When the Studio Becomes the Spectacle: A Reluctant Itinerant Weaver Talks About the Weather in Alberta

摘要

In 2011 Mackenzie Kelly-Frere was invited to participate in an artist residency at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon. His residency was one of five, cross-disciplinary artist residencies coinciding with the exhibition Laurie Herrick: Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Artists were asked to create works in response to Herrick's weavings, creating the work within the exhibition space. The text is a first-person account of the weaver's experience performing his craft for museum-goers and creating a new work in this unusual context where the private studio is made public. The spectacle of the artist at work and the fetishization of process are negotiated as the artist interacts with museum goers, navigating the deeper implications of making in contemporary culture.