Arts and Crafts

[nolly]

I'm mostly posting this so I have the written out version to reference later, but feel free to comment on my definitions.

Scrapbooking is a pseudocraft. If it won't be a useful skill after the fall of civilization, it's not a Real Craft. If it still takes skill, talent, and creativity, it might be Art. Things that can be done with materials that will still be around after the fall (like, say, pretty rocks or natural pigments) and require skill/talent/imagination but do not have direct survival value are Art. Things that require at least skill or talent and can create items with survival value are Crafts. Some things can be both -- cooking from an existing recipe or crocheting/sewing/knitting from an existing pattern is craft, creating your own recipes/patterns is art.

Comments

[firecat]

Insofar as scrapbooking = keeping track of information that might be useful later, it might count as a Real Craft after the fall of civilization, same way illuminating manuscripts might.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of the phenomenon that has aken over large amount of display space at Michael's and other craft stores, which appears to involve spending lots and lots of money on single-purpose tools.

[firecat]

*snork*

"An activity which craft & hobby stores have turned into an opportunity to spend lots and lots of money on single-purpose tools" might be a good definition of a pseudocraft.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

Am I reading your definitions correctly that: (A) something requiring skill/talent/creativity is Art if done/doable with low-tech materials; and (B) something requiring skill/talent/creativity might be Art otherwise?

If so, that seems to me like an awfully artificial distinction to draw.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

No. First, let me state that this is a fuzzy line, especially between Art and Craft. Let me further state tha Art and Craft are both things I value.

1) If it requires creativity/imagination, skill/talent, does not rely on manufactured items, but does not have inherent physical survival value, it is art. Ex: painting, music

2) If it can use creativity/imagination, requires skill/talent, does not rely on manufactured items, and has inherent survival value, it is in the grey zone. Whether I consider it art or craft depends on the level of original creative thought involved. Cooking from an existing recipe is craft; creating new recipes is art.

3) If it requires skill/talent, does not rely on manufactured items, has inherent survival value, but is done by following directions, it is craft.

4) If it requires manufactured items which would not be available following a collapse of civilization and either requires no skills with survival value or no creativity (or both), it is a pseudocraft. This includes most candle or soap making kits, most things involving plastic lace and/or pony beads, scrapbooking in the Martha Stewart, overmarketed sense, stamping, etc.

Maybe some of those are questionable. Maybe they require more skill or creativity than they appear to at first glance. But I don't see it. The output is of little to no practical value. The skills involved are useless without the necessary gadgets. But to me, they seem like ways to make current, former, and future yuppie soccer moms feel like they've accomplished something while increasing their reliance upon corporate America.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

Thanks for making that a little clearer.

My original objection was to the arbitrary distinction of using manufactured items. don't have a problem with your definitions, but I think there's an issue with what you're leaving out. Take, for example, Photoshopping (digital image manipulation).

It's not #1, #2, or #3 (relies on manufactured items). I submit that it requires too much creativity/skill/talent to fit in #4. I would like to call it "art," given the spirit of your definitions, except it seems like you've arbitrarily excluded it by insisting that art doesn't use manufactured items.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I think it varies. Also photography. Pondering further.

Photography doesn't feel to me like it's as much of an art as, say, painting.
It's more about observing/documenting than creating, usually.
Now, there's definitely talent/skill involved in composition, etc. But it doesn't feel creative in the same way that painting, music, etc. do to me.
Same with digital image manipulation, both more and less so. Starting with a blank canvas and transferring the image from your head to the computer is definitely creative. Starting with a couple of existing photos and switching the heads around, not so much. Skill, yes. Creative, not as much.

The manufactured goods thing is about distinguishing "abilities which will make you less likely to be food after the fall of civilization" from "you are a non-contributing drain on our resources so we will eat you". Maybe that's a separate set of categories. If you are skilled in an art that can be done with primitive materials, and you can survive the initial chaos, you will be more valuable alive than dead, because people will still want beauty in their surroundings. Craft skills will be more immediately useful -- if you can make clothes, food, etc. you are more useful alive than dead. Pseudocraft skills like making things from prepackaged kits will not make you more useful alive than dead.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

The metric you're using still raises questions, perhaps not easily answerable. Maybe I should just pose this conundrum -- Without programmers and programming, our overburdened and overly complex information society would degenerate rapidly into the sort of chaos you talk about. And yet the instant that chaos does occur, programming skills will be next to worthless.

Doesn't that seem a little self-fulfilling to you, to call programming worthless because it's eventually going to be worthless? Similarly, the ability to use complicated ultrasound equipment to diagnose a cancerous tumor may be unimportant by that metric, but I doubt someone whose life was saved by the procedure would agree. People place a lot of value on the use of technology today, and I don't think that's without good reason.

Moving back to art in specific -- I do disagree with your assessment of photoshopping as the creativity-less act of "moving a few heads around." This