‘To craft is to care...., [It] implies working on a personal scale-working locally in reaction to anonymous, globalized, industrial production.’
Recent years have seen a surge in the revival of crafts, handmade artwork and a do-it-yourself ethos. Research has led me to deep cultural and global concerns connected to this movement that I was previously unaware of. The scope of the return of craft is huge. In this essay I will outline how contemporary craft is a medium through which major concerns of contemporary life are being highlighted, questioned and in some cases resolved. Through investigating the work of a number of contemporary artists and designers who engage in traditional methods of hand production, I will explore how the craft movement is responding to some of the social, economical, political and environmental issues we face today.
A Disengaged Society
To understand more fully the ethos behind contemporary craft, we must first take a look at why it resurfaced in the first place: globalisation. Deyan Sudjic comments on our contemporary lives in The Language of Things, stating that the ‘bulimic fluctuation between gratification and self-disgust that comes from the compulsion to acquire too much too fast is exactly what luxury has become.’(p.91). In the western world we have everything at our disposal in disgustingly huge numbers due to mass-production. We continue to consume in a grotesque need to quench this insatiable desire to have the most, to have the best. But this sensation is attained just as quickly as it is lost in those fleeting moments of purchase. This sense of limitless variety and choice has caused a great number of us to reflect and take matters into our own hands through the rise of the arts and crafts movement. This respect for traditional processes and often laborious handmade artifacts has given objects almost a symbolic quality. A reverence sought through the precision, dedication and passion of the artist; almost tangible concepts in comparison to the heartless mass of the machine process. Its rise also lends to the digitization of design where by the designer/artist became increasingly disengaged from their creativity as the computer became an ever more coherent tool in the creative process. However this prevailing and easily accomplished perfection and precision also reeked of homogeneity. Through the regeneration of traditional crafts many contemporary designers and artists agree that the current trend represents ‘an important signifier of integrity in a world where the synthetic and the simulated are overwhelmingly prevailent’. More and more we are craving a physicality, an authenticity, even imperfections in the work to encourage the sense of the objects having a story, a true place in this world, connecting the artist with their work and the consumer with the artist. The longing for truth and interactivity in our shallow, man-made environment has sparked a ‘spirit of enquiry’ within us to reclaim a sense of organic connectivity with the world and others. This can be achieved through craft design and production.
Craft and Societies’ Perceptions
Through the ‘homespun ethos’ of Donna Wilson’s http://www.donnawilson.com/ work and approach to business ethics I want to explore why society may have welcomed her so readily despite her products being a more expensive choice in this current recession. As previously stated we, as a society, have become increasingly disillusioned by the monotonous experience of high street shopping and the never ending supply of generic goods. Donna Wilson’s work was explosive in comparison and has drawn business from as many as 25 countries. She employs a very handmade process in her designs, using knitting as the main craft. There are a number of aspects which make her work so appealing. Firstly, her designs seem to capture a great sense of life. With her ‘oddball characters’, bursts of colour and pattern, and great attention to detail we are all too aware that her work is a beacon of hope and delight in the bleak world of commerce. As consumers we are ‘ready to embrace the rare...in this quest for a products soul.’ Of her characters, Wilson says, ‘They’re odd...But you want to look after them.’ And since they have become such popular purchases worldwide we must agree that consumers are too sensing that they capture a certain aura which makes them more than just simply objects. Wilson is inspired by children’s drawings and their naivety. ‘I love the spontaneity-how five legs on a cat doesn’t matter.’ In a world now stifled with paranoia, terrorism, fragile economics and concern, perhaps her work, described as ‘warm, comforting and nostalgic’ take us back to happier times gone by and childhoods full of blissful ignorance. Her style very much connects to Charles Baudelaire’s definition of the creative mind: ‘The child sees everything in a state of newness; he is always drunk. Nothing more resembles inspiration than the delight with which a child absorbs form and colour...but genius is nothing more or less than childhood recovered at will-a child now equipped with self-expression, with manhood’s capabilities and powers of analyses which enable it to order the mass of raw material which it has involuntarily accumulated.’(p.102). With this considered, her work ethics also lend a great deal to her success. She claims that she is not ‘doing any brand-building’ and uses small, UK based businesses to aid her in the production of her designs. Not only does this enforce her own local economy but enables her to ‘keep as much control as possible’. Wilson is an inspiration to anyone wanting to carve a career and business out of craft based traditions and her dedication to maintaining a lively, interactive and hand-to-hand approach to consumerism is clear through her blog. Constant messages to her global audience make them feel a part of her journey and intrinsically linked to her products.
