Fuller Craft Museum Worth a Visit

 

FULLER CRAFT MUSEUM

Brockton, MA

 

 

Words that are both nouns and verbs can cause confusion. Take the word fashion. As a noun it can mean something that's au courant, a stylish outfit, or a very silly costume created by a designer that no actual human being who has ever eaten a sandwich could or would ever wear. As a verb, it can mean to form, make, or assemble in a particular order.

 

Why the grammar lesson? Because “craft” is another such word. Consider its various uses. Among other things, it's a boat or airplane, a fashioned object, a skill, or a verb that means to make. The latter is where things get complicated. If you attend a craft fair, you'll see everything from wooden commodities and homespun sweaters to paper flowers, inexpensive jewelry, and dolls made from dried apples. I've not done exhaustive research (or any at all in this case!) but I venture to say that for most people, crafts are a synonym for folk art. It can also imply that the objects are (relatively) affordable because they have been made by hobbyists or unknown specialists. Some of it falls into what some have called “primitive art,” implying that they are more charming than precisely rendered, kind of like an adult version of a child's drawing.

 

 

 

If that's what craft means to you, the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton will jar you. If you found work from its various crafters for sale you probably couldn't afford it! It is strictly high-end stuff made by highly skilled artisans whose work is more likely to be seen in a museum or gallery than in a retail outlet. Even woven poppets and dolls are of the kind one would display in a glass case rather than handing to a rambunctious four-year-old.

 

 

 

 

I don't know if this is commonplace or not, but when I was at the Fuller early last month, there was a display or what I imagine was a juried challenge: croquet mallets. The submissions are decidedly not your-mother's-mallet. Whimsy is the one similarity between Fuller Museum crafts and folk art. Once you get past the giggles induced by strikers fashioned from all manner of things—upside down flamingos, plumbing fixtures, other sporting goods—you begin to notice the skill involved in designing and rendering the unorthodox mallets.

 

 

 

Another exhibit focused on what increasing numbers of environmentalists have identified as a planetary anathema: plastic. Instead of landfilling materials with a degradable half-life comparable to uranium, plastic was repurposed as art. It's nothing I'd want to devote a wall to showcase, but it sure does beat having it end up in the gullets of marine life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another intriguing exhibit used plastic, shells, found materials, and/or stained glass to give a modern twist to the tesserae used in ancient mosaics. There was a red wave from Nancy Maloney, a curled figure by Ellen Aiken, a triptych from Lisa Houck, and a totem group m
ade by Cassie Doyon. One of my favorites was Eugenia Mezhirova's Crows in the Dark, which rendered the birds in over-sized form vis-a-vis the human world below. It reminded me of how nature began to take over during the worst days of COVID when people stayed indoors a lot and animals roamed free and unbothered.

 

 

There are even “conventional” museum items such as sculpture and painting. The Fuller is a small facility that sits on the shore of a pond. It is located near the Easton line, an important consideration as much of Brockton is so dire that by comparison, it makes Holyoke seem like a leafy suburb. You can avoid all of that when you travel to the Fuller. If you ever find yourself tooling around Boston's South Shore in Plymouth County, the Fuller Craft Museum is worth a peek.

 

 

 

 Rob Weir