Golden State of Craft: California 1960-1985 Catalog
Protagonist for the Crafts
Eudorah M. Moore, who describes herself as a “protagonist for the crafts,” has spent a great deal of her life advancing and promoting the work of the hand. She recalls:
I think the way that I first became aware of the crafts, and therefore interested, was as a child going with my mother up high into the Appalachian highlands where there was an old chair maker who still spoke the Elizabethan English…We used to go up and collect his chairs because my mother loved them. It made me very, very conscious of the quality that went into really deeply traditional crafts, like the fact that the chairs never had a nail in them. The parts would bond together as the wood dried. They ended up being what they called ‘settin’ chairs. You can picture the old boys sitting back in their chairs and just settin’ against the house wall.
Armed with this innate consciousness and her unflagging optimism, Moore, who graduated from Smith College, married and made her home in Pasadena with her husband and four children, became a driving force in what she likes to call the “New Crafts Movement”:
...a recognition of different kinds of contemporary crafts that were often created as artworks by college educated people, and not just as functional objects. That was a whole other level of consciousness when relating to the crafts, and it’s the one that certainly I’ve spent my life in.
California had a leading role in the “New Crafts Movement.” The central artists had gone back to college on the GI Bill and were applying a college attitude towards these age-old materials. This made a huge difference in what was produced. People who came back from the war had the opportunity to move into the art department. There was enough of a demand that all the crafts materials were included for the first time in the university curriculum, where pure research was often the mode. It brought a new dimension to the way people looked at the crafts. In Moore’s perception:
...there was an efflorescence that was unbelievable. Art attitudes were assumed rather than the craftsmen’s attitude, which was to make an object of use.
Moore became deeply involved in the life of the Pasadena community. She was a founder and first president of the Pasadena Art Alliance. She served on the boards of many cultural organizations including the Pasadena Arts Council and the Otis Arts Association. She was instrumental in the early planning and development of the new Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum) in the late 1960s, having initiated the activities for its creation and then serving on its Board of Trustees. Perhaps the most important work Moore would do began in 1961 when she, as a board member, asked then director Tom Leavitt if she could reorganize the “California Design” exhibitions that the museum had been putting on.
The first seven “California Design” exhibitions had been annual shows of contemporary furniture from the Los Angeles Furniture Mart. Moore, however, had a different vision for the exhibitions; they became triennial, were juried, and potentially included virtually any object of quality made or designed in California from tea cups to small aircrafts to children’s play equipment. Moore became Curator of Design at the museum in 1962 and held that position for 15 years. She was also named Director of “California Design” (which later became a separate nonprofit organization) dedicated to exposition, education and publication in the fields of architecture, design and the crafts.
Her visionary work on the exhibitions led to a unique coupling of design and craft. The exhibitions and accompanying catalogs caused reverberations throughout the United States. Combining artist-designed furniture with hand-thrown pots; wooden rocking chairs with hot tubs; plastics with natural materials and photographing (together with photographer Richard Gross) these diverse and exciting objects in California’s spectacular natural landscapes was a breakthrough moment for craft and design. Moore likes to describe her approach as a bridge between design and industry, which was demonstrated and verified by the “California Design” exhibitions. Her championing of the handmade elevated the work of dozens of artists while illuminating the importance of the crafts. The shows acted as a catalyst between manufacturers, craftspeople, architects and the public. They received international editorial attention.
Moore looks back on her ideas for the “California Design” exhibitions:
It was very unusual, actually, to mix design and craft, and it was particularly pertinent at the time that we did it. I’m not positive that the two fields would be able to establish such dialogue anymore as they did then, but, at the time, as I talked to industrial designers, I felt that the process of design was very much the same as that of the process of crafts. I can remember talking to Charles Eames about this, and his saying ‘they’re exactly the same. The only thing that’s different is the foreseen hand. When I’m designing these chairs, I’m designing them with the idea of coming in multiples. Our idea is to get the cost down. The process is the same, although the final intent is different.’ And it was that dialogue of the processes that kept the shows quite lively, and why we included both.
The “California Design” exhibitions, in Moore’s view, had a special ingredient, the craftsperson:
One of the things that intrigued me in putting up the shows was that all the craftsmen came up out of the woodwork and volunteered at the museum and wanted to help, doing whatever they could, not just for their own piece, but for everybody else’s piece. I can remember installing those shows at the museum and having literally fifty different volunteers who were helping us. There was that real sense of brotherhood.
The manner in which artists were chosen to exhibit in “California Design” was in itself unique. Pieces were not judged by slides; rather, the jurors considered the actual pieces that were submitted in person. Artists brought their works to locations in Northern and Southern California. The pieces were deposited, juried, and rejected pieces were picked up. Moore describes the jurying process:
I felt very, very strongly that the only way to jury an object was to look at that object. It was such work as you can’t imagine. We had a jury of three people for the crafts. We received thousands of objects from which we chose an exhibition of about five hundred. Then the photography started. We would receive in September, jury, and have the catalog ready for the show in March. It was an arduous thing.
