Remaking Material

Contemporary American Studies scholar Ken Ames has stated that the time has long passed when one can celebrate the objects they look at uncritically. And this is precisely the situation for metalsmiths. No longer can we examine an object and speak of it only in formalist terms. The time has gone when we can look at a diamond ring and speak of the materials from which it is made as neutral. Nor can we celebrate the meaning of material without consideration of its histories (social, cultural, economic, etc.). Given this, what criteria can metalsmiths use to interrogate their work? Is it viable to assume that beliefs inherited as a result of one's membership in a specific culture are appropriate and useful in finding meaning and value in objects? We offer this paper as one attempt to 6nd a method for looking at objects critically, a method born of the act of making.

This is a unique period in history. For the first time, human beings are offered the possibility of disembodied experiences through 'virtual reality' games and simulation-type educational tools. Thinkers from around the world are speaking to issues regarding the body, describing the redefinition of what it actually means to be human, of what it means to be physical entities, and how that physicality is valued or not. As a result of these various negotiations, makers are presented with alternative lenses through which they can re-view the meaning of the objects they make as well as their working process: a process which centers on the physical object.

We are interested in naming the distinctions that exist between the physical and the non-physical in order to more fully understand both. Armed with these distinctions makers may more clearly define the instrumentality of both the physical and non-physical aspects of the objects they make. As we were working, we asked, what is it about the shift from image, word, or idea to physical object that is so powerful that it alters our reality on both an individual and societal level?

This is an argument for study, for a continuous examination and reexamination of the methods makers use to evaluate craft objects. Through the consideration of the act of making, together with the recognition of the socio-political and cultural histories of the material with which makers work, this field can construct a dialogue and a crafts criticism that will extend the resonance of craft objects. It is not our intention to administer to the metalsmithing community a set of concrete' solutions. Rather, we "call for a [working] life lived attentively."

Working attentively requires makers to examine the methodologies they use to interpret the objects they make. Specifically, makers need to re-evaluate their definitions of material, because at present they seem inadequate. A critical element in remaking craft is the re-evaluation of material. The most common assessments of objects have considered the physical as inferior to the idea, with little acknowledgment of the ways in which physical objects and their media contribute to meaning.

As an example of the kind of material investigation we describe, we have constructed a case study of one particular material, lead. This study consists of written information as well as information in the form of several physical objects.

"We cannot think well as long as we are locked into old errors that are so familiar as to be virtually invisible. It is my particular purpose to bring those errors to the surface, to characterize them as errors, to show how they have worked and still work to distort and limit our thinking, and so our knowledge, and so our selves and the world we share."

F o u n d a t i o n s

"It is the theory which decides what can be observed." EINSTEIN

What is observed and valued in craft objects is defined and often delimited by the ideology, or the method which makers employ to approach and validate those objects. As members of cultures, craftspeople have inherited definitions of what it means to be a maker, as well as the criteria with which to judge the quality of the works they produce. It is often the case, however, that inherited ideologies are no longer appropriate or adequate to describe the objects we make today. It is within every maker's power to construct additional challenges and discourse, questioning and expanding ideologies from within the field to invigorate their activity as metalsmiths.

Without it the Man of Steel would not have prevailed. The kryptonite was rendered harmless when encased in its lead coffin.

Individuals' societies provide them with working ideologies: inherited, culturally produced beliefs that influence tastes, desires, intuitions, etceteras. Ideologies are powerful because they not only describe the way things are, but they prescribe a dominant culture's ideas of the way things ought to be.

The Romans were not so fortunate as they borrowed sapa, an ingredient to keep green wine from souring, from the Greeks. Sapa was made by slowly simmering sweet grape juice with spices and herbs for days in covered pure lead kettles. The sapa, containing several thousand parts per million lead was added to their diet.

Analyses of Roman bones indicate that people in the lower economic classes had twice as much lead in their bodies as typical Americans today, while wealthy Romans may have had four times that amount.

Several thousand years ago, lead was a crucial factor in the glory, madness, and downfall of one of the greatest empires in history.

At the root of many attitudes and beliefs about material and the physical itself, is the belief that the mind and the body are two distinct realms, with the physical or bodily realm always inferior to the intellectual, or non-physical. The sources of this idea show that the superiority of mind over the body is not innate, but a consciously constructed belief.

The desire for silver was the principal stimulus for lead production until recent times. Lead mined and smelted for itself constituted a significant portion of total lead production only during the past century. Until several centuries ago, about four hundred tons of lead were obtained as a smelted by-product for each ton of silver produced by the cupellation process. The discovery of cupellation five thousand years ago marks the time at which world lead production began.

Perhaps a relationship exists between the production of silver from lead, silver's use in coinage and the growth of Classic Greek culture. Shortly after societies in the Eastern Mediterranean began to use silver coinage (Athens possessed the largest lead-silver deposits known at the time) they were transformed into dominating federations which fostered our present social structures, business interrelationships and ethics.

