Woodworking and Art

Sometimes woodworking and art become one.  Sometimes they are two very separate things.  Woodworking, I think, is always a skill or craft.  But how often does it actually become art?  Where is the line that a wood project crosses in order for it to become art?

These are question that I pondered this weekend as I attended Artprize 2009 in Grand Rapids Michigan.  Artprize is a 2 1/2 week art competition that boasts a $250,000 prize for first place.  According to the Artprize.org website there were 1262 entries showing at 159 different venues around the downtown area of Grand Rapids.  The contest was pretty much open to anyone who had something artistic to show.  Entries ranged from small paintings to performance artists, to sculptures that needed a crane to install.

I suppose that whether something is art or not is truly in the eye of the beholder.  One mans trash is another mans art, so to speak.  Traditional woodworking has, at least in my mind, always been a trade skill or at most a craft.  I guess there has always been a very blurry line between “arts” and “crafts” which cannot be defined easily.  When I think of “art”, I think of something that cannot be done by someone without the talent to do so.

However, I certainly saw some “art” at Artprize that I don’t think would take much talent at all.   I am pretty sure that my 8 year old son could have done just as well.  I have also seen some things in the past that I cannot even fathom how it was made that are just beautiful works of art.  I consider many of the things that David Marks has made to be art.

So, I guess the answer to my questions is “I have no idea”.  Oh well.  I think that I am going to make something that I think is beautiful and enter it into next years Artprize.  Maybe I’ll win, and maybe I won’t, but either way I think it will be fun.

I really enjoyed myself as a spectator this year at Artprize.  I certainly was unable to see all of the entries, but I saw quite a few, including several woodworking projects.  One of my favorite pieces was a wooden boat made by John Hamelink.    It contains over 300 inlay pieces and took over 1500 hours to build.  Not only is this boat art, but it is usable.  He had pictures of other boats that he has built in the water.

This was an interesting piece by Thomas Verstraete.    Basically, it is a bench made out of small scrap wood.

I thought this was a cool piece of sculpture from Mike Moy.    He actually finished the piece at during the contest.  I didn’t get a chance to see him work on it, but I heard he starts out using a chainsaw to sculpt it.