Ø The distinction between ‘Craft’ and ‘Design’ can be at times problematic explain what you understand these terms to mean, and illustrate their application in relationship to the work of one practitioner.
The definition for craft is, the making of decorative or functional objects, generally by hand. Hand and power tools may be used, however, in making some craft items. The term crafts also refers to the objects made. The function of crafts is generally concerned with crafts as creative hobbies, practiced primarily in the home with a minimum of specialized equipment. Crafts as so defined, have certain functions. In a world that is becoming increasingly mechanized and standardized, they give people the opportunity to work with their hands and to express their individuality. Crafts also are often used in occupational therapy; for example, a patient might be taught a craft to develop weakened muscles or to help in gaining use of an artificial limb. An emotionally disturbed person might be taught a craft that would serve as an outlet for feelings. Craftwork also provides the disabled with purposeful activity that diverts attention from their handicaps. Many hobbyists find themselves going into business. A craftsperson who perhaps has at first sold craft items only to friends or at local bazaars may find that increased demand leads to a wider clientele and sales by mail order, at crafts fairs, or through a shop. There is a fine line of distinction between crafts produced by amateur hobbyists for their personal satisfaction and crafts that in the hands of gifted artisans approach or can be considered art forms, generally made with a view toward the use and enjoyment of others. The difference between hobby-produced crafts and formal decorative art objects lies in the degree of innovation in form and technique and in the intention of the artisan. Crafts can be grouped by technique or medium. Under the headings that follow are brief descriptions of some of those crafts most popular with hobbyists today, with indications of the degree of skill and basic equipment required.
The type of craft that I will be studying is known as handicraft. Strictly speaking, handicrafts are occupations that involve making usable or decorative products by hand. Before the Industrial Revolution all such products were handmade, often in the home. The age of...
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...anization and mass production. It had its basis in the ideas of Pugin and Ruskin, the most influential of the writers who deplored the effects of industrialization, but it was left to William Morris to translate their ideas into practical activity. His hand-made products (books, furniture, textiles, wall-paper, and so on) were successful aesthetically, but his ideal of producing art for the masses failed. Nevertheless, he influenced craftsmen, teachers, and propagandists (such as C. R. Ashbee, who founded the Guild of Handicraft in 1888), and in the early years of the 20th century the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement spread abroad, notably to Germany, Austria, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia, where the Danish silver designer George Jensen was one of the key figures. After World War I the movement was transformed by the acceptance of modern industrial methods, but it has had an enduring legacy on 20th-century design.
Acknowledgements:
CNN, Arts Report 1987 summary
Britannia, Oxford, and Compton’s Interactive Encyclopaedias
The Book of Art Design
The Modern Arts Movement
WWW.Encarta.Com
The Essential William Morris
The Industrial Design Guide 1992
Crafts and Designs Today
Benjamin, Walter, and J. A. Underwood. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
The seven Virtues, in medieval religious iconography, have been represented in various ways and various complexities. So, too, have the seven Vices, or Seven Deadly Sins. But while the Virtues are clearly part of the Lord's angelic host, there is some ambiguity regarding the nature of the Vices. I submit the theory that, being counterpart to the Virtues, the Vices are likewise devils under Lucifer.
As a conclusion, Mingei and nationalism can be perceived as fundamentally interwoven through Japanese handicrafts. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, many factors came to play a part in bringing the Japanese spirit to the forefront of craftsmen minds, whether as reason to bring attention to themselves and their own work or as a way of providing necessary utensils to the average Japanese home. The efforts of the Mingei movement and the Japanese Traditional Crafts Exhibition cannot be ignored. Yanagi can be said to have foreseen this radical decline in traditional styles and if not for his and his fellow founders collecting and preserving crafts in the Japanese Folk Art Museum, many of the regional methods and styles could be lost today. After the destruction of the war and
The Occupational therapy perspective has transformed historically overtime, evolving Occupation and the role it plays in people’s everyday lives. The occupational therapy profession was strongly influenced by the medical model involving close medical contributions. In the 1950’s the majority of Occupational Therapist worked for the National Health Service, working primarily in physical rehabilitation centres (Hagedorn 1995) seeing craft work as an integral part of Occupational Therapy as it was perceived as having therapeutic qualities (Hagedorn 1995). Between the 1960s -1980s craftwork was no longer valued as important and the philosophy of the occupational therapy shifted to biomechanical exercises that incorporated adapted equipment increasingly using sensory motor techniques (Hagedorn 1995) and then from the 1980’s Occupational Therapist began to focus more on the occupational needs and competencies of a person (Hagedorn 1995)....
Imagine pondering into a reconstruction of reality through only the visual sense. Without tasting, smelling, touching, or hearing, it may be hard to find oneself in an alternate universe through a piece of art work, which was the artist’s intended purpose. The eyes serve a much higher purpose than to view an object, the absorptions of electromagnetic waves allows for one to endeavor on a journey and enter a world of no limitation. During the 15th century, specifically the Early Renaissance, Flemish altarpieces swept Europe with their strong attention to details. Works of altarpieces were able to encompass significant details that the audience may typically only pay a cursory glance. The size of altarpieces was its most obvious feat but also its most important. Artists, such as Jan van Eyck, Melchior Broederlam, and Robert Campin, contributed to the vast growth of the Early Renaissance by enhancing visual effects with the use of pious symbols. Jan van Eyck embodied the “rebirth” later labeled as the Renaissance by employing his method of oils at such a level that he was once credited for being the inventor of oil painting. Although van Eyck, Broederlam, and Campin each contributed to the rise of the Early Renaissance, van Eyck’s altarpiece Adoration of the Mystic Lamb epitomized the artworks produced during this time period by vividly incorporating symbols to reconstruct the teachings of Christianity.