The binary relationship between mind and body, non-physical and physical, has been manufactured and re-manufactured throughout the history of Western civilization, notably by the seventeenth century French Philosopher Rend Descartes. While a discussion of Cartesian dualism may seem abstract and distant from the everyday experience of metalsmiths, it is important to acknowledge that the way that we think about sheet metal, or hammering, or even the things that we make, are all mediated by such abstract and learned beliefs. A dominant segment of American society actively believes in the superiority of the intellectual over that which is associated with the physical: the body, the environment, labor, etcereras. For makers, it is imperative to consider these ideas as they evaluate their work and its role within their complicated society.

To be plumb is to stand erect. That's what plumb bobs are all about, Lead assisted in the construction of many geometries. The Parthenon stands plumb in part due to lead marking weights.

These weights marked erectness and they were also marked: many had Athena's own symbol (the owl) cast into them. Much lead work is marked. Sling bullets were often inscribed with flouts, jibes and jeers. "Hit hard" or "Well Done" were not uncommon texts.

The rifling marks on the surface of today's bullets in Detroit or Los Angeles are no less poignant.

That dualist influences are present in our field can be found in the common belief that the idea supersedes the actual object, where the object is always an imitation of the idea, and the often unchallenged assumption that influence or meaning flows only from maker into material. The differences in meaning between the phrases "using/manipulating material" and "working with material" give evidence to such a frequent assumption. The methods by which meaning and content and relationships with physical materials are described, are influenced by culturally inherited beliefs. Discerning the source of those beliefs, and how tastes, desires and intuitions are constructed, we can consciously choose to accept or discard them.

Current aspects of the mind/body question are found in concepts of the "real" and "virtual." The wave of interest in simulated and technologically-mediated experiences, and the tendency to regard these experiences as equivalent or even superior to the "real thing" is evidence that dualist ideologies are still operative. Consider the ways in which people fail to acknowledge the difference between "body-knowledge" and "mind-knowledge" in, for example, learning to raise a bowl with physical, body-involved instruction, and learning to raise a bowl by watching an instructional video. To define knowledge as information that can be digitized or transmitted is to deny the value, the profundity, of physical ways of learning and knowing.

When Europeans invaded the Americas, the Spaniards exploited silver and lead deposits in Mexico and Peru. The forty thousand tons of silver which the Spaniards transferred from the New World to Europe during the period from about 1550 to 1750 helped to ruin the status of Spain as a major world power through the suppression of local industry by sustained major purchases of foreign goods. However, the introduction of this great mass of Spanish silver into the European economy undoubtedly helped to initiate the Industrial Revolution.

Lead is an element. On the periodic table, it is a metal scientifically expressed as Pb. The melting point of lead is 651 degrees Fahrenheit.

THE ROLE OF OBJECTS IN CONSTRUCTING THE SELF AND CULTURE

The dynamic between human beings and the objects that surround them is a complex one, and many thinkers throughout history have dealt with this relationship. One theory concerning human development describes developmental growth as a progressive process. In this theory objects play an important role in the construction of one's self-awareness.

At the earliest stages of cognition an individual's self-awareness is predicated on their apprehension of objects which are not a part of them, those things which are "other", "not self." As experiences with objects increase, a person's definition of self and other becomes more complex. The more objects the individual approaches, the more complex their concept of those objects becomes and thus, their definition of self becomes more comprehensive. Objects once perceived as outside are in fact a product of the self's own perception.

At their best, experiences with objects can be viewed as lenses through which individuals can continually increase their own self identity. As the environment is constantly defined and redefined by one's perceptions, we continually remake our own world. Intuition, taste, and inspiration don't come from thin air, but they are informed by past experiences.

The massive timbers employed in the structuring of roof trusses in medieval cathedrals are in part evidence of the density of the lead supported by those trusses. Roof sheathing, gutters, scuppers and leaders were made of lead. In a fire the trusses provided ample fuel to bring the sheathing to its melting point. Tributaries of lead were directed by the gutters to the scupper spillways and down the leader pipes. The molten lead became all-consuming as it sought the earthly resistance to its gravitational pursuit.

As with individuals, cultures are defined and redefined by the objects they produce. Every time an artifact enters the culture and every time an idea is transformed into an object, its physicality has resonance. Powerful because they contain not only what the maker injected into them (consciously or not), objects also contain the associative power of the materials, including the social and political histories, and the history of the social relations that particular objects and materials uphold.

Lead has a specific gravity of 11.36. Specific gravity is the ratio of the weight of a given volume of a substance to that of an equal volume of water. It is a measure of density, and as materials go, lead is a dense material. This is illustrated by the term 'creep.' Lead sheathing on cathedral spires was said to creep due to the severe angle of the spire and the density of the sheathing.

