This Is Not a Retreat

The word retreat has multiple meanings-one of them clearly connects to a low-residency graduate program like the MA in Critical Craft Studies (MACR): a place to which one removes themselves for study, rehabilitation, thinking, making, or writing. Such places loom large in craft contexts and other histories: think Walden Pond, Santiniketan, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and, adjacent to these craft-centric spaces, the "ivory tower" of academic institutions. Being at a retreat is a...
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The word retreat has multiple meanings-one of them clearly connects to a low-residency graduate program like the MA in Critical Craft Studies (MACR): a place to which one removes themselves for study, rehabilitation, thinking, making, or writing. Such places loom large in craft contexts and other histories: think Walden Pond, Santiniketan, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and, adjacent to these craft-centric spaces, the "ivory tower" of academic institutions. Being at a retreat is a privilege as one's basic needs for food and shelter are taken care of by other people who enable participants to think, make, learn new or renewed skills or ideas, or work-a re-orientation through retreat.The MA in Critical Craft Studies (2017-2023), launched by a small liberal arts college in Western North Carolina, followed a low-residency model, meaning that a two-week intensive initiated each semester's work. Nestled within 1,100 acres that include a working forest, farm, and garden in the Swannanoa Valley, Warren Wilson College (WWC) contained elements of the quintessential rural craft retreat. The MACR program, which focused on craft history and theory, deliberately drew on elements of retreat frequently engaged in what has become known in recent years as "The Craft School Experience" in the US: international faculty drawn from multiple institutions, knowledge-bearers from outside of academia, communal housing and meals, and an intensely focused schedule.To play with a second, military definition of the word "retreat," this publication does not mark a weakening in the faculty and alums' commitment to the study of craft, or to its expanding community. It is only the end of this phase of the first program dedicated to critical craft studies. We, and those with whom we read, talked, debated, thought, ate, and swam in the river will continue, as you do, the forever work of "building new worlds."