01.06.26 RESEARCH PAPER IDEAS:<\/b><\/p>\n
Craft as Protest<\/strong><\/p>\n Doing, making, gathering and giving as hopeful activities<\/strong><\/p>\n Suffering<\/b> and abandonment<\/b> as a fuel for artistic practice<\/b> versus security, care and craft passed<\/b> throughout generations, which one makes a greater\/true\/more honest Artist? Does it take a Village<\/b>?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Comparing the approach to the work of An artist by\u00a0<\/span>Tracey Emin\/Louise Bourgeois\/Magdalena Abakanowicz\/ Zofia Stryje\u0144ska\/Sheila Hicks\/Ghada Amer\/Krystyna Woytyna-Drouet\/Tanya Aguiniga<\/b>\u00a0and Tereza Stehlikova\/Barbara Hepworth\/Koniakow lacemakers\/Noe Kuremoto(The loudest house can still hide the loneliest Woman)<\/b><\/p>\n Sheila Hicks (Interview?) – <\/b>her work with textile as a universal medium, her thesis on pre-Incaic textiles, her idea of working with textile, \u201cwrapping yarns around sticks\u201d, her \u201cmigratory experience\u201d and how that affected her practice as well as being born during the great depression, which resonates with my experience being born during the communist occupation of Poland. The long drives in the back of the car with her parents feeling like a prisoner of the situation, longing to become part of that other, outside world. Hicks said: \u201cTextile is a universal language. In all of the cultures of the world, textile is a crucial and essential component\u201d<\/p>\n ADDITIONAL ARTISTS: GUERILLA GIRLS, JUDY CHICAGO, OLGA DE AMARAL, SOOJIN KANG<\/b><\/p>\n Why is it Arts& Crafts? Did Crafts get degraded from Art to \u201ewomens work\u201d and has that changed and if it did then when and how?<\/b><\/p>\n The Witch, the feminist and the closure. Are Crafts the solution, the way to hope, connect and heal the broken world?<\/b><\/p>\n Independence vs Interdependence in Art and in Life – do we need a tribe?<\/b><\/p>\n Does it take a Village? Female artists who believe art is solitary(Tracey Emin), that only by isolating ourselves from the outside world(chlidren, family, friends, social gatherings, events, news) can we create truly genuine individualistic works versus artists, who believe one can create while simultaneously coexisting with their \u201cvillage\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Also thinking how this could be woven in with researching, based on Gia\u2019s reaction to <\/b>my ideas, the Mitochondrial Eve <\/b>gene theory that all humans descend from one Woman who lived 200,000 years ago meaning there is a universal female connection between all humans in the world. And how there might be a connection between the lacemakers of Koniakow, the indigenous tribes described by Mithlo in her paper, Sofi\u2019s Carpet makers and Sheila Hicks view of textile as universal and Poland\u2019scenturies-old Basketry Traditions Were officially inscribed on the UNESCO\u2019 Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Cultural significance of basketry: Passed down through generations-often within faimlies or via master weavers-the craft is heavily championed by Women and is deeply intertwined with local Identity, agricultural cycles and environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n By interviewing the Lace Artists from Koniak\u00f3w <\/b>Village in the Silesia Area of Poland, (and potentially wicker basket weavers) over the summer I am attempting to understand how this art form manages to survive throughout the years, while so many others cease to exist? I agree and want to further explore Christabel Harley\u2019s statement: \u201cAttempting to address the marginalised voices – the act of speculation as a community memory\u201d , to wonder if the act of lace making has the ability to hold memories since it was touched and shaped by human hands throughout generations? Additionally how have the ritualistic repetitive characteristics that have been passed on\/that have bebn intertwined\/woven throughout generations, between subjugated(check definition) women from isolated communities shaped them into confident artists? I would like to see if I can question the opinions of critics, curators and academics who choose to believe that true artists, who deserve their respect are those who speak complicated words, who have art degrees and diplomas and galleries representing them. After listening to these \u201csimple, uneducated, village housewives\u201d talk about their work from their heart I felt enchanted with more honesty and heart for their vocation, and saw in their passion a real \u201caddiction\u201d to making lace and inventing new, continuously evolving, nature inspired patterns. I the words of the Koniak\u00f3w Lace Centre Founder: \u201cEvery pattern is invented here and passed from one generation to the next. There are no templates, no pattern books, no written instructions. The knowledge is passed down through mothers and grandmothers, beginning as early as six years old \u2014 first learning individual motifs, and then how to bring them together into a complete whole.\u201d(Lucyna Ligocka Kohut 20010627_1110_0079_32Float_RNW2)<\/p>\n This quote resonates for me and functions as a prerequisite to the idea by Mithlo that \u201csimultaneous claiming of the feminine and of tribal responsibility signals a sensibility that runs counter both to implied requisite freedoms of the modern artist as well as to societal resistances championed by Western feminist ideologies (Okin etal. 1999).