Creative Counterpoints: Home

What is craft? Is it something we do, something we learn, something we are born into?

How do artists, designers, creative writers and other craftspeople understand the acquisition of skill, the history of their media and the production of their work? 

What is the relationship between craft and culture? How do language, (dis)location and translation shape the subject and process of learning? How does our students’ understanding of craft shape their critique experience? 

Which practices and perspectives of craft will thrive at MassArt in the college’s next 150 years? 

Craft in the Real World features the work of artists, writers and designers at the forefront of these investigations. On October 17, please join us for the opening of the Craft in the Real World art exhibition in the Brant Gallery, followed by an author talk with Matthew Salesses and a corresponding  conversation with a panel of artists, designers, and writers who include Taylor Davis, Ryan Diaz, Isabella Febbroriello, Will Johnson, and Daphne Strassmann. Satellite events will also take place in the Brant Gallery. 

Will Johnson is an audio artist from the Bronx, New York, currently exploring the elasticity of history and identity through sound and time-based processes. His work centers on blackness—the material and immaterial conditions of space that shape sound into movement and historical record.

WILLS' Website

Brown, Emma. "Wills' Way." Interview Magazine. August 4, 2016. 

Taylor Davis Website

Farrell Okamura, Sara. "Until the Sun Goes Dark: Taylor Davis Decontructs Power." Art Spiel. September 22, 2024.

Erik DeLuca Website

Erik DeLuca (born Tampa, FL 1985; German—through restitution law Article 116) is an artist and musician working with performance, sculpture, and text, in dialogue with social practice and critique. Striving for dialogue and policy change, he sets up scenarios where technologies of dispossession are revealed. Recently, his projects have been included at Braunschweig University of Art, Kling og Bang, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, MASS MoCA, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Fieldwork: Marfa. His writing is published in Public Art Dialogue, Mousse, Third Text and The Wire. Erik received a PhD in Music from the University of Virginia (2016), was a resident at Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture (2017), and was an Asian Cultural Council Fellow in Myanmar (2018). He lectured at the Iceland University of the Arts (2016-2018), was Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Brown University, and a critic at Rhode Island School of Design.

“Holding Humanity with the Boston Palestine Film Festival: A Conversation with Erik DeLuca and Michael Maria.” Boston Art Review. November 7, 2023.

DeLuca, Erik. “The Poet Singers.” Public Art Dialogue, vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 2019, pp. 82–94. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/21502552.2019.1571836.

Hai-Wen Lin Website

Lucido Johnson, Sophie. "Student Hai-Wen Lin Cultivates the Art of Living at Ox-Bow." SAIC News. Chicago, 2023. 

"No Neutral Design", by alumna Saleenah Saint Louis, Communication Design, 2021.

Craft in the Real World:  Matthew Salesses Talk
Thursday, October 17, 2024, 5:30–7:00 pm

5-5:30 pm Reception in the Brant Gallery
5:30-7:00 pm Talk + Panel in DMC Lecture Hall 

Garrett, Yvonne C. "Matthew Salesses's Craft in the Real World." The Brooklyn Rail, Feb. 2021, pp. 99+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A654197798/AONE?u=mca_main&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=175d86cc. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.

MORE DAVID SALESSES

Salesses, Matthew. "What We Know." Midnight Breakfast, Issue 12. 

Salesses, Matthew. "Matthew Salesses on the Possibilities of Climate Fiction." Literary Hub, February 23, 2024. 

Apr 4, 2024
Katherine Agard and Mary-Kim Arnold

6:00-7:15 p.m. virtual

Katherine Agard author of colour (Essay Press), an experimental essay about color, hybridity, and art-making. It is a memoir of Agard's coming to North America and encountering binaries of black and white within global anti-Blackness. It is a manifesto for an experience of color that embraces change: the prismatic, the perverse, and that which is wholly beyond categorization. Her interdisciplinary work is rooted in painting, performance, and writing. She holds an AB in Visual and Environmental Studies and Social Anthropology from Harvard College and an MFA in Writing from UC San Diego. KAA has received fellowships from Kimbilio, Lambda Literary, VONA/Voices, and Callaloo. She lives in San Francisco and is a dual citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana. 

Agard’s work will be exhibited as part of the Craft in the Real World exhibition in the Brant Gallery.

Agard, Katherine Agyemaa. “A Reading Lesson or, Painting (in Five Flashes).” Feminist Studies, vol. 45, no. 2/3, May 2019, pp. 501–11.

Walkiewicz, Kathryn. "Woven Fibers and Broken Threads: Katherine Agyemaa Agard’s of colour." The Rumpus, 24 November 2021.

Golovchenko, Margaryta. "Of Colour by Katherine Agyemaa Agard." (Review) Femme Art Review, 28 June 2021.

Magda Leon is a multidisciplinary artist. She lives a life straddling two worlds, an existence defined by the borderland. As an immigrant, she intimately understands the challenges of navigating between two countries, cultures, languages, and economic classes. This perpetual state of “in-betweenness” has deeply influenced her perspective, leaving her feeling like an outsider, yet she holds onto hope in her quest to reconcile these distinct worlds.

Through her art, Leon discovers a powerful means of expressing the intricacies of her perspective. She celebrates the beauty found in simplicity while shining a light on those who are often overlooked and marginalized. Existing within the realm of “otherness,” Leon forms deep connections with those on the fringes of society. Her artwork becomes a conduit for expressing, honoring, and amplifying their shared experiences, intertwining her personal narrative with the collective struggles and aspirations of those around her.

Magda León on Instagram

McQuaid, Cate. "The Guatemalan Printmaker Who Leaves an Impression — on Plantain Leaves." Boston Globe (Online), Apr 29 2024, ProQuest. Web. 29 Apr. 2024 .

Brown, Gita. "The In-Between World – The Art of Alumna Magda Leon." Rhode Island College News. January 20, 2022. 

Wally Dion Website

Valcourt, Tracy. “Fluid Cartographies.” Border Crossings, vol. 39, no. 3, Nov. 2020, pp. 76–82. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=353c7717-2de9-3b9d-88f1-b38789f51dad.