Art or Craft? - lengthy musings

I have recently been working on my submission for an award for emerging artists and crafts people.  This turned out to be much more traumatic that the ‘write up to 500 words and send up to 3 images’ brief would have led me to expect.  The problem was about categorising myself and my work – art or craft?  This is hardly a new dilemma - has been much discussion of it, especially with the recent revival in interest in 'craftsmanship'.  It was clear from the blurb that they were expecting painters or photographers in the art category, and textiles people in craft.  However, the craft category’s entry brief was about giving instructions for making the things you make.  The artist brief was to describe your work and inspiration.  This set me thinking.

I describe myself on my website and business cards as ‘textile artist and maker’.  My real interest is in textile art.  However, because the medium I mostly use (felt) also lends itself to making things like corsages, lavender hearts and other homewares and accessories, I do make some of these as well because they sell.  And because of the media I use, my art does involve making – I make the felt, often having first worked through a whole lot of processes from fleece to felt.  This is even more true of weaving, where I may have processed the wool and spun it before weaving with it.  And for me, as an artist, the process is part of the art – the meaning is, to some extent, in the making.  I am excited about the medium, about the provenance of the materials (especially if it’s rare breed wool – I may even have met the sheep!), and the processes involved, many of which have been part of human history for millennia. 

Good craftsmanship (I’m happier with 'craftspersonship', especially as many of the skills I am using have traditionally been practiced by women, but it doesn’t seem to have reached the lexicon yet) is key to the integrity of what I do, and indeed I think it is key to our economic sustainability as a country and as a planet.  I’m not in any way denigrating that sense of the word ‘craft’ – in fact I am celebrating it.  I am just uncomfortable when one of my pieces (say, a tonal abstract exploring the colours and textures of wool from several breeds of sheep) is described as ‘craft’.  I have no issues with describing my beautiful felt lavender hearts as craft – I am using craft skills, and craftsmanship honed over the years, to produce and attractive and functional object.

It’s all very nebulous and difficult.  I know some feltmakers who describe what they make as ‘wearable art’.  This confuses me, and analysing my confusion takes me towards a possible definition for me (I wouldn’t presume to impose my definition on anyone else) of art as non-functional.  Its function is to make us step back from the everyday, to look at life in a slightly different way.  I produce beautiful craft objects which have a practical function of some sort (even if that function is simply embellishment, as with my corsages) and are aesthetically pleasing, but do not point beyond themselves as objects.  I also produce art, which instead of paint uses textiles, created using craft skills, to take the viewer beyond the immediate usefulness of the object (a framed picture, for example, has limited practical usefulness).  These works inspire reflection, evoke responses beyond the aesthetic, they challenge or intrigue or move.  Some works tell a story – a story not limited to the narrative of their production.

If I never made another corsage or felt heart, I might be worse off financially, but it would not grieve me unduly – and I could teach someone else to make them.  But if I never created another piece of art, part of me would have died.  And although I could teach someone the skills, no one else can see the world quite how I see it, or be inspired to create this particular piece of work.  I must therefore conclude that what matters to me is the art, and that my identity is fundamentally as an artist.

If you’ve followed me this far (in which case, thank you for your persistence! - I don't often venture into navel-gazing of this sort, as I am always worried I will descend into pomposity), you will not be surprised to learn that it took me nearly three weeks to get the submission written – for the artist category!