Rachel Lyra Hospodar, on the coexistence between independent creation and being subsumed by corporate interests:
“A strange undercurrent of the new indie crafts movement is the sponsorship of events that many promoters are seeking and accepting. Is this a compromise of the integrity of what we do, or voluntary sponsorship of the arts, good citizenship on the part of corporations? I think each case is different, and each relationship must be examined with care. I also think that the arts have never been lucrative, and the idea of corporate citizenship acts must be considered because those big entities are not going away, and they are not going to stop having all the money. The fact of the matter is that money is the way that our society places value on time and at some point if a profession does not include any money the practitioners of it will not be able to sustainably establish a career.
Career span allows an artist or artisan to hone finer points of craft and understanding, allowing these fundamental aspects of our culture to move forward, making progress the same way technology or medicine must progress. The anarchistic bent inside of me looks forward to a time when we can all support ourselves diffusely, through person-to-person interactions. If in the meantime I can get a hand up towards this goal without being asked to compromise my goals, I am going to examine the hand stretched towards me for filth and then, detecting none, grasp it firmly and reach upwards.”
More:
“Scion spent a bunch of money sponsoring music events and throwing its swag everywhere in the hip hop community, and there’s been a recent backlash against it. They have been sponsoring arts events for a while now as well, including the [Craft Congress] itself. It’s interesting that their involvement there was much more low-key; they in fact did not want their logo on materials or branding present in any way.”
Note Scion’s change of tack from the in-your-face to the experiential; it mirrors what General Motors did so well last year.