Because she understood the historical significance of the “California Design” shows, Moore insisted the exhibitions she directed have catalogs. Those for “California Design VIII, IX, X, XI, and ’76” are historical records of the fertile imagination and skill of the artists who were represented in the exhibitions. In addition, the creative and forward-thinking photography used in the catalogs married craft and design with exteriors to accentuate the beauty and originality of the objects. The force behind this ingenious formula was Moore.
In addition to the “California Design” series, while at the Pasadena Art Museum, Moore prepared and edited books and filmstrips on design as well as organizing and mounting a variety of other exhibitions and activities in the crafts, including: “Islands in the Land,” about traditional crafts; the international fiber symposium, “Fiber as Medium”; and the historical exhibition about the Arts and Crafts movement before it was on anyone’s radar, “California Design 1910.” As she saw artists coming in with their objects at the last design show in 1976, she realized that she wanted to publish something that told about the craftspeople themselves and their way of life. This was the genesis of a book titled The Craftsman Lifestyle: The Gentle Revolution.
From 1978 to 1981, Moore went on to serve as Crafts Coordinator of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., with responsibilities for all craft-related endowment grants and activities. Under her leadership, a number of grant categories were added including Building Arts and Crafts Projects. She also developed an advocacy program aimed at generating commissions and bringing public attention to the crafts of architectural scale and crafts integral to architecture. She supported a number of activities aimed at increasing scholarship and developing better communication in the craft field. Moore initiated and directed a broad participatory effort to identify the needs of the field. The findings of this effort, known as the National Crafts Planning Project, were brought to a National Crafts Congress.
One might wonder how the art versus craft controversy, which was front and center throughout her career, affected Moore’s approach to the crafts. In a 2001 interview for Craft in America, her opinion was strong:
I don’t think that there is any question but that there is an ongoing art/craft controversy. My point of view about this is the fact that the entire creative act is one. My feeling is that the term ‘art’ actually is an accolade. It doesn’t have anything to do with intent, really. This person is an artist. And, to me, that person can be a craftsperson, maybe a potter, for instance. But some of the people who practice in those different categories are artists. And then, many people who paint and make paintings are not really artists at all. So, my feeling is that the word ‘artist’ is an accolade that is given by others. And the word ‘craftsman’ is a noble word from my point of view because it bears back to tradition and to the formation of all objects of use with which we surrounded ourselves.
I understand that some people think that the word ‘craft’ is a pejorative word that has negative implications and I disagree with that point of view entirely because I think it binds this activity to the human race. It allows possibility to well up from below. It allows humanity to come in rather than elitism.
Her views on creativity and art are compelling:
I think all art is energy transfer to some extent; and the crafts, because of their hands-on nature, are very much so. In some way, you can sense when you look at a piece that has that energy, you can feel it; it is transferred. But that’s through time. You look at crafts through time and you can sense the energy of the makers. And I think this is one of the moving qualities of it; the palpable qualities of craft. And also the fact that the crafts essentially transcend time and they transcend styles. When you touch a pot that bears the imprint of the hand, it has that strength of the maker.
Moore’s commitment to the arts continues as she is often invited to participate in conversations about the “California Design” exhibitions, the climate for the crafts in America now and the future of the handmade. When asked by curators Jo Lauria and Suzanne Baizerman to write an introduction to their book, California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style, Moore wrote:
Now, thirty years after the last “California Design” exhibition in 1976, it is interesting to note that the best work of this period is re-emerging, being re-evaluated and being found as sound and interesting as ever. Time has silenced some of the strong voices, others are still productive and fresh, but review of the work reinforces the belief that quality speaks across generations and has enduring value.
In this statement, Moore could be speaking about herself. Certainly her work, which stands as a documentation of the golden age of craft in California and the nation, is as sound and as interesting as it was almost fifty years ago. The quality of her work speaks across generations and has enduring value.
Craft in the Golden State
California at mid-twentieth century experienced a bold and vibrant renaissance in the craft field. The New Crafts Movement, as christened by Eudorah M. Moore, director of the “California Design” program of the Pasadena Art Museum, had its roots traceable to the period in California when the Arts and Crafts movement flourished from the 1880s to the 1920s. The Arts and Crafts movement left its philosophical imprint on the cultural consciousness of Californians. Widely influential and broadly promoted throughout the state, the movement upheld beliefs that affected patterns and philosophies of living: it endorsed a lifestyle that favored rustic simplicity; placed emphasis on environmentalism and the use of indigenous materials; advocated for the handcrafted over the machine made; and honored nature as the wellspring of inspiration. These tenets lingered on from San Francisco to San Diego but lost their stronghold in the 1940s when Californians shifted their attention to the exigencies of wartime efforts.
