Abstract

Academic paper given at 'Crafticulation & Education' International Conference of Craft Science and Craft Education 24-26 September 2008, University of Helsinki, Finland. Publication 'Crafticulation & Education', ISBN:978-952-10-5578-2.

The authenticity of the artists touch, makes note of craft and applied art discourse where as a consequence of either convention or history substantial focus has been applied to the notion of the hand within practice. This familiarisation with applied art methodology indicates that authentication is ultimately placed with an object where skill can be physically acknowledged as part of the process. The authentication of practice, within this context, identifies with the object and thus suggests a specific communicative hegemony. This is subject to certain identification particularly with regards to meaning and significance within craft. Identification, as a result of adherence to the applied art vernacular, can be justified in a manner of speaking with regards to the object and the skill of the practitioner. This points towards the observation that craft is linked primarily to the physical object and cannot be dematerialised. Such an observation can be confirmed when an artwork can be defined by set structures but what then of the notion of decentred meaning? It is this that re-introduces the question of concept and how it is engaged within the structures of applied art. This paper examines the notion of decentred meaning and demonstrates that the location of process and technique is being repositioned by the ceramic artist and, most notably, that these elements are being exposed through conceptual activity attached to the materiality of clay.