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Craft is a pattern of kindness and a peaceful action of connection. The principle of this natural order is from the core of the universe and is the oldest expression of being. Paulus Berensohn, a mystic, writer, craft artist, dancer, deep ecologist, and potter, said, “Art is not a thing. It’s a behavior. It’s a participatory consciousness. All primary materials are a wilderness, and behaving artistically can save us.” He goes on to say, “My intuition has convinced me that working with primary materials: clay, fiber, wood, or glass, and working with them in a mode and rhythm that rounds us out will also soften the heaviness of our life.”[1]
We come to our creative lives through a continuum of motivations. Our peaceful actions offset the addiction to mass production and runaway economic growth. It’s bountiful to hold a yellow thread and weave a line of countercultural integrity. Indra’s Net is also a tapestry. The craft arts are patient and long-suffering. Harmony is natural. Making objects from clay or textile, wood, and fire is an intimate placeholder in a world gone weird and wild with grief.
And while I live for the pure experience of my creative practice, too often, I’m pushing back against the forces that pull me from my studio time. I come to feel like I live on the run, a psychic refugee, hunted for the exotic “ivories” of my handmade life. My vital resource is time, and there’s never enough of it. An average day has enough struggle battling for access to economies that will pay bills, purchase materials, and find time to make my work. Disasters, while I don’t want them to happen to anyone, I assume they will never happen to me.
Mass extinction, while some say it is possible, I see as unlikely. Nature will never stop making wiser children, so I choose to believe the future is secure. At the same time, while the focus on mass extinction can attract some of my attention, what holds all of my attention is my life. The craft artist is not to go the way of the passenger pigeon. We must thrive and survive. The Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+) is our kind of nature conservancy. Founded in 1985, CERF+ was established to support artists during emergencies. “Inspired by the craft community’s tradition of passing the hat, CERF + remains committed to its mutual aid origins and engagement with craft artists.”[2]
CERF+ offers $1,000 "Get Ready Grants." This funding line is intended to protect studios, practices, and prepare for emergencies. CERF + Executive Director Ruby Lopez Harper says, “The big thing is readiness and the importance of doing things to safeguard your practice BEFORE a disaster happens. We are here to help with that through grants and educational offerings and materials.” Harper writes on her blog, “Disaster readiness isn’t 'sexy' or 'media-worthy.' She goes on, “Funding is scarce, and we move with a scarcity mindset, which keeps us from seeing how readiness and recovery are incredibly important places to invest deeply.”[3]
Upending the “not enough” mindset is ultimately the protection that issues forth options, that if you ask me – at best – on the worst days, is all I want. Wisdom, insight, and perseverance before the crisis can mean all the difference to survival. However, grant writing and applications are a trigger of their own kind meted out in a society that has been measuring us since kindergarten. Grant fatigue is real. The vagus nerve, starting at the base of the cranium and running through the body, connects the mind, heart, lungs, and stomach in the superhighway of light and dark, fear and safety. It doesn’t distinguish if the fear is based on a real threat or a perceived threat. It’s hard to convince myself to take the time to apply for a grant I “probably won’t get” for a disaster that hasn’t happened yet. Feeling failure over trying to succeed at making a good decision is one thing I can avoid. However, in this instance, you don’t have to take it personally. You only have to take the hour to fill out the paperwork and let “chance” decide. The selection is made by a lottery. Last time I checked, if you don’t have a ticket, you aren’t going to win. If your grant isn’t in the pool, you can’t be selected.
Art-making projects are not eligible for Get Ready Grants. Only projects for safeguarding studios, protecting studios, implementing other safety measures, or business or career protection will be considered eligible. "To be eligible for a Get Ready Grant, applicants must be an artist working in a craft discipline, have been residing and working in the U.S. or U.S. Territories for the last two years, and you have not have received a Get Ready Grant in 2024.”[4]
Emergency Relief Grants for $3,000 will support a craft artist who has “experienced a recent and substantially disruptive emergency."[5] Applications are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and although there are standards of eligibility, and the CERF+ staff need to evaluate the severity of the “nature of the event,” the Determination Process is not grounded in the other kind of application fatigue where your work is being “judged.” Staff will confirm that your artistic practice is eligible according to the Individual Craft Artist requirements, and they will see that the artist meets the Public-Facing Artistic Practice eligibility. Similarly, they will confirm that your disaster/emergency is an event or circumstance that is unforeseeable, unexpected, outside your control, and has a recent and substantially disruptive effect on the applicant’s craft practice/livelihood. Staff will review the application and determine if it will be approved or declined. It’s an odd dynamic to think that the magnitude of the disaster improves the chances of getting your grant, but paired with the fact that in response to Hurricane Helene, CERF+ distributed emergency relief to 468 craft artists total of $1,404,000 and that they received 4,400 donations totaling $3,500,000, while also creating a resource page for artists specifically affected by Helene, chance and destiny fuse into clear hope.