Within the decade that spanned 1940 to 1950, California underwent a massive population expansion. At the beginning of the war, people poured into the state to fill defense, aerospace, and shipyard jobs that had been created by war-era industries. At the end of the war, thousands of returning veterans chose to stay and make California their newfound home. Many of them enrolled in college programs using funding provided by the GI Bill of Rights to pay tuition. The population influx fueled a housing boom, stimulated California’s economy, created an unparalleled period of postwar prosperity and drove the expansion of the state’s college system. Between 1947 and 1960, sixteen new college campuses were built. This prodigious development was intended to fulfill the state’s mandate to make “higher education accessible to all” (The Donahoe Higher Education Act of 1960), and to accommodate the surge in enrollment that would occur when “baby boomers” — those born after 1945 — reached college age.
Relevant to the crafts field, the postwar growth and expansion in the schools was the major stimulus for engendering innovative craft programs and nurturing a new generation of craftspeople. Educational opportunities in the crafts became available as funding support for art departments increased. Expanded new studios were shaped to facilitate instruction in craft materials and processes. Students were offered training in a wide range of disciplines including ceramics, fiber and textile arts, woodworking, furniture making, metal arts, jewelry design and glassblowing (introduced in the late 1960s). These early classes were often taught by teachers who had no precedent to follow, and these pioneering educators used their frontier ingenuity to secure necessary equipment, supplies and resources. First and foremost, the objective of the first wave of college craft teachers was to impart the technical hand skills demanded by the craft, assuring a student’s mastery of materials and methods.
The second generation of craft educators (and those who have followed) built upon the foundation of teaching the formal values of craft practices while broadening the scope and reach of the programs. Through integrated learning of associative subjects and world cultures, the cross-disciplinary approach, teachers endeavored to make the craft studio a laboratory of creative thinking and experimentation. Enabled and empowered, students were encouraged, indeed expected to create thoughtful work that had meaning and relevance to its time and place. Craft work could now be freed from the requirement of function and could be judged on its aesthetic merit.
Starting in the late 1950s, the ushering forth of the next era in the craft continuum had its own distinctive energies, motivations, and relationships with the broader art world: the New Crafts Movement. In a published interview for the journal, Design for Arts in Education (October 1979), Moore outlined the circumstances which she perceived as giving birth to this new movement:
California has a centuries-old tradition of emphasis on the ecological and the organic; a love of nature and the out-of-doors inspired by its climate; a diversity of ethnic and national art traditions; an unstructured permissive attitude toward new ideas in philosophy, religion, and art; a school system in which crafts are taught in art classes (almost unique in the nation); while at the same time, Californians treasure their heritage of rugged pioneer individualism. All are circumstances which have contributed to the flowering of a bold and brilliant New Craftsman’s Movement in the state.
The years spanning the 1960s through the early 1980s were revolutionary times for the craft field. At the core of the New Crafts Movement was a profound shift in ideology that activated changes within craft practices and aesthetics. College-trained craft artists had been taught to push boundaries, problem solve, and transcend limitations. They had been prepared to become participants in the wider discourse of contemporary art, and as professional studio craft artists they were motivated to make work that advanced the leading edge of possibility in their field. Using cultural sources, other art genres, and an adventurous spirit as their catalysts, they leap-frogged old restraints of craft traditions and opened the floodgates of change and creativity. And change was evident in all disciplines; it made inroads through diverse pathways.
Looking through the lens of history, the flashpoints of transition and upheaval that transpired during these decades ignited bright new ways of thinking through crafts and sparked to life the New Crafts Movement. The exhibition “Golden State of Craft: California 1960-1985” explores and celebrates this period of heightened critical inquiry and invention through the display of craft objects exemplary for their aesthetic vision and expert workmanship. Collectively, these compelling pieces tell the story of when craft crossed over into a golden era of innovation, expressive energy, and creative diversity.
Assertive, unexpected, large scale, radically altered forms began to emerge from studios. Craft artists embraced new and unconventional materials, advanced technologies, and experimental processes. Ceramists translated the stylistic aspects of Abstract Expressionism into massive, gestural, forceful sculptures with spontaneously-worked surfaces. They manifested the aesthetics of Funk in their offbeat sculptures that appeared crafted in an irreverent and off-handed way, a deliberate act of subversion that challenged the positioning of skill and expertise in relation to concept and content. Textile artists innovated loom-weaving to create dimensional, off-the-wall work, or abandoned their looms in favor of the hand-weaving techniques of knotting, plaiting, lashing and coiling. Jewelers looked to non-Western cultures and created contemporary pieces with inflections of exoticism and primitivism. Furniture makers expanded the design vocabulary producing forms that were more sculptural, playful, and sometimes illusionistic by adding to their material choices with metals and plastics sourced from industry. Glassblowers shaped glass into mysterious organic forms or into globular vessels. These heady and exciting changes that occurred within the walls of art studios, echoed what was happening in the streets.
