In preparation for today’s class, I had asked students to read two essays and one news article: Is it art? Is it craft? (Charles Lewton-Brain, Ganoskin), Craft versus art (Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer, exploringcreativity.com), and The fine art of crafts (April Austin, Christian Science Monitor).
We had a good bit of discussion in class about the difference between arts and crafts. There was quite a range of opinions – art is the high-class stuff like paintings and sculpture, crafts are the things you did as a little kid, art is unique, craft is when you make something by following a pattern, art is expensive and requires more education, craft produces useful items, etc. As we talked we looked at the work of Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer (or try this site), Marta McCall, Shane Waltener, and Karen Allen. We also looked at knitting in art, including William Sidney Mount’s Winding Up, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout’s Woman Doing Handwork, and art that shows knit fabric by Gail Rothschild.
So how do you know when it's art or craft? I like the idea that it’s not an either/or question, but that arts and crafts are on a continuum. However, we came to no conclusions; that wasn’t the point of the conversation – it was just to get us thinking about these things as we knit and progress as knitters.
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