The Bottom Line
After all these years of working with cultural material, I have now become wiser and more sensitive. No two situations are alike. The bottom line is to appreciate the material you encounter, do not try to own it or claim it as yours but engage with it, take the time to understand the soul of the piece and then move it forward into something new. And if you are ever in doubt about the appropriateness of using cultural material, ask the owner, call a museum, visit the village where you bought the item and find someone to ask. Inquiry, engagement, and honesty will always serve you well.
I have tried to put such learnings to work when hosting a bi-annual, two-day design summit in Santa Fe, which I started in 2015. The goal was twofold: to promote the Museum collections so we could attract new licensees and to provide a forum for conversations about cultural material as a source of design inspiration. To learn more about Summits 2015, 2017 and 2019, and see the speaker program click here.
At each Summit, I frame the conversation, explain the evolution of our extraordinary museum collections, and share with our guests my simple guide for respecting cultural material: when considering cultural material as inspiration for design, pay attention to four things–maker, motif, method, and material.
Focusing attention on those four things cause one to ask the right questions. Who is the maker? In asking who the maker is, one must consider the person who made it. Where they come from–culture, country, tribe. In looking at the patterns on the piece, ask yourself what do the motifs that make up the pattern mean, and are they sacred symbols? If not, then what do they represent? Are they animals, spirits, or simply organic shapes? How was the piece made? Is it woven on a back strap loom or a large loom; is it hand carved, hand built, or cast? And what of the material: is the object made of plant material, animal fiber, wood or metal? How does a given culture’s environment inform the material they use, the
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