(Beginning an intermittent series about making stuff. These are my personal philosophies about art and craft. As such, they are guaranteed to piss off some people. Please don’t feel singled out, and please feel free to answer me with your own thoughts on the matter.)
Credo 1: The more we call some artifact or process ‘crafty’, the less likely any definition of the word might actually apply.
Is Crafty a dirty word?
First, some definitions lifted straight off the internet and trusty Google Search:
craft·y
ˈkraftē
adjective
1.
clever at achieving one’s aims by indirect or deceitful methods.
“a crafty crook faked an injury to escape from prison”
synonyms: cunning, wily, guileful, artful, devious, sly, tricky, scheming, calculating, designing, sharp, shrewd, astute, canny; involving, or relating to indirect or deceitful methods.
antonyms: honest
“a shameless and crafty trick to mislead public opinion”
2.
informal
of, involving, or relating to the making of decorative objects and other things by hand.
“a market full of crafty pots and interesting earrings”
Neither of those definitions are bad in themselves. (They’re quite positive, if you happen to like Trickster and Mastersmith tropes as much as I do.)
But the second definition has been getting some serious misuse for the last few decades. As the formidable Craft Snark says: “The word craft has been hijacked to equally apply to woodcarving and popsicle stick crafts.”
Once the handmade and Maker revolutions really got going, their adherents lashed out against the Fine Art World with some breathtaking broadsides. Which I generally supported, because I’ve never seen any real difference in practice or philosophy between fine art and fine craft.
But then DIY people started looking down their noses at so-called ‘crafters’. Can’t support that, but not for the reasons you might think. I had enough of such nonsense in college, when nearly all my fine art teachers wanted me to believe that technique and skill were not as important as the idea conveyed by my art.
Bullshit. If work is any kind of prayer or reverence, the way in which it is undertaken is as important as the intended message. The process of creation shows the maker’s respect toward the intended message. This means study, practice, and application of skill. Not the inherent flippancy of Quick-n-Easy Crafts kits or Pour-n-Paint art ‘studios’. Both of the latter are hella fun, by the way – but I’m reluctant to call their products ‘art’.
I am deeply troubled to see the same old elitism surface in the Maker movement, but almost in the opposite direction.
The basic tenet of many DIY forums often appears to be “All efforts are sacred, from macaroni collages to museum-grade fine craft.”
Um, no. Knitting an awful sweater is as much a learning experience as writing a commercially-unpublishable but personally thrilling manuscript. But that’s all it is. A training ground. To pretend otherwise is to court self-deception, and to inflict our halting efforts on people who either love us too much to say ‘this stinks’ – or don’t know any better, themselves. We cannot improve our brains and hands in an echo chamber; we can’t learn the difference between ‘that’s a hot mess’ and ‘hot damn, that looks pretty good’.
I am an elitist snob when it comes to some things about craft. I’ve talked about the Dunning Kruger Effect before, and the late and amazing Regretsy.com (where bad art went to die, be resurrected online, and thoroughly mocked).
I know what it is like to regularly set my sights higher than my reach, and to fail miserably in my attempts at mastering new skills. I spent the first two decades of my life unable to bring into reality many of the things I ‘saw’ in my head, because I didn’t have the applied knowledge. I still miss the mark. Often. I do not console myself that my first efforts are dazzling examples of my inner creativity. I recognize their flaws and try to learn from them. I bin them, give them away to people who seem to like them (flaws and all), or I rip them apart and rebuild them later.
I’m a DIYer when I’m farting around with a new technique. I’m a crafter when I think I’m almost ‘there’ with it. I’m an artisan when I’ve made a few dozen of the little bastards and my reps have sold ’em to museums, galleries, and private collectors. I’d like to say I’m a master crafter at some things – but I’m not there yet, and likely never will be. My journey took me about 20 years longer than it should have, because I just could not get my shit together.
So I am sensitive about seeing ‘craft’ or ‘crafty’ applied in ways that seem anathema to my particular understanding of the terms.
Let’s just say that if it comes from a kit, it probably isn’t more than a tangential exploration of craft. Training wheels, at best.
If it’s shown at a county fair, church bazaar, or local craft mall, it probably does not have the same conferred value as a piece juried into a major national fine crafts trade show or museum.
With a few certain culturally-relevant exceptions, art made with substandard materials and shoddy worksmanship probably isn’t as noteworthy as art made with better materials and trained artists.
Beyond my minor and hard-won skills, I’m still just the kid who likes to get her hands dirty actually making stuff. The moment of finishing a piece is just as much a thrill as it ever was. So is getting emotional or financial feedback for my finished projects. But the process – full of plans, designs, mistakes, backtracks, injuries, spills, muttered curses, and leaps of understanding – is where I am most content with my creativity.
That’s the moment when a third definition of ‘craft’ comes most often to even my skeptical mind: magic.
You raise some interesting points. I think a lot of people want to feel that they are expressing themselves, but only a minority of them will take years to develop their skill. I think even the most crude and derivative level of creativity can be good if it’s a step up for the person involved–but it might be better if English had more nuances of meaning to use for the activity. Sort of like the old days when there were apprentices, journeymen, and masters. (I found your post through AW’s blog thread.)
I agree, Rhchatlien: it would be helpful if we had an agreed-upon framework for self assessment. One that was honest and objective (which is bloody tricky in any artform!)
In writing, that can come from informal, face-to-face, or online workshop opportunities.
In craft, determining one’s skill often means comparisons with other artists. Tricky, if the sample is limited to lesser-skilled or comparable artists. I learned to look at the artists profiled in the major fine-craft trade shows and galleries, or in highly-regarded museums. It’s both humbling and uplifting, because it shows how far I have to go.
I know fellow crafters who won’t look at artwork substantially ‘better’ than their own. Either because they can’t see any objective difference, and pin the other artist’s apparent success on luck and networking rather than skill and good ideas (Which can happen, sadly.) Or because they’re frankly depressed by other people’s work.
Thanks for wandering by and commenting, and being a part of the AW community.