“Crafting” into Art: Why do we want in?
by Daniela Smith-Fernandez
It has only been since art came to mean something hallowed that people began to argue where to draw the line between art and craft. Recently, there has been a push to have traditional craft mediums such as textiles included within the parameters of fine art; the shift to include “crafts” within the historical art canon and the modern art world is often framed as a progressive one. Inclusion can mean that there are more opportunities to see work made by women and non-Westerners, remedying some of the gaps in the notoriously Eurocentric realm of art history. Respect and access to support is also implicit. Potentially, craft artists can now complete an MFA, exhibit in galleries, apply for grants and command fair prices for work. It can also mean that artists who have been through copious amounts of training and have become highly technically skilled will not have their work dismissed on the basis of the medium they use.
However, as the subject of crafts has come into the foreground of artistic discourse, the question is what happens when you take “crafts” into an art context?
When admiring the beauty of quilts, coats etc., it is important to remember these are primarily functional objects; mittens can be beautiful but if they do not keep hands warm they will not be useful. Craftspeople have incorporated creativity in the process of making something that people need to have anyways, but the skills used are ones developed out of necessity. So when those mittens, designed to be warm, are transferred into an art gallery where they are judged purely on aesthetics, something fundamental gets lost. It is like putting a sculpture that incorporates a fountain into a book on water distribution systems and then determining that the sculptor was an inefficient well builder.
If deconstructing the elitist hierarchies inherent in the way we view art could be accomplished simply by the inclusion of functional objects, then the art-versus-craft debate would not be an issue. However, I am deeply skeptical as to how positive an impact the acceptance of craft-as-art will be, as long as the conditions craft is made in continues to be at best, devalued, and at worst, misunderstood. This is especially problematic in the case of work from non-Western cultures where it is often sacred or ritual pieces that are re-labeled “art” instead of being understood as valuable within a different context. This mistranslation amounts to co-option, not respectful inclusion.
Further, what happens to craft mediums when they join the art world? When it starts to matter who signed their name on the back of a quilt, it loses its value as a bed warmer.Traditionally, craft has been an area where contested aspects of art, such as the cult of the individual genius, does not apply. I worry what will happen if we lose that. What will happen to the spirit of collaboration, the appreciation for functionality, the non-elitist standpoint? Craft is inherently accessible; one does not need cultural capital to “understand” a coat the way one does a Renaissance painting.
Ideally, as the art-versus-craft debate continues, the relationship between the two will be re-framed as an exchange, where each tradition has something to contribute from its own rich history. Ultimately the question about what constitutes art is less about categorization than about whether something is worthy of respect. Now the issue is to re-examine underlying assumptions within the debate, and to ask why traditional forms need to be considered art to be appreciated, instead of being understood on their own terms.