Pete,
many answers spring to my lips (keyboard). My first is that the question is wrong, it should be:
- What is 'a' Craft, or
- What is 'it to' Craft?
These are more definitive questions.
The other problem is as you noted, only two of the people answering consider themselves as Practitioners, although there is no clue as to what ‘Craft’ they practice. The remainder of people quoted in more of an ‘observer’ position. They look down on what has been ‘made’ and then cast their judgement, I’m sure without having proved their own ability in the first instance, so should we listen to them.
However from a personal point of view, the act of Craft is ‘to make’, it does not matter what is made. At work I craft my reports and even my e-mails, to ensure that what they say is what I mean, and is understandable by the reader – something I do wish more people would do
(Bryan, get off your soapbox!)I do agree that the meaning of the word ‘Craft’ has changed many times though. For me the best description given in the article for craft in it’s current concept is by;
Caroline Roux (Acting editor, Crafts magazine)
'Craft has never been more important than now, as an antidote to mass production and as a practice in which the very time is takes to produce an object becomes part of its value in a world that often moves too fast.'That is something that anyone can do, to a high level or otherwise, as a method of relaxation and personal satisfaction.
To me woodturning is my ‘Wa’, a Japanese concept of harmony, if you spend all day using your brain, relax in the evening using your hands (and vice versa). I’m as happy production turning items as I am making utility items or display items, all relax me, all is craft, some is art. Therein lies the next question ‘Is Craft Art or where is the dividing line?’
Art is in the eye of the beholder, I don’t like all art I see, but that does not detract from the creative act of ‘making’ it. Then again, that does not make all craft ‘Art’ (or does it?). Consider a 6 year olds painting Vs Picasso (who tried to see like a child), the dinner lovingly prepared by your wife or the artistically arranged meal in an expensive restaurant. What about the sonnets of Shakespeare to the pulp fiction of Mills & Boon?