Craft and Our Other Global Concerns
How such contemporary craftsmen and women manage to stay economically afloat though such financially fragile times led me to a documentary called ‘Handmade Nation’ by Faythe Levine http://www.faythelevine.bolgspot.com/ Through it she travels 19,000 miles across the United States to record the phenomenom of the craft movement, interviewing the ‘burgeoning art community based on creativity, determination and networking.’(p.ix). She recalls how at the first craft fair she attended ‘hundreds of shoppers...talked about how exciting it was to see handmade stuff they could relate to and how good they felt about purchasing work directly from the artist.’ This sense of intrigue has led to a trust being formed between the creator and the consumer. At a time when we are so much more aware of sustainabilty, fairtrade and preservation, the knowing and understanding of an object’s creation, the processes it encounters, the materials used and why, are all increasingly more important aspects of modern aesthetics. Levine also encountered that people were taking control of their own lives and working together to ‘nurture entrepreneurialism, preserve feminine heritage and wield great economic power.’ As contemporary designers we are continually readdressing ways to build careers from our craft. The documentary showed that this huge artistic community is working together, networking from local craft fairs, independent shops and businesses worldwide, to inspire, support and guide each other to stability in our craft making and our lives. This shift in shopping habits and growing trust from the consumers has enabled the handmade to become a bespoke purchase, unique and ‘engaging’. Susan Beal , an artisan who is featured on ‘Handmade Nation’ states that ‘It gets easier every year...It feels like the world is coming around to our way of thinking.’ Many of them also see that as the community grows and shoppers engage in handmade they appreciate the labour, creative efforts and sometimes how painstakingly slow using traditional methods can be. They are therefore more willing to pay higher costs in the satisfaction of owning a one of a kind, treasurable piece of work. Further economical support for the do-it-yourself craftsmen and women is supplied through ecommerce sites such as Etsy. The website promotes that Etsy is ‘more than a market place: we’re a community of artisans and artists, creators, collectors, thinkers, doers.’ An immediate sense of belonging, of common aspirations and of a growing economical strength is very apparent here. In February 2011 $34.4 million of goods were sold through the site. Etsy provides a global shop front and can generate an audience of huge proportions. This control over one’s livelihood and ethical choices is further empowered by an article I recently came across by the well-established entrepreneur, Richard Branson. He talks of the launch of a campaign called StartUp Britain ‘aimed at celebrating enterprise in the Uk’ with the full backing of the government. He also enthuses that despite the recession such a climate is ‘perfect for young, enthusiastic and nimble companies to set up and thrive.’ A sustainable future based on creative drive seems more in our grasp than ever before.
Related to economics, some contemporary craft artists are manipulating their skill to make a political stand. A ‘craftivist’, Rayna Fahey of Australia uses ‘creative solutions for the crisis that we face on this planet.’ Her particular interest lies in cross-stitching giant slogans in public places to arrest their imagination and highlighting current problems. Not only this but her craftivist work throws her craft into the public arena, taking it out of the preconceived notions of handcraft being an old fashioned past time. Knitta of Houston, Texas, adopts similar techniques by taking her craft to the streets, wrapping and covering often mundane and easily missed objects such as benches and signposts, in her knitted woollen crafts. http://www.magdasayeg.com/about_knitta_please_magda_sayeg.html This alternative take on graffiti and tagging not only heralds these crafts in unknown territory but exposes the world to their ability to seduce and create change. A GetCrafty article written in 1998 expresses that the ‘new wave of crafters infused un-cool sounding domestic skills like knitting and sewing with a postpunk attitude’. This is why many believe that this movement is not a pastiche. Although contemporary artists are adopting the skills of a once domestic necessity or past time and as a result preserving a heritage, their craft ‘relays the perpetuation and transformation of skills and motifs in new media and changed social contexts’. We are not using traditional skills to be like the past, but to discover new ways in which crafts can transform our futures. This form of crafting has attained an alternative subculture status.
Another important social aspect concerned with craft is our awareness of a need to be ‘green’ and eco friendly. With mass production and the speed at which trends capture our imagination and then disappear in almost the same instance, we are ever-becoming a wasteful, consumer-obsessed world with an insatiable appetite for objects. ‘our toys: consolations for the unremitting pressures of acquiring the means to buy them.’ Craft has the capability to control this spiralling epidemic. As creatives we can recycle materials and mediums already in existance. We can apply our skills to manipulate and imaginations to reinterpret, producing rare and extraordinary creations. One such designer is Diana Eng and in particular her Fortune Cookie purses. http://www.dianaeng.com/ At $75 each they seem a steep alternative to something as commonplace and readily available as a purse. However they are made from recycled scraps of leather, sourced and selected herself and cut by hand. Each one is stamped with a guarantee of its traceability. Not only is this detail a thoughtful touch to a more evironmentally concerned consumer but adds to its character. This idea of ’real matter’ for the buyer and the purchase of uniqueness adds to the desire for organic integrity.
