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The Beauty of Craft

A Resurgence Anthology

by Sandy Brown, Maya Kumar Mitchell

Excerpt

Foreword

Love of Everyday things
When the plate we eat from, the bowl we drink from, and the spoon we hold in our hand are works of art, then our lives are enriched every day.

TANYA HARROD, in her magnum opus Crafts in the 20th Century, says that craftspeople are those who gather inordinate joy in labour. This is true: the pleasure obtained in making, in expressing oneself through handling the materials, through experiencing the sense of touch and developing a fulfilling visual vocabulary is certainly something that drives the makers in this book. They have an intimate affinity with their chosen materials, just as a loving mother has an intimate affinity with her baby. In fact, this affinity with the chosen materials is the love-affair which characterizes craftspeople. And it shows in the work. Whatever the maker is feeling during the making is captured in the work. When that feeling is love, joy in labour, it is there in the materials, in the very fibre of the piece. There for us all to receive. And just as a loving parent can facilitate a child rich in the sense of her- or himself, so a loving craftsperson who is an artist can facilitate a work of art rich in its sense of being. As of course the best craftspeople are artists.

The craftspeople featured in this book are those whose work has a spiritual dimension. This comes from working intuitively; from developing a meditative sense of the here and now. Working intuitively means that often what the idea is, if there is one, is not apparent until after the work has been produced. Working intuitively means playing, starting with an empty mind not knowing where one is going. It means working on the periphery of one’s consciousness; being open to accidents.

The work of most craftspeople has its roots in the function of objects, even if from those roots many m a kers are increasingly branching into making work which is sculptural and abstract, concerned with form, colour and the expression of a visual language. I do so myself, and enjoy the freedom it offers as we expand into new territories. This enlarges our sense of what is possible. And it further fuzzes the boundaries between art and craft.

But it helps enormously in the appreciation of crafts to know the nature and context of the historical roots, just as it does in any art form. Each person who starts working in clay, metal, wood, or textiles, as he or she develops the love for their materials, inevitably wants to know everything about their chosen material, what has been made in it during the previous several thousand years, and whose work they admire most. All of this knowledge of the history and culture of their chosen material will feed their creativity and inform their current contemporary work. This cultural history of contemporary crafts deserves to be more widely known.

As the mainstream Art world moves more and more away from things, and into concepts, video, ideas and intangibles, the Crafts become increasingly important. Crafts are therefore expanding and being seen in our culture to occupy the whole spectrum of actual hand-made pieces; of things which exist in real three-dimensional space and which you can touch.

William Morris and Soetsu Yanagi (author of The Unknown Craftsman) would be astonished to see the Crafts in such a healthy state in our high-tech postindustrial age. In some ways it is thanks to their enthusiastic advocacy of, as they saw it, humble craftspeople, that we today have so many people engaged in making things. Yet they were wrong to criticize the artist-craftsperson, as they are the source of the energetic dynamism today. It is clear that more and more people love making things, love the connectedness with their materials, can express themselves through that relationship, and love the satisfaction that comes from seeing the fruits of their effort.

An important change to be welcomed is that the 21st century is becoming increasingly feminized, to balance the go-getting masculine competitiveness of the last two or three thousand years. Women who once sacrificed their own values to gain access to the male dominated world of work are now regaining respect for their own creativity. This period will later be seen by historians as a time of huge social and cultural change in which, at last, women can be respected and adored for being themselves. This is closely intertwined with the increasing awareness, which Resurgence is helping to develop, concerning the vulnerability of and need for respect for the Earth.

One consequence of this feminization is that ritual is becoming increasingly important. When we use craft objects, made by the best practitioners who are artists, the most important aspects of our lives can be touched by art. By this I mean the every day aspects, the ordinary life in our homes, where we can have the most intimate relationship with art. Art is not something which lives solely in a gallery, or just on our walls, but can actually be what we live with and use every day. Once, when I was running a workshop for children I needed some pots to contain their coloured glazes and was offered some hand-made pots to use, which had been made by beginners. I was touched and I must admit surprised by the way the children responded to being allowed to use these pots with pleasure and delight.

The table we eat from and put our elbows on, the bowl we drink tea from, the knife and fork we hold, the textiles we touch and see and wear; the sculptural object of contemplation we see everyday in our bedroom; the organic form in the garden; when these objects are works of art our lives are immeasurably enriched, each day and every day. Art is then central to our lives.

I see people who live with artist-made objects unconsciously creating rituals when they use them. A meal becomes a meditative contemplation. An offering of a piece of cake, for example, when the plate is a work of art, can inspire the host to acquire a painted or handwoven napkin, and then to acquire a hand-made fork, so that the way it is then offered is charged with the ceremony of ritual. I see this development of ritual as being central to the future of crafts, and a tremendous opportunity to bring a non-religious spirituality into our culture.

In the machine-age, crafts in our culture are actually much stronger than they were thirty years ago. The traditions are being revitalized, transformed. There are many more makers, many more galleries showing them, many more people seeking them out, which makes it much simpler now. We can live with the crafts, worship them, just because we love them.

Sandy Brown