Quilts viewed from an artistic point began in the early 20th century. The-back-to-the-land movement focused on handcrafted traditions as a part of the return of pre-industrial lifestyle. During the
Several systems of making goods had grown up by the time of the Industrial Revolution. In country districts families produced most of the supplies that they used, while in the cities merchandise was made in shops, and manufacturing was strictly regulated by the guilds and by the government. The goods made in these shops were limited and costly. The merchants needed cheaper items, as well as larger quantities, for their growing trade. They had to establish another system of producing goods. The cottage or domestic industry filled in the gap for some time, because it gave the merchant a large supply of manufactured articles at a low price. It provided employment for every member of a craft worker's family and gave jobs to skilled workers who had no capital to start businesses for themselves. A few merchants who had enough capital had gone a step further. They brought workers together under one roof and supplied machines. These establishments were factories.
focus of the artists was not on crafting aesthetically pleasing objects but on making works that
In Occupational Therapy (OT), ideas and theories go through various modifications. Practitioners dealing with Occupational therapy use craft as therapeutic mechanisms because people do feel that they are capable of accomplishing anything when they prove to themselves that they can do an art and compete it on their own. Crafts vary in their purpose; some deal with self care such as cooking, sewing, cleaning, and mending. Other crafts are generally meant to deal with a dysfunction faced compared to other crafts. An assessment of theoretic crafts to determine if it fits the best interests of a patient is through looking at the treatment goals of OT to a specific individual.
According to the documentary series Craft in America (2009), “the American craft tradition didn’t just appear one day, fully-formed and mature.” Over hundreds of years of history, craft techniques and materials have emerged because of social, political, economic, and technological factors. Master craftspeople have educated apprentices for generations in skills that have been passed down through domestic associations on handicraft goods made in home-based industries. However, industrial globalization, urbanization, and immigration at the end of the nineteenth century brought uncertainty to many regions of the United States, causing many community members to look back to an imagined past. An invention of creative style and conventional comradeship (Anderson, 1983, 7), this “imagined past” was an idea of nostalgia playing a major role in the lives of arts and craftspeople after the Great Depression. In response to arts and craftspeople searching for a more predictable and normal lifestyle, they sought refuge in a lifestyle of familiarity, reaching back to a time when life held less economic and emotional turmoil.
They all stressed the importance of handmade, decorative, ornamental and functional designs. William Morris started the movement as a reaction against the machine and stressed the importance of working with your hands. He didn’t see the beauty in mechanically produced things and neither did Art nouveau artists and Modernista architects. They all collectively stressed the importance of new never before seen structures and styles that would inspire people and bring beauty to a world that was becoming bland and repetitive.
During the 19th century, a great number of revolutionary changes altered forever the face of art and those that produced it. Compared to earlier artistic periods, the art produced in the 19th century was a mixture of restlessness, obsession with progress and novelty, and a ceaseless questioning, testing and challenging of all authority. Old certainties about art gave way to new ones and all traditional values, systems and institutions were subjected to relentless critical analysis. At the same time, discovery and invention proceeded at an astonishing rate and made the once-impossible both possible and actual. But most importantly, old ideas rapidly became obsolete which created an entirely new artistic world highlighted by such extraordinary talents as Vincent Van Gogh, Eugene Delacroix, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Claude Monet. American painting and sculpture came around the age of 19th century. Art originated in Paris and other different European cities. However, it became more popular in United States around 19th century.
Woodworking, a form of carpentry, has been around for centuries and overtime developed into a more modern art. Today people will mostly see woodwork in homes in the form of furniture and decorations, or even smaller things such as family heirlooms passed down by generations and simple crafts made by younger generations. The skill of woodworking, however, is not inherited but takes practice and years of experience to fully master. Even experienced woodworkers run into challenges sometimes. The key is to overcome that obstacle and find different ways to create something new from a piece of wood. It is interesting to see and go through the process in which a woodworker goes through
The other type of art that should be defined is applied art. The main difference between these two forms of art is that fine arts have aesthetic characteristics, while applied arts do not. Applied arts are usually decorative, unlike fine arts which are used to express emotion. These decorative arts can be made from materials such as: glass, wood, stone, metal, and textiles. Applied arts can include architecture, pottery, basket weaving, costumes, interior design, jewelry, tools, weapons, and bookbinding as well. An example of applied arts that I wear every day is my ring. My ring is made out of metal and stones and twists into the shape of an infinity symbol. This is my favorite piece of jewelry that I own, which is why I wear it everyday.
Various craft ideas give you an opportunity to make the most from your free time using your creative instincts. In fact, craft is one such hobby that brings the most rewarding experience of creating something new and interesting and the best part of it is you can share the experience and time with your kids introducing them to the fascinating world of crafts.