Lastly, the idea of feminism is very much apparent in the craft movement. For so long craft and the handmade, particularly needlework and textiles, was a female orientated tradition and very much kept within the confines of domesticity. Now these historically associated ‘feminine conventions are stunningly repurposed and, as a result become disassociated from their quotidian contexts.’ In the late 19thcentury, far before this contemporary shift towards a more traditional approach to design, The Arts and Crafts Movement set about readdressing the notions of design and to alter people’s judgement of its time labouring production and gain the respect they believed they work merited. Their movement referred ‘to an attitude, or a set of attitudes, in the mind of a designer, an artist or a craftsman, involving not only art but also society, and the interaction between the two.’ This seems like a very noble gesture for an art world being increasingly reduced by the Industrial Revolution unfolding before them. However, the work of women was still very much ignored even then, when the necessity of needle work and similar crafts were such an inherent part of not only their lives but those around them, in all classes and within most cultures. Art has in the past refused to acknowledge the relevance of this sort of craft despite the fact they ‘contribute on a very basic level to survival-bodily, emotionally, spiritually, socially and culturally’.(p.1) The craft movement of today continues to be largely female based, perhaps because of sentimental values attached to a skill passed down from mothers to daughters worldwide. Despite this however, more and more male crafters are surfacing. This is not only because larger art communities are enabling and supporting the education of traditional skills and techniques to larger audiences but also because creating with your hands is simply so much fun and an empowering way to become closer to ourselves and to each other, locally and globally.
Craft and My Own Work
Throughout my illustration degree thus far I have delved into and experimented with various mediums and techniques in response to briefs and also my own personal enquiry. I have realised that I feel most comfortable and expressive when working with handmade techniques, particularly needlework. I am still very much in the early stages of this exciting enquiry. As a child I would watch my mother make various household creations to either give as presents or sell at church fates and local craft fairs. I would watch with great intrigue as she threaded the seemingly unfathomable nooks and crannies of the sewing machine. What fascinated me the most were her stories of how, as a teenager, she would skim through fashion magazines for design and shape ideas and then by the weekend have made an entire outfit from scratch. With this intrigue still buzzing within me now, I enrolled on a short dress-making course. I am now equipped with enough basic knowledge to really embrace the craft and experiment with the fusion of fashion and illustration in my practice. Established illustrators such as Marie O’Connor are greatly capturing my imagination as she combines illustrative techniques and theories to the craft of sewing. I hope to become prolific enough at this skill to make my own clothes and therefore avoid many of the high street brands which employ unethical business approaches and churn out badly made heaps of waste. I would also be able to create unique items which I will hopefully carve a career from and in turn encourage others to embrace this ethos. I used handmade and recycled ideas last year when I made a collection of owl badges from unwanted clothes. I was attached to the textures and patterns of the fabrics and didn’t want to throw them away. I had buttons and thread at my disposal and began to ‘play’ with the fabrics in my spare time. Friends and strangers began requesting my owl badges and as Christmas approached they ordered more for their friends and family. For the first time, I was selling my creations and making a profit. The feeling was exhilarating. I began to consider more deeply the quality of materials and processes used as I realised i did not want anything of mine to be out there in the big, wide world that disappointed others or reflected badly on myself.
A Crafty Conclusion
I have observed how the application of a traditional skill to modern aesthetics and concerns can create an overwhelming change in both one’s own life directly and also of the general mood and quality of global societies. The Director of the Council of Industrial Design, Gordon Russel, wrote, ‘In short, we must...return to a study of fundamentals. So we shall once again bring honesty into everyday life and beauty will surely follow’. This was published in his ‘Plea for a Broader Outlook’ pamphlet in 1947. Perhaps now, over 60 years later, we are achieving this goal: fusing the old with the new to re-establish an integrity and meaning in our lives to instil fulfilment and faith in humanity and our ability to imagine and create.
Bibliography
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Levine, F. Courtney, H. (2008). Handmade Nation – The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design. New York, Princeton Architectural Press.
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http://craftscouncil.org.co.uk/boyswhosew/curator.html
http://magazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/knit-witty/
www.etsy.com
www.faythelevineblogspot.com
