The Museum of Craft & Design is a lovely little space tucked neatly to the side of Union Square on Stockton Street. This month, as a perfect respite from obligatory holiday shopping, stop by and enjoy the opportunity to “kick it” with one of Baltimore’s most revered artists, Joyce J. Scott. It was my first visit to the Museum of Craft & Design, and I found the building to be just as special as the work it showcases. The interior design of the space features exposed brick — appropriately revealing the structure and craftsmanship of the building — a seemingly direct comment on the fact that it is a craft AND design museum, rather than an art museum.
Scott’s work is considered craft but follows the current trend in contemporary art where pieces reinterpret universal meaning. She’s a pioneer in this field since she’s been at it for more than thirty years, and her retrospective exhibit has the power to educate and enlighten viewers. Using intricate beadwork, weaving, glass, photographs, and assemblage techniques, she expresses her thoughts on stereotypes, violence, and societal injustices. Her work appears playful and has a dry sense of humor, but her subject matter is serious and is rarely discussed in such a poignant manner.
One of the first pieces I noticed was titled Cuddly Black Dick I. Sitting on a small, sweetly crafted wire bench, a female figure made of a porcelain doll’s head and a sky blue beaded body posed with her arm around a large penis made of iridescent black beads. The piece was unexpectedly frank and actually quite adorable. I read a quote in the programming guide that accompanies the exhibit where Scott points out that the phallus in a similar piece, Cuddly Black Dick III, represents the woman’s husband or lover, “but when people who dislike this, or have one narrow view of what blacks are, see her, they see her with just a dick.” So, I’ll admit that at first I only saw a dick, but after reading further into the artist’s intentions, I had a new perspective and found myself reassessing my own notions of stereotypes.
Scott works with beads in a way that is very sculptural and sometimes painterly. The number of icons she recreates through beadwork is astounding: playing cards made of beads, scripted beads, beaded human figures, and one of her specialties — necklaces that incorporate photographs, beaded images, and Native American, Mexican, and African traditions. Another quote from the programming guide illustrates why Scott is an artist who’d be more than fun to kick it with — “I make jewelry to be worn. And if it tells about scary, icky subjects, then so much the better for the person who has the cojones to wear it in public.”
It’s impossible to pigeonhole Scott as an artist because she uses an array of media and presentation styles. She studied arts education and fine arts in Maryland and Mexico and is a storyteller in the true sense of the word. In the back of the museum, you will find a screen playing a two-minute excerpt from her performance piece, Genetic Interference: Genetic Engineering, in which Scott dons one of her creations — a headdress made of baby-dolls, a shirt with a skull on it, and crazy glasses — and does a spoken word performance to give a better understanding of the messages conveyed in her artwork.