It is in the transformation from the idea to the physical object, that the input of the maker, the history of the material, the history of the fabrication processes, the context of a given object in the community come together.

Dilatation, the act of expanding, became a determinate for the form of sheathed roofs. Expansion caused by direct sunlight required that the lead be free to move while remaining attached to its supportive substrate.

Remaking Material

Ideologies are powerful because they not only describe the way things are, but suggest the way they ought to be. There is a narrowly focused discussion of material in this field, and this is, in part, governed by ideologies which devalue the physical. Metalsmiths often ignore the fact that material itself has an agency. Current metalsmithing exhibition catalogs, emphasize self-expression and conceptually constructed images. Rarely, if ever, does one find a discussion of how the media supports these claims, nor does one find affirmation that material has instrumentality of any kind.

Lead occurs naturally adjacent to silver.

Galena is the mineral from which lead is extracted. Galena is about 80% lead with the difference primarily being silver, gold and arsenic.

As we were working on this theme of reinventing material we asked ourselves: "what methods could one use to describe material, and what are the sources of those methods? Why is it that, generally, discussion of media is limited to its physical characteristics and aesthetic formal properties? Why is there no study or examination of the ways in which materials operate as meaning in the objects our field produces?"

Benvenuto Cellini, the great Italian Renaissance goldsmith, recommended the use of lead for proofs in casting since lead casts with delicate accuracy. In silversmithing work, lead is recommended as a supportive backing for chasing repoussé as well as an aid in tube-bending. But lead is also the most sinister of contaminants in the silver shop. Even a small trace of lead on the surface of a piece of silver will eat away the silver when it is brought to annealing temperature.

In an expanded paradigm, in which meaning can be perceived as springing from the object, makers may find that the making of meaning is not dependent solely on the producer's volition, but that material and physicality also contribute.

Plumbum is the Latin word for lead.

To plumb is to work lead.

The Plumbers Company was found in England in 1365 although the English had worked lead since the Roman times. During the Middle Ages, plumbers applied roof sheathing, made guttes, scuppers, piping, cisterns, gargoyle and statuary. In England, lead statuary became a symbol of nationalism when compared to Italian bronze. The lead mines of Wales endured until the people consumed all their forests to fire their smelting furnaces.

In this age of the information highway and of non-material (conceptual) work, makers, particularly craftspeople, can recognize the profundity of producing objects as a confluence between maker and material.

A cistern is a collection and distribution center for water. Rain is collected from roof watershed through the gutters and lead pipes to be stored in cisterns for subsequent use.

English plumbers made cisterns out and it was not until the early nineteenth century that a crusade developed to eliminate them. Most were melted.

Perhaps batteries are like cisterns.

Lead has excellent workability without hardening.

It has become the supportive glazing for windows.

It is corrosion resistant above and below ground.

St. Dunstan, the patron saint of metal workers, is buried in a lead coffin in Canterbury. Lead has high anti-friction properties. Many of the bearing surfaces in your car's motor are lead. Lead is useful in shielding radioactive matter. Think of your most recent visit to the dentist's office.

You were covered with a lead blanket while X-rays were taken.

The amount of lead used today is significantly greater than the amount of lead mined.

Throughout our working process, we reviewed metalsmiths' descriptions of their objects. This review raised several questions. If we look for meaning in the maker's intentions, where is the idea located? Is it in the object or is it located in the writing that accompanies it or both? And, most importantly, what happens to a field that makes things and then only speaks of the idea of the things? If metalsmiths limit their discussions to the nature of ideas the specific, physical and material characteristics of their objects become invisible.

Lead is recycled.

The highest use of lead today is in the manufacture of lead acid storage batteries. Perhaps those batteries contain the residue of a Roman water pipe or wine cup.

The ancients ascribed genders to materials in order to guarantee success in alloying.

Cartesian dualism made a very significant point: What one imagines or conceives of is different from that which one makes. Ideas and things are not the same, they exist and function in distinct, discernible ways and while the difference between thing and idea may be clear to producers, the language used to describe objects seldom addresses either the distinctions between, or the codependency of the physical and the non-physical. When makers choose to adapt their critical paradigm to include an affirmation of the usefulness and meanings found in the physical, they make it possible to more clearly name and appreciate all of the different elements (narrative content, material, physical) which contribute to the significance of their objects. In so doing, they make available to themselves an expanded, more complex method of evaluating their work.

In some cases, gender was a matter of color. In others, it was determined by whether the material was found on or below the surface of the earth. Lead continues to be genderized today.

In the Metal Men comics, lead is male.

