L.A.'s Craft and Folk Art Museum names new director

The Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles has announced that Suzanne Isken will assume the role of director starting Feb. 14. She succeeds Maryna Hrushetska, who left the museum in December after close to five years in the role.

Isken is the former education director at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A. She was hired by CAFAM following an executive search, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, conducted by  Museum Management Consultants Inc. in San Francisco.

"I'm excited by the breaking of boundaries between different art forms," said Isken in a statement, adding that she is interested in "connecting audiences with artists who use craft, street art, design, architecture and other disciplines to create a message that has to do with being human, taking time, and creating sustainability for our planet. These are all the things embodied in the spirit of craft and folk art."

The museum was founded in 1965 by Edith Wyle as a restaurant and crafts shop and was known as the Egg and the Eye. In 1974, it was relaunched as a nonprofit museum. The institution experienced a rough patch during the '90s and even shut down temporarily before being revived in 1999.

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Photo: Aaron Kramer's recent solo exhibition at the Craft and Folk Art Museum. Credit: CAFAM

Comments

[Donald Frazell]

OMG! No contempt crap, please!!! They have often had better artists than across the street, dont let in the daycare center! Keep it for adults, please. Stop with the adolescent buzz words.

art collegia delenda est
Just hire someone who loves art, MFAs have no clue as its about career and lifestyle of the few effette's, not us folks.

[Munaim Ismuhnaim]

The reign of Deitch and Eli has really benefitted the whole of L.A. by pushing so many people who used to work at MOCA to other museums. LACMA, The Hammer, The Getty, and now Craft & Folk Art owe MOCA a big thanks.

[eg]

Brilliant! Congratulations CFAM. Suzanne is genius.

[Matt]

This will be great for CAFAM!

[Jordan Pressman]

hey donald... grow up man. the museum needed a director and luckily they found someone who is more than qualified for the job.

[Donald Frazell]

A needed position, but when she comes spouting art school platitudes and fashionable PC PR, beware.

And hopefuly not more drab things like above, the fear of color these days is truly horrifying itself. Passions are feared, perhaps because of tthe decrepitude of those who make and market them. KB Homes beige is not classy, its souless. The McMansion aesthetic gone artsy.

Before the last 50 years, artists, critics and those who ran and established museums had no art degrees or spoke art babble trying to impress. They learned and appreciated art as a part of life, not apart from it. This is one of the last fields and galleries who have maintained a communal instinct, dont lose it.

Save the Watts Towers(Nuestro Pueblo) the greatet work of pure creative art in the West. not folk or outsider art, but of Us.
Tear down the colorless and pseudo intellectual Ivories.

[Jordan Pressman]

Donald you need to check that pessimistic attitude (as well as your assumptions) at the door, give the woman a chance, she hasn't even started work yet! how can you possibly begin to place the blame on her because the artwork isn't up to Donald's par (the only true passionate artist left in LA county)?

and by the way I'm pretty sure she didn't get to choose the picture accompanying this article, so I don't even know how that criticism applies.

maybe you should consider opening your own museum my man you seem to have it all figured out!

[Matt]

I highly agree with Munaim!

Donald, I'm pretty sure that nothing you said has anything to do with this article. You just wrote a lot of blah, blah, blah, [insert the word McMansions] blah, blah angry general opinion about art, blah!

Furthermore I looked up Suzanne's bio and it looks like she didn't even go to art school. So does that make you her biggest fan?

[Donald Frazell]

In the works. But her opening remarks are cause for dred.
Artspeak must die. It is a cover for a multitude of sins. The politically correct are simply scared to do anything that isnt safe and of the system, one they on the other hand so loudly decry. Pessimism is born of the self interested hypocrisy of left and right.. Walk the walk, or stand aside.

[Zachary Gunter]

Donaldspeak must die! Faux-intellectualist dialectics must die!

[Julian Batarski]

Donald,

I believe art is life. It comes in all different shapes and forms. Your narrow mind is what ruins society and cuts people off from understanding perspectives. Open your mind and open your heart.

Thank you for your time,

Julian Batarski

[Donald Frazell]

Not using words for what they are, symbols with meanings we all agree upon, is what has ruined art. No one cares anymore, it is far from our people, and only art grads attend such vanity museums as MoCA,where this woman comes from. Stick to the title of the museum, "breaking Boundaries" just means letting in crap. We dont need another useless and unattended contempt gallery. Keep the walls up. Stick to your Purpose. Waffling is not maturity.

