Foreword

As an academic museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art seeks to connect faculty and students with art that moves, teaches, challenges, and inspires. This publication follows the museum’s recent presentation of an exhibition of the same name. Discursive was on view in the JSMA’s Artist Project Space from February 28 through April 29, 2018. Organized by University of Oregon Associate Professor of Art and Ceramics Coordinator Brian Gillis, it featured new works by Gillis and colleagues in the School of Art + Design alongside the works of visitors who participated in the UO’s 2016 Summer Craft Forum with them. This reader expands on the multi-perspective dialogue between these artists. Rather than documenting the 2018 exhibition, it gathers these collaborators’ individual reflections on making and thinking—told through pages individually curated by each.

Since 2011, the JSMA has offered yearly opportunities for UO faculty from partnering departments to apply for Academic Support Grants. This innovative program supports instructors, including 2017 applicant Brian Gillis, who propose projects that use the museum and its resources to enhance their teaching. Funds are provided by the JSMA, the UO’s College of Design, and the College of Arts and Sciences, all of which are matched by the Office of the Provost. A primary selection criterion for these grants is the proposed project’s curricular purpose and impact. This publication was made possible by an Academic Support Grant because, as a compendium of scholarship related to contemporary Craft and Art discourse, the museum recognized its potential for wide-ranging impact on- and off-campus: regionally, nationally, and internationally.

The JSMA thanks Brian Gillis and all of Discursive’s contributing artists and writers for sharing their work, ideas, stories, and inspirations. Neither the exhibition nor this publication would have been possible without the dedicated efforts of the museum’s designer, Mike Bragg; exhibition preparatory staff, led by chief preparator Joey Capadona; and registrar Miranda Callander.

Danielle Knapp, McCosh Associate Curator, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art