Hooray for Handicrafts

Exhibitions based on handicrafts are making a big comeback in the Bay Area, what with the city's two museums dedicated to crafts helping to spotlight artists who work in handicraft media and organizations like YBCA also doing their part to create exhibitions focusing on crafts.

The visual art show of works by the fiber/DIMENSIONS artists' collective currently going on at The Presidio Officers' Club Exhibition Hall through December 19 -- intersections 5 -- furthers the campaign to divest basket-weaving, knitting, crochet, applique and other time-honored techniques from the musty clutches of blue rinses and village halls.

The diverse exhibition, curated by Richard Elliott includes everything from kimonos made of stained coffee filters (a fascinating combination of Eastern and Western cultural traditions) by Lucia Matzger, to delicate lace forms by Jeanette Carr. The variety and color on display as well as the ways in which the artists nudge us into thinking about the materials and unusual forms they take makes us view crafts in a new way.