiguous relations between maker, craft and object. In this context the work is simultaneously a finger ring, an acknowledgement of craft processes used to make it and commentary on our desire for inscription—in this case embracing both physical and cultural relations with the human body.

Tiffany Parbs, Etched (Cut), 2004. Skin. Photo: Greg Harris

 The second, Blister Ring (Fig. 2) results from the local application of heat to the hand. Heat is an integral element not only in jewellery production but in many craft processes, such as metal casting and welding, used to make many visual art objects. The first piece, Cut (etch), names the techniques and processes used to make it while the second, Blister Ring, refers to the result of one process (the application of heat)—a finger ring made from blisters of skin and body fluids. Craft and visual art have moveable boundaries in this context; the blister on the finger can be seen as simply a piece of unusual jewellery, body scarification or body art with diverse psycho/cultural meanings.

Tiffany Parbs, Blister Ring, 2004. Skin. Photo: Terence Bogue

Both these pieces can be displayed as tangible objects and viewed and reviewed as traces of the crafting used to make them as they change over time. But the jeweller has chosen large scale photographs to exhibit the work in a more permanent form, a digital solution that captures a larger audience and highlights and retains the obvious initial evocation and visceral reaction to the pain of making them. They represent both the traditional and digitized in contemporary craft/art production.

The initial making and display of art objects is only the first stage of their life cycle. Jewellery objects either worn or photographed are subject to change as they age and as their viewing public diversifies. As an example of the conceptualization of change in a tangible object, writer and curator Kevin Murray relates the story of a metal finger ring made by the jeweller, Susan Cohn that was deliberately designed to wear through thin layers of metals exposing different "values" over its lifespan.[iv] This finger ring, in a sense, captures metaphorically its relations with its ‘crafters’: the maker and the wearer/user. Further crafting of the object can occur on the body; the relationship between wearer/user and object continues during its association with the wearer, objects are remade with the “tools” offered by everyday use. Tiffany Parb’s photographs, intended to present temporary and ephemeral jewellery objects, are also subject to this change as the body and atmosphere ‘repair’ the damaged flesh finally leaving faint scarring and memory as the only record. Although the scarring can be recorded in further photographs the works are destined to be crafted into oblivion.

Conclusion

Crafting is an embodied intellectual, sensory and utilitarian feature of craft/art objects and practice. The conjecture, that objects are subject to the intervention of the hand, is considered in both traditional and digitized modes and in a brief analysis of the relationship of craft techniques, processes and presentation by a contemporary artist. These examples demonstrate that the nexus between crafting and the visual craft/art object is neither new nor diminished; it has rather been submerged under the dominating hierarchy of the art/craft debate and Modernism.

Notes
[i] Andreas Strohl, “Apparatus Images How the Apparatus Swallows Meaning and projects,” Ideology, the IDEOLOGY of the IMAGINARY in the 21^st century, The Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide Australia 2007.