What is Craft?

As a term, ‘craft’ has existed for hundreds of years, enduring many evolutions of the English language and prevailing to this day. Originally, to craft meant to be skilled, or have a skilled occupation — usually in woodworking or smithing — which would be seen in the professional level of quality in what was made (Risatti, 2004). However I believe that in more modern times, it has broadened its definition to describe the process of making itself, and the agency and individuality of the crafter when making something: whatever that may be. 

Craft used to symbolise the skill of a professional ‘maker’. One that uses their knowledge and skills to create a product with high quality and utility, such as a table or a chair. Every item crafted was individual: made by hand and made in such a way that no one else could have made it the same way, from the small imperfections in the final product, to the methods of creating that the maker chose. 

However, as Hickney (2015:144) states, “The fossilised definition of craft as a survival skill or something one’s ancestors did is finally changing”. Machines are now in charge of producing many of our ‘utility’ items, now turning the utilitarian aspect of ‘craft’ into a mass-produced production line of assembly; every item is built to the exact same dimensions, and the methods of creation are exactly the same in every one. The individuality and uniqueness of each item are now gone, and the human makers of the past are now made of metal and wire. 

I believe this is why craft has undergone a slight shift in definition in recent times, broadening from items made by skilled crafters to defining the process of making by any crafter: one that puts their knowledge and methods of crafting to use in creating the object, which then becomes a reflection of the creator in itself. The maker has to have some level of agency when making the item, either when designing or producing, otherwise it would not be emblematic of themselves and simply be another ‘mass produced’ craft. Pollanen (2009) delves deeper: defining a term called ‘hostilic craft’, which takes into account all levels of craft, in which the maker must affect the designer phase in some way for it to be considered as such, lest it simply fall under ‘creation’ and not ‘craft’. Joubert also states “What people now seek is the meaning, the story and history behind a well handmade object” (2022:9), valuing the story and intention of the object as much as the object itself — how the creator has put themselves into their craft, using their knowledge and skills to produce it. Not all craft today even has to be of professional quality: the term ‘sloppy craft’ (Patterson & Surette, 2015) is a form of craft that is explicitly not so, yet is still considered craft due to the relationship between the creator and object.

As times and methods of production have changed, craft has had to change with it. No longer is it solely defined by professional quality and make, but it now refers to the process of making and the display of individuality, agency, and proficiency by the creator, making sure the process is just as important as the object. 

REFERENCES:

Hickey, G 2015, Chapter 6: Why is sloppy and postdisciplinary craft significant and what are its historical precedents?  in Paterson, EC & Surette, S (eds) 2015, Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts, 1st edn, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp. 109-124

Joubert, L (ed.) 2022, Craft Shaping Society: Educating in the Crafts—The Global Experience. Book One, Springer Nature Singapore, Singapore.

Paterson, EC & Surette, S (eds) 2015, Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts, 1st edn, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp.1-23

Pöllänen, S 2009, ‘Contextualising Craft: Pedagogical Models for Craft Education’, International Journal of Art & Design Education, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 249–260.

Risatti, H 2007, A theory of craft: function and aesthetic expression, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.