Defining craft

I’ve been asked to find two definitions of craft, one that I agree with and one that I don’t.  The elephant in the room is art versus craft.

Part of me thinks: “Why should I care?  It’s just semantics.”   Part of me thinks: “I guess I do care because I want to be thought of as an artist more than I want to be thought of as a craftsman.”  

There is some snobbery around art vs craft, similar to the snobbery that used to exist between universities and what used to be called polytechnics.  When I went to university in the 1960s they were for “clever” people to study “pure” subjects that often didn’t map directly on to jobs.  More “practical” people went to polytechnics and did vocational subjects where manual skills often played a role.

Actually, this hits on an issue that keeps coming back to me:  Fundamentally, I want to do sculpture so should I be studying sculpture rather than contemporary craft?   My reason for doing contemporary craft is because I want the focus to be on producing my own work rather than studying sculpture in an abstract way.   

Definition of craft I agree with: 

“Craft, art, and design are words heavily laden with cultural baggage. For me, they all connote the profound engagement with materials and process that is central to creativity. Through this engagement form, function, and meaning are made tangible. It is time to move beyond the limitations of terminologies that fragment and separate our appreciation of creative actions, and consider the "behaviors of making" that practitioners share.'”

 David Revere McFadden Chief curator and vice president, Museum of Arts & Design, New York – one of several responses to the question “What is Craft” on the Victoria and Albert Museum website (1)

Why I like this:  It sidesteps the old art-versus-craft chestnut and gets to the heart of the issue in terms of bringing together thought, knowledge and skill in the creative process.  

Definitions of craft I don’t agree with:

To paraphrase two examples below:  

“If it’s useful, it’s not art.  If it’s not art then it’s craft”.

Why do I disagree?  I think the distinction applies to trades that predate the industrial revolution, not the creation of works of art.

Example 1:  

“The concept of craft is historically associated with the production of useful objects and art — well, at least since the 18th century — with useless ones.  The craftsman’s teapot or vase should normally be able to hold tea or flowers, while the artist’s work is typically without utilitarian function.  In fact, if an object is made demonstrably useless — if, to cite a famous example, you take a teacup and line it entirely with animal fur — it has to be considered as a work of art, because there is nothing else left to consider it as. The crafts tend to produce things which are useful for various human purposes, and though they may be pretty or pleasing in any number of ways, craft objects tend to exhibit their prettiness around a purpose external to the object itself.  To this extent, the crafts aren’t arts, according to a idea which found fullest expression in the aesthetics of the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. Works of art, Kant said, are “intrinsically final”: they appeal purely at the level of the imagination and aren’t good for any practical utility.”

Excerpt of a transcript of a radio talk by the late Dennis Dutton, a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand and founder of Arts & Letters Daily, (http://www.aldaily.com) a widely-read website. (2)

 

Dutton goes on to point to contradictions such architecture

Example 2: 

“If a professional artist produces a piece of jewelry (wearable) that is unique, it is not allowed under heading 9703, HTSUS, as it is a functional object. The same holds true for furniture such as the tables and chairs created by Diego Giacometti, a recognized professional artist. They are functional and useable as furniture and not within the guidelines of heading 9703, HTSUS. They can also be considered ornamental sculptures of a commercial character.”

Taken from the “Informed Compliance Publication” of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, explaining U.S. Customs and Border Protection regulations (3)

HTSUS, the Harmonized Tariff Schedule for the United States, is used to categorise imports into the U.S.  9703 covers "Original Sculptures and Statuary, in Any Material.”  If an object is is "not allowed" under this heading, it means that it's not considered to be a work of art under U.S. regulations.

Another definition I don’t agree with

 In his radio talk (2) Dutton makes fairly extensive reference to a set of criteria for distinguishing art from craft formulated by philosopher R G Collingwood in the 1930s:

 “The most important, or at least interesting, of these is that with craft, and not with art, there is “a distinction between planning and execution” such that the “result to be obtained is preconceived or thought out before being arrived at.  The craftsman Collingwood says, knows what he wants to make before he makes it.”  This foreknowledge, Collingwood says, must not be vague, but must be precise. “

If this is the case then most of the stuff I produce on my contemporary craft course is art rather than craft, which is fine by me!  In other words, I set out knowing what I want to make but not in precise detail.

A critique of Collingwood’s philosophy is given in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (4)

 References

(1)  David Revere McFadden. (Undated). What is Craft?. Available: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/what-is-craft/

Last accessed 6th October 2013.

(2)  Denis Dutton. (Broadcast on 4th July 1990). The Difference Between Art and Craft. Available: http://www.denisdutton.com/rnz_craft.htm

Last accessed 6th Oct 2013.

(3) U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2006). Works of Art, Collector’s Pieces, Antiques, and Other Cultural Property . Available: http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/trade/legal/informed_compliance_pubs/icp061.ctt/icp061.pdf

 Last accessed 6th Oct 2013.

(4) Gary Kemp. (First published Tue Aug 21, 2007; substantive revision Thu Aug 2, 2012). Collingwood's Aesthetics. Available: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood-aesthetics/

Last accessed 6th Oct 2013.