It’s not that kind of catamaran.

David Ryan

David Ryan is a boat builder and USCG licensed master captain. He is the owner of Sailing Montauk and skipper of Montauk''s charter sailing catamaran MON TIKI You can follow him on Twitter @CaptDavidRyan

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12 Responses

  1. Damon says:

    What other kinds of “quilting” are there then?Report

    • David Ryan in reply to Damon says:

      What I believe the woman in question was alluding to is the long-running argument about what constitutes Art vs what constitutes craft, and that a Mennonite quilting circle produces works of craft; where as she and the quilter who’s works were on display in the gallery we were in produced works of Art.

      My (admittedly uncharitable) take on this distinction is that Art requires a sort of self-conscious awareness of the great Meaning of what one is doing; that Art is a sort of social sorting of the maker of and audience for a work, rather than any meaningful comment on the aesthetics of the work itself. Hence urinals, bags of garbage, or even cans of human feces, properly contextualized, can be recognized and celebrated Art.

      I’m breaking no new ground in say this, either personally or in social criticism generally. The above has been said by others before, and better.

      What is new is the evolution of my own class-consciousness and concerns. At the outset of my transition from creative profession to service worker I worried about how I would feel about a) no longer enjoying the prestige of being a creative professional, and b) whether there might be aspects of the social power dynamics of being a service worker that rubbed me the wrong way. I feel another installment of the Thermomixed Up series of posts coming on… 😉Report

  2. dragonfrog says:

    My thought on reading the woman’s reaction to your comments went to a friend of mine who is legit Mennonite, works at a quilting shop, and makes amazing quilts. Some of them are what I think you’d call art quilts (makes far more sense to hang them on the wall than to keep them folded up next to the couch; I’m pretty sure she’s had some gallery shows). And the workmanship is, of course, excellent.

    Unless there’s something I’m missing about what qualifies a quilt as an “art quilt”…Report

  3. David Ryan says:

    I just read about this young woman who was gunned down in Detroit in (what appears to be) a(nother) case of self-defense gone horribly wrong. Not surprisingly the incident is profoundly colored by race.

    I am reminded that privilege is not just access, it’s also protection; and certainly the desire for protection was a big part of my motivation to set my filmmaking in the privileged class of art. No wonder people say things like “It’s not that kind of quilting.”Report