Modern art "broke boundaries" long ago, the advent of contemporary academic art has sucked the life from it, and made it mediocrity for the effette, fashion for the wannabe intellectuals. Not seeking the essence of humanity, the Highest common denominator, it obfuscates definitions to promote its own lack fo substance. Warhol was a prophet of decadence., but it is for the 15 seconnd attention span and lacking soul.

Making this museum into another playpen for artistes is not for Us. Life lives beyond the sheltered world of the tender and ever so sensitive artistes. Sterility and childish self expression is not creative art, nor certain Folk and Crafts, which actually takes a developed skil. A skill. That can be free according to the artists talents, interests, and visual vocabulary, but still must have a function within society to be such. Not useless to any who have not been trained and indoctrnated into pavlovian responses by art school dogma.

Purpose is everything. Dont become everybody else, be you. Who are you?
Character counts. Have some.

art collegia delenda est
Fine art colleges must be destroyed.

[Jordan Pressman]

oh donald... if you honestly think this article is suggesting that MoCA will allow Suzanne to take their permanent collection with her to CaFAM then you should probably read it again.

as for your 'character counts' reference maybe you should do some more research on what it means to have character. ill quickly remind you of what i believe to be the most important pillar of character, respect, defined by charactercounts.org as follows:

"Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant and accepting of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others • Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone • Deal peacefully with anger, insults, and disagreements "

we may not all agree (or maybe everyone will agree except for donald). but thankfully we can recognize our differences <3

[Donald Frazell]

Which of those rules did I break besides possibly OMG? If these words hurt, you are rather soft and thin skinned, time to put aside childish things and manup.

I am not worried about the vaunted MoCA collection coming to the folk, its putting a MFA in a position that is Not Fine art. Which is but entertaining the rich these days. Folk art is of folks, and crafts are of skilled workers, that would be applied arts. No Fine artiste should be in charge of this museum. decadence has no place in the real world.

There are plenty of applied art grads and those who have learned and make their art in the so called outside, which is truly inside our common culture, not of effete's who cant get a grasp on reality. Neverland is not an option for us.

art collegia delenda eest
If you want to do something useful and in your definition of folk and craft, move the museum to Watts, for Nuestro Pueblo would be its cathedral. There are 12 million folks in the LA area, time to learn about them. We got work to do.

[sd]

dear donald,

it sounds like you just want to hear yourself talk because you have not bothered to look up suzanne isken's bio. if you took that minor step before pontificating, you would see that an MFA isnt part of her educational background at all. she has a master's degree in social work and her professional experience is as a social worker and as an education professional, all which are highly desirable elements for someone who will direct CAFAM effectively and postitively. i agree MOCA is a lackluster and boring institution that only exhibits names within the accepted canons of art; but that does not reflect on its entire staff, many of whom have left because their own visions are not aligned with the art world effetes, as you call them.

i am very optimistic about suzanne's new directorship and can't wait to see how her sensibility helps CAFAM continue to rise as a cutting-edge, culturally diverse and community-minded space that re-imagines commonly-held notions of craft and folk art. i credit maryna hrushetska with expanding the museum's vision and am looking forward to suzanne's continuation of that.

[Donald Frazell]

Then i stand corrected, if true. But her artspeak is a warning, cant hang around such dolts and not lose a few brain cells. I dont like hearing this breaking boundaries stuff. Folk and craft are well defined, dont make them meaningless like art has become. words have accepted meanng or dont exist at all. And so easily manipulated for selfish purposes.

I hope she does continue to focus on things actually made by hand. Not designed or conceptualized for others to form, and reaching out to Nuestro Pueblo has been the obvious and necessary step to prove your words. It is in the heart of the city, not the sheltered confines of the westside. We are 12 million in the LA area, time to find common purpose with US.

If Mr Rodia's masterpiece must be ghettoized as folk art, then go to it. There is no greater work of art in LA, folk or creative. LACMA and the Getty have and will do nothing. Simply arranging tours to and from that area once a month is easily done, and good for both. That has been the great failure of all art in LA. If she truly is a social worker and educator, what could be more important or better than arranging visits between the two sites and art centers in the State Park which surrounds the Towers? Just do it.

art collegia delenda est