I didn't have time to offer anything before, so FWIW I'll muse aloud now...
To me, the difference between art and craft is that craft is primarily intended to be useful and useable, while art isn't (or its primary use is just to be viewed). (Of course, this raises an interesting issue--is a Bulbach rug art or craft? Maybe it depends on whether you walk on it or hang it us! Is a felt-covered rock paperweight art or craft? What about a LoTR cloak, made with care and craftsmanship but rarely used because it's too heavy or just that people don't usually wear cloaks these days? Lots of blurry edges here....) Anything can be beautiful, whether also useful or not. Anything can be ugly, whether it has a 'message', is useful, or not. A lot of 'craft' today comes under the category of what I lump as 'glue gun crafts': it's fast, requires little skill, and if not a kit or an actual copy, at least has very little true originality or creativity. (Ha! More words to define! :) 'Craftsmanship' (I wish there was a good feminine version, or at least neutral, of that word!) requires skill and a knowledge and understanding of the materials and their limitations, whether using a kit or following a pattern. This person *can* work entirely originally, but doesn't always choose to. Yes, the more I think about it, the more 'useful and useable' comes to my mind when differentiating between craft and art. Much fiber art is in the category 'wearable fiber art', for example, yet most of that isn't really. I remember, from a Handwoven years ago, a cloak of feathers on a handwoven cloth. Undoubtedly art and wearable fiber, it certainly wasn't intended to be really USED beyond modeling for a few moments in front of a camera. My personal preference is firmly on the side of useful. I enjoy very little 'fiber art' (an exception being the incredible tapestries of Sarah Swett, one of which is in this issue of Spin-Off). I remember my sister being disgusted by my plebian tastes when we went to a quilt show together. She loves the 'quilts' that push the limits defining one--slashed and tattered, it's art, and she loves it, while I think it's silly :) I want to look at quilts that could function to warm a person or two on a cold night, not quilts that might not even survive hanging in a show. I've come over to accept and even experiment with machine quilting (from being a nose-in-the-air handquilter <g>), and I frequently spin commercially prepared rovings and tops today. But I still think a mastery of technique and medium is essential to true craftsmanship, and for that you've got to be hands-on at the most basic level. Someone chided me once years ago on Fibernet for saying something like that. How far back do you push that, I was asked? Does everyone have to raise their own wool, flax, cotton, silk to have that true craftsmanship? Having had sheep for 6 years this month, I now say, YES, emphatically :) Until I started raising sheep, although I appreciated good wool, I didn't appreciate what it takes to get good wool, what environmental and management factors affect wool, sometimes making it very poor wool indeed, what work goes into it--backbreaking in the case of shearing, heartbreaking in the case of having to put down or lose to illness a favorite animal. It's given me a whole new appreciation for this miracle fiber, and I wouldn't presume to assume I have a similar mastery of any other category of fiber--or, for that matter, that raising one type of sheep/wool gives me mastery over other types of wool. I've probably made a lot of people angry by saying that...not my intent. This is my view, and firmly held, but you're all welcome to your own views :) Holly To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
