We met Paul Greenhalgh again in Chapter Two of The Persistence of Craft.  Paul started by saying, “the genre is best defined as a way of working; an established way of making particular products using a set of technologies, processes and materials.”

Paul clearly laid out two different genres, positivist and ironic.  Positivist artists, per Mr. Greenhalgh, approach their art on one simple and innocent level with the intent to push their chosen medium to its limit as their vehicle for aesthetic expression.  Paul defines the other, “Ironic practice uses art as a vehicle to intensify and improve human experience by questioning the role and purpose of things.  It is to do with intellectual deconstruction, with deliberately undermining established or normative values in order to assert the new.” (Page 21)

Essentially, I agree with Paul.  Concluding that there are distinctly different types of artists in the world was nothing new.  Its was nice to read a well written article on the subject.  Our brief discussion about the article in Professional Practice today was entertaining (as they always are), I enjoyed hearing others classify themselves as positivist or ironic artists.