Thematic Focus: Shaping Craft + Design
October 11-13, 2013

Organized by Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center
Hosted at the University of North Carolina Asheville

Submission Deadline: June 25, 2013

The 5th annual ReVIEWING Black Mountain College conference will encourage new ways of thinking about the role and impact of Black Mountain College on developing craft and design movements in America and internationally. The studio craft movement, developed out of the Arts and Crafts Movement, embraced individual expression and aesthetics utilizing materials typically associated with the creation of functional or utilitarian objects. This movement aligned well with the foundations of Black Mountain College, which opposed mainstream ideals and explored alternative models of creative expressive and new applications of design and pedagogical strategies.

Integral to the creative output of the students at Black Mountain College was the educational model created by its founders, John Andrew Rice and Ted Dreier, who developed pedagogical strategies that provided a new, alternative possibility for liberal arts education. This model asserted that the practices of fine arts, craft, design, mathematics, dance and language be explored as part of an interdisciplinary, individually based curriculum. The influences of the Bauhaus pedagogy, along with the views of educational reformist John Dewey, shaped the foundations for this non-hierarchical, holistic and pluralistic educational experience, which incorporated a workshop format. Additionally, the Arts and Crafts movement founder William Morris was influential to Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, in his belief that there should not be a distinction or hierarchy between form and function.

Submissions are encouraged that expand our understanding of Black Mountain College as it relates to craft and design as well as the educational model implemented by its founders and faculty.

Paper or Session Proposal Form Word Doc

Paper or Session Proposal Form PDF

Possible topics:
The after-effects of BMC on craft and/or design
Lawrence Kocher and the Studies Building
The Gropius-Breuer Designs
North Carolina as Site
Pluralistic Experiences in Education
Typography and design
The Bauhaus model in North Carolina
Utopian Education
Design methods in Craft
Immersive Education & the Development of Citizens
Celebrating the Workshop
Buckminster Fuller
Walter Gropius
Anni Albers
Molly Gregory
Josef Albers
John Dewey
Don Page
Robert Bliss
Alex Reed
Claude Stoller
Kenneth Snelson
Xanti Schawinsky
MC Richards
Peter Voulkos
Trude Guermonprez
Franziska Mayer
Robert Haas – The RAM Press
Robert Turner
Karen Karnes
Warren McKenzie
Marguerite Wildenhain
David Weinrib
Lou Bernard Voigt
Johanna Jalowetz
Charles Burchard