Embodied Craft in Lia Cook’s Textiles and «The Lady of Shalott»

The entwining of the craft worker’s body both with the materials of her artistic process and with the craft object itself is central to an understanding of craft aesthetics. This paper addresses embodied craft in Lia Cook’s weavings, which foreground the artist’s body and the embodying dynamics of w...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: James Krasner
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Firenze University Press 2020-06-01
Series:Aisthesis
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/11146
Description
Summary:The entwining of the craft worker’s body both with the materials of her artistic process and with the craft object itself is central to an understanding of craft aesthetics. This paper addresses embodied craft in Lia Cook’s weavings, which foreground the artist’s body and the embodying dynamics of woven art. Cook’s work is read in relation to the Lady of Shalott, a fictional textile artist portrayed in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem by that name, and the painted versions of it by William Holman Hunt and other Pre-Raphaelite artists. Cook’s work emerges as an elaboration upon Pre-Raphaelite ideas for the digital age, and a useful model for understanding the embodied dynamics of craft aesthetics.
ISSN:2035-8466