Writ Deep:Craft and the embedded word
Group Exhibition
Northern Illinois School of Art and Design

Rather than looking to the history of language art, Writ Deep is an exploration of the relationship between craft and text as a unique affinity between forms. Where the use of text in art has historically been to push the boundaries of the field - including operating as an anti-art form or advocating for an anti-aesthetic - text and craft share a longer history where text is anything but anti-craft.

Craft that employs text lends language a physicality: a tangible , as opposed to metaphorical, body. Craft and text is an obliging re-unification of body and mind as the abstract is made manifest both materiality and methodologically. In Writ Deep the idea of the embedded text connects the work of Michael Dinges, Michael Genovese, Carol Jackson and Rebecca Ringquist whose processes of scrimshaw, engraving, weather tooling, and embroidery and appliqué (respectively) are rooted in craft traditions. Each of these artists is invested in these forms as their chosen medium, as opposed to utilized them strictly for a singular metaphor, and each employs text as a major mark in their work. 

To embed something means to plant it firmly and deeply in surrounding mass. In the case of text and craft, the word is surrounded by material that supports, informs and contextualizes it in a way that the page alone cannot. In a craft/text relationship, the material substrate becomes a body for the text to inhabit, not just a supporting surface. Through methodologies like engraving, etching and embroidery, text impregnates the material, creating a resolute bond that literally alters or changes the substrate through a kind of scoring or scarring of the surface - actions that call to mind a body as it might be scratched and scarred through use or through decoration. Scars are telling reminders of a body’s history; in the case of text, materiality and craft, the connection between method of incision and the substrate itself becomes one that is partially dependent on the material’s narrative and partially dependent on the narrative inherent to the process. 

The artists in Writ Deep all work with a styles so, in addition to their share use of text nd textual markings, their work could be described as drawing. Text functions as both the written word as well as sign, a subject for a drawing that resides between the second and third dimension. Drawing text tie these practices to graffiti, dairies/sketchbooks and marginal notations, subjective forms of writing and reflection that are linked to craft because of its subjective and Amateur associations. The melding of Amateur craft forms, common materials and writing in each of these practices’ underlying political essence results in work that ranges to avoid irony while still maintaining sharp wit. 

As opposed to the defacement or appropriation of mass-produced goods, Michael Genovese’s engravings make the act of defiant marking precious by installing a pristine surface  on which he invites anyone to leave their imprint. Providing the stylus and a substrate (aluminum with baked on enamel), participants are encourages to write and draw in Genovese’s plates- their markings via a series of notes tat are then re-inscribed onto polished tablets. Through his process, the public engravings act as live, organic drawings while the record historicizes them immediately - lending immediate weight to unedited, everyday reflections and conversations. 

In all of these practices, the hand is a visible agent. Its potential for precision as much as for mistake remains palpable, as edits or alterations are necessarily visible. The nature of the embedded text is the impossibility of emendation on the part of the author or the inability of the substrate to ‘heal’ over the mark. For Genovese and Dinges, the act of engraving includes marks that might be obliterated through further engraving; for Ringquist and Jackson, the cutting and repositioning of texts and marks might be required, causing the document to shrink and heave as it is re-pieced.

This palpable crafting of document emphasizes a laboring over the message taxis increasingly lost, not only by post-industrial manufacturing practices, but by web 2.0 communication strategies that stress rapid fire commentary, character length, and - importantly - an unsettling ability to continually delete and revise. Writ Deep call attention to an investment or persistence in communication; a steadfast desire to leave a mark, a message that says more than “I was here,” but claims “I was here, and I meant it.’

Shannon Stratton is a writer and curator based in Chicago, Illinois where she founded and is current Executive and Creative Director of three walls, a non-for-profit visual arts residency and exhibition project space. She teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fiber Material Studies, Art History, Theory. And Criticism and Arts Administration.