\u201d This interests me because it seems to me somewhat intertwined but simultaneously contrasting with the way of thinking\/functioning of the lace artists of Koniak\u00f3w, who do conside themselves true artists, as stated by Ms Violetta Kaleta about the work of Ms Helena Wr\u00f3bel, the leader of workshops in Koniak\u00f3w and an Award winning lacemaker. Her quote: \u201cBut craft, I think, is when I reproduce something. Exactly. But when I create, compose, and invent something new, then it becomes art.\u201d VK<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, you are the one who creates, and I am the one who reproduces it. To me, what I\u2019m doing is craftsmanship, because I\u2019m learning how to make what you have invented.\u201d VK Voice Note CKK 4<\/p>\n These responses to my questions asked last week seem to quite clearly contradict those from Humanitarian Handicraft article from 2009\u00a0\u2018Here in the mountains, we did not have the luxury of being able to put away money. The men had far to go to work and we value men\u2019s work. And they did not earn much, so it [lacemaking] was done more so that there was some small money, to help the men with supporting the home and the children\u2019 (PL, eighty-eight years, 2009).<\/p>\n Most lacemakers employed by the ArW thus shared a pragmatic attitude towards craftwork, rather than viewing it as a source of artistic identity. Most artisans characterised themselves as employees or as workers in their trade, reserving the title of \u2018artist\u2019 for colleagues who were particularly creative and skilled. 39<\/a> Maria Wo\u017cniak, \u2018Wytw\u00f3rcy Ludowi Mi\u0119dzy W\u0142asnym \u015arodowiskiem a \u201cCepeli\u0105\u201d\u2019, Polska Sztuka Ludowa, 38:1\u20132 (1983), 9\u201317.<\/p>\n The following quote from Mithlo also connects to my research and interview \u201cuncompromising allegiance to community (appears to) challenge feminist demands for equal rights against the “unequal power arrangements in society, in particular, a societal system in which men and masculine qualities are more highly valued and privileged than women and femininity” (Williams 2000, 9) because it seems tightly intertwined with <\/b>eastern european folk catholic culture. In this culture, To my understanding, these Women don\u2019t seem to have the need to constantly prove they\u2019re equal to men but equally, they do not seem to be subjugated because they are deeply connected to each other through their arts practice<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want the story about lace and village to be my story, I want to understand how it is all intertwined, I want to tell their story. But I also want to see if and how their story is somewhat connected\/intertwined with the History of Women in my Family.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n The Mother of All – Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Eternal Wisdom<\/b><\/p>\n Tereza Stehlikova Questions:\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n How has growing up in s \u201ctribe\u201d and then having your mother, grandmother and great grandmother around while raising your daughter, influenced your art?<\/p>\n If you were giving a speech\/presentation, how would you like to be introduced?<\/p>\n \u201cI am a woman who treasures the wisdom of our past and who treasures the wisdom of what we still have, and those are the ways that I work.\u201d (Naranjo 2000a) pg.5<\/p>\n Additionally I am fascinated and would like to deeper explore Jung\u2019s idea of Mother representing the \u201cshe was like one of those seers who is at the same time a strange animal, like a priestess in a bear’s cave. Archaic and ruthless; ruthless as truth and nature. At such moments she was the embodiment of what I have called the “natural mind.” (Seminar on Interpretation of Visions [Zurich, privately printed, 1940), v, 1.) “That is the sort of mind which springs from natural sources, and not from opinions taken from books; it wells up from the earth like a natural spring, and brings with it the peculiar wisdom of nature.” (Ibid., VI, 34.) from C.G.JUNG – Memories Dreams Reflections. Jungs definitions of \u201cnatural Mind\u201d correspond to my feelings from the interview with Koniakow lace artists<\/p>\n As Goethe says of the Mothers, “Even to speak of them dismays the bold.\u201d in Faust: Part Two<\/i>(1832)<\/p>\n Additional Ideas:<\/p>\n Pagan traditions, witchcraft, and goddesses versus religions. Which one of these philosophies is An approach more beneficial for women? Mickiewicz, find artists<\/p>\n Children of artists burden or inspiration? Alejandro from OMPL, Noe Kuremoto vs Tracey Emin<\/p>\n If dictators such as Hitler (unsuccessfull painter) and Trump (potential musical actor) were given a chance to be creative, would that steer their focus away from desperately seeking control and\u00a0 <\/span>eliminating obstacles on their path to absolute dictatorship?<\/p>\n Bibliography:<\/b><\/p>\n Barber, C., Dampier, H., Gill, R. and Taithe, B. (eds.) (2024) Humanitarian handicraft: History, materiality and trade, c. 1840\u20131980<\/i>. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Available at: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.7765\/9781526188045(Accessed: 5 May 2026)<\/p>\n Bourgeois, P.S., Louise (1993) \u2018MORTAL ELEMENTS\u2019, Artforum, 3 June. Available at: https:\/\/www.artforum.com\/features\/mortal-elements-204946\/ (Accessed: 11 February 2026).<\/p>\n Formizm – Wikipedia (no date). Available at: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Formizm (Accessed: 29 January 2026).<\/p>\n Haraway, D. (1988) \u2018Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective\u2019, Feminist Studies<\/i>, 14(3), pp. 575\u2013599. Available at: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/3178066<\/a> (Accessed: 5 May 2026).<\/p>\n