Getting to Know the Artisans Who Make Other People’s Art
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Important Quotes and Things to Note:
“One of the largest groups of behind-the-scenes laborers is artisans — the welders, sculptors, painters, finishers, and others who realize large-scale pieces of art, often on behalf of big-name artists.”
“Many sculptors work with paper or clay; others use computer aided design to craft their models. All the scaling up in plaster, all the enlargements and of course the execution in marble (and indeed in bronze) is done outside of the sculptor’s studio”
“There is an art in their craft. To do the job well requires a true eye, an extraordinary attention to detail, an ability to translate an idea from one material (usually plaster) into another and of course, a mastery of scale — work looks very different when it is 100 times the size and so many artistic decisions need to be made along the way.”
Thoughts and Questions:
- Is craft more of the artisan than the designer? How do you distinguish between the two?
- The trained eye is critical to success of a piece, what happens when that trained eye or hand is not that of the designer, but instead of the artisan?
- Major themes coming out of this piece are the body, humility, attribution of skill versus design intent, large scale idea and finite detail decisions
Steinhauer, Jillian. “Getting to Know the Artisans Who Make Other People’s Art.” Hyperallergic RSS. December 15, 2014. Accessed September 26, 2016. http://hyperallergic.com/168719/getting-to-know-the-artisans-who-make-other-peoples-art/.
