I was drawn to a recent craft research post that covered several different issues I’ve been thinking about lately.

I think that there is a barrier in thought between the US and the UK regarding craft. My post from yesterday regarding hierarchy was written without knowing there had been a discussion on the very same issue on both craft research and museum blogging. And I believe we are speaking about different hierarchies: one between art and craft and one from within the craft community itself.

In having the opportunity to work both in the US and UK, I can attest to the two extremely different modes of thought between the two. But that’s hardly surprising given the way that history allows for divergent paths (and one notably longer than the other)- it is only now that there is a craft revival on both shores that we are clearly able to view the gaps.

On craft research, Mike Press notes that “Its not so much that our concerns (this side of the pond) are hugely different- it’s just that we are driven by a different set of issues which arise from the politics of academic inquiry in the UK.” Out of curiosity, what politics exactly? My biggest concern lies in the fact that I have been told that as someone who wanted to research crafts in the UK, it “wasn’t important that I learned how to knit” by someone whose opinion I hold in high esteem. My reaction was nothing but shock as, from my perspective, in order to better understand what I’m looking into (in my case, largely textiles), my research is only richened by being familiar with the very craft I am studying.

I think the main problem I have with craft at the moment is based on audience. It is my goal to write somewhere between the academy and the “hobbyist,” because if I just focus on one or the other, I’m missing out on a key piece of this cultural inquiry. Going straight from an academic perspective, I run the risk of not only alienating those that I create with but also rich ethnographic insights which I might not be able to garner elsewhere. Going straight from a craft perspective, I run the risk of sounding “happy clappy” (to quote a futher craft research post by Georgina and not taken in any way seriously by anyone from inside the academy.

This is in no way an attack on craft research, a blog which I am very excited about. I just have some questions. When Mike says that craft is usually considered “domestic, working class or just plain thick”, I wonder about the definition, because ‘thick’ can either mean stupid or as it is sometimes used in narratives “a rich description.” Because to me, craft is what it is because it is ‘of the people’ instead of being born from the academy. It has found its way into the cultural conscience not only because its creations historically tend to be utile, but because before the Industrial Revolution it was a common way of life. Modernity has turned craft on its head.

The current craft resurgence in the US owes a lot to stateside modes of feminism, and in my view, predominantly Riot Grrrl. Echoes of this can be seen in the UK, especially in some of the larger cities where Riot Grrrl had some sort of presence in the 90s. The fact that the author of this week’s earlier Guardian article regarding the subversive state of craft, Eithne Farry, used to be in the band Tallulah Gosh, is further proof of a possible connection.

The struggle we are all now having and hashing through is in regard to the definition of craft. While, I, too, struggle with this issue, one of the most important things to remember is that at its root, craft is not a “system of thought.” Craft was born out of a need for things, which separates itself from art. Now that we now longer have that need and can buy products formally made at home at the corner shop, the revolution really begins.