String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art

by Elissa Auther

String, Felt, Thread presents an unconventional history of the American art world, chronicling the advance of thread, rope, string, felt, and fabric from the "low" world of craft to the "high" world of art in the 1960s and 1970s and the emergence today of a craft counterculture. In this full-color illustrated volume, Elissa Auther discusses the work of American artists using fiber, considering provocative questions of material, process, and intention that bridge the art-craft divide. Drawn to the aesthetic possibilities and symbolic power of fiber, the artists whose work is explored here-Eva Hesse, Robert Morris, Claire Zeisler, Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, and others-experimented with materials that previously had been dismissed for their associations with the merely decorative, with "arts and crafts," and with "women's work." In analyzing this shift and these exceptional artists' works, Auther engages far-reaching debates in the art What accounts for the distinction between art and craft? Who assigns value to these categories, and who polices the boundaries distinguishing them? String, Felt, Thread not only illuminates the centrality of fiber to contemporary artistic practice but also uncovers the social dynamics-including the roles of race and gender-that determine how art has historically been defined and valued.

Genres: Art, Crafts, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

TCL Call# - 709.73 Auther, E.

Suzanne - 5 stars

A critcal review of the history over the last 40 years of artists who use "low brow" materials to create "high art". Well researched and carefully fills in a long held gap in art history. Only for those who like "art-think".

[Vashti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reading this cover to cover, slowly, partly because I'm writing in the margins a lot, partly because it sometimes reads like an academic dissertation. (Not in a bad way.)
Thank goodness it was written.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent history of textile/fiber art and the debate between craft and fine art.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great book on something that is difficult to research. The "Craft Movement" and it's slow integration into the "fine arts" is and always has been controversial, and this author does a great job detailing the struggle throughout the years.