Past Lives

Often when makers acquire their material, they assume it to be a blank slate, without a past life, memory, or recollection; through their work, they will project meaning onto the substance, unable or perhaps unwilling to see meaning as a dynamic between their labors and the meanings/history/resonance of the material. What are the ideologies that allow makers to see some materials as blank, awaiting the dynamic of the maker's hand, and others such as "found" or "alternative" materials as having rich, usable histories?

Of course there is no such a thing as a not-found or neutral material. As a war medal has a rich history that contributes to the significance and value of an object it becomes a part of, so does sheet metal. The difference in the meaningful value of these media resides not in the materials themselves but in metalsmiths' ability and willingness to perceive and articulate it. Each maker's belief system determines whether or not they recognize that all materials have "memory", and a past and present life.

Study of the histories of materials is critical to the maker's individual growth, and the growth of this field. Without scholarship even alternative materials are subject to the same limited degree of interrogation as those materials labeled neutral. When one considers the inexhaustible amount of information available for any single material, the ignorance in an assumption that any material is dry or devoid of considerable meaning, becomes evident.

Methodologies in both theory and practice which promote only superficial understandings of material, of objects, and of physicality, are actively destructive to metalsmithing. In order for the field to grow and develop, it is crucial that we rigorously examine the beliefs we have inherited and then judiciously name them as valid or invalid. It is essential that metalsmiths end the blind acceptance of ideas that may not be appropriate or useful in critiquing the objects that we make.

As we engage in a continuous process of remaking and reconstructing ourselves and our world we position ourselves to achieve greater self-realization. When makers revise the questions they ask of the objects they make, they redefine that which they consider essential in those objects. Finally to increase our ability and desire to perceive meaning in objects, as makers we can enhance our capacity to recognize the relevance of making.

Notes

1. Ken Ames, Death in the Dining Room, 1992.

2. From Webster's Concise Dictionary of Modern English: study (studi') vi. 1. be engaged in learning 2. make study of 3. try constantly to do 4. consider 5. scrutinize 6. effort to acquire knowledge

3. Elizabeth Minnich, Transforming Knowledge

4. Ibid.

5. Throughout this paper we will make reference to "culture" or "dominant culture." Our usage of these words does not imply a belief in a monolithic, homogenous understanding of culture. On the contrary, we are conceptually aligned with contemporary philosopher, Elizabeth Minnich, who states that in this country, there are many cultures. We borrow her phrase "dominant culture" to refer to that segment which is more powerful, most visible and most defining. (TK pp. 4 - 5)

6. For more information on Hegel's theory of human development, see Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption. 1987.

Selected Bibliography Ames. Death in the Dining Room & Other Tales of Victorian Culture. Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1992. Belenky. Women's Ways of Knowing. Basic Books: USA. 1986. Berman. Coming to our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West. Bantam Books: New York. 1989. Borgman. Crossing the Post Modern Divide. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. 1993. Crary and Kwinter, Ed.. Incorporations. ZONE 6. Urzone, Inc.: New York. 1992. Cumming, Ed.. The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Random House, Inc.: New York. 1965. Feher, Ed.. ZONE: Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part One. MIT Press: Cambridge. 1989 ZONE: Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part Two. MIT Press: Cambridge. 1989. ZONE: Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part Three. MIT Press: Cambridge. 1989. Griffin. Woman and Nature. Harper & Row: New York. 1978. Grosberg, Nelson and Treichler. Cultural Studies. Rutledge Press: New York. 1992. Hirsh. "Immortality? Future computers may hold the contents of the human mind." In The Fargo Forum, (Sept. 6, 1987). Jaggar and Bordo. Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick. 1989. Leder. The Absent Body. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. 1990. Lethaby, W.R., Leadwork: Old and Ornamental and for the Most Part English. Macmillan & Co.: London. 1893. Levine. From Socrates to Sartre. Bantam Books: New York. 1984. Merchant. The Death of Nature. Harper Collins: San Francisco. 1980. Miller. Material Culture & Mass Consumption. Blackwell Publishers: Oxford. 1987. Minnich. Transforming Knowledge. Temple University Press: Philadelphia. 1990. National Research Council, Committee on Lead in the Human Environment, Lead in the Human Environment. National Academy Press: Washington D.C.. 1980. Scarry. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 1985. Schlereth. Cultural History and Material Culture. UMI Research Press: Ann Arbor. 1990. Stallybrass and White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Cornell University Press: Ithaca. 1986. Weaver. English Leadwork: Its Art & History. London. 1909.

Erika Ayala Stefanutti is a metalsmith working in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

Gary S. Griffin is a practicing metalsmith and is currently Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Metalsmithing Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

By Erika Ayala Stefanutti and Gary S. Griffin

Metalsmith Magazine – 1994 Summer

In association with SNAG‘s

Metalsmith magazine, founded in 1980, is an award winning publication and the only magazine in America devoted to the metal arts.