While the time and effort of preparing the application does not guarantee the support you need, I find efficacy in the midst of tragedy imposes a dignity that becomes a support of its own kind. And although this is not much more than a meager platitude, sidestepping the quicksand of despair is an important skill. At times when I want to give up or quit, I have been able to frame my challenges into a big-picture view and keep on seeding the future I’d like to live in. Someday. If I can assign a sense of greater good to my actions through fastening action steps by forging a cultural mindset that will acknowledge the unique and fragile ecosystems of the craft artist, I’m strengthened, and my courage holds fast. Nature is conserved in the handmade. The heart of the matter is found here.
I believe every application, regardless of the outcome, folds into Harper’s vision to make the "readiness model" and support for this, commonplace, rather than the exception. She writes, “Readiness will never fully mitigate relief and response, but it will better prepare and position artists, arts and culture organization, and the community at large to navigate the disaster event with shared understanding, resource, and cohesion.”[6]
The CERF+ website ripples with a roll of stories that echo a rerun of recent ecological disasters. My frontal lobe has a hard time making sense of all the news: geopolitical, political, technological, and communal. At the same time, the website overflows with resources that include training about how to protect your studio, the studio practice, webinars, opportunities to invite CERF + staff to consult, speak at your conference or deliver workshops, and self-care. And comfort. The collective soul is soothed and manifests as attention. When I contacted a staff member for more information, I received an automatic reply letting me know when they would be available by email. The message also included Harper’s cell phone number in case of an emergency. Assuming that most emails are emergency in nature, I was astonished by Lopez's dedication.
Community can be measured by care. CERF+ is founded on this belief. Craft will be sustained by our engagement with this mindset, and the hallmark of Homo sapiens is a spirit that is not found in artificial intelligence but in the natural and real intelligence, as we’ve always known. Sensual connection rolls from the earth and falls as iron from the stars into our existence. The ritual of craft practice is – as Paulus would say – “rooted deeply in our brains and nervous system just as a rhythm. Ritual has been the place to combine the world of the senses with the world of spirit. Ritual is the way of relating to universal mystery and the mysterious nature of our personal lives.” [6]
The relief that we receive from our craft is the relief we offer to our present tense and historical future in studio settings and mindsets that invite the fragile society around us to join. Dreary from days driven by computers and data and speed, we offer the example of our life augmented and sustained by the “need to touch what is touching us.”[7] Safeguard what you are. The craft arts must continue to be the relief from the emergency of our times. History will safeguard the truth that what we create as craft artists is first aid.
Hands are always the first intelligence.
NOTES
[1] Berensohn, Paulus. (circa 1980’s.) Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, “Clay: The Ecstatic Skin of the Body of the Living Earth,” Xiem Clay Center, Lecture Journal (Nov. 2001), 2001.
[2] CERF+, https://cerfplus.org/grants/, accessed December 1st, 2024.
[3] CERF+, https://cerfplus.org/disasterreadinessingrantmaking/, accessed December 1st, 2024.
[4] CERF+, https://cerfplus.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Get-Ready-Grant-Program-Guidelines-September-2024-English-2.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2024.
[5] CERF+, https://cerfplus.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Emergency-Relief-Grant-Program-Guidelines-English-10.21.2024.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2024.
[6] CERF+, https://cerfplus.org/disasterreadinessingrantmaking/, accessed December 1st, 2024.
[7] Paulus Berensohn, “Whatever We Touch is Touching Us: Craft Art and a Deeper Sense of Ecology,” Studio Potter, December 2003, Vol. 32 No. 1.
[8] Bowman, S. Portico. Would You Give Up Arms For Wings? A story inspired by the visionary life & writings of Paulus Berensohn, 2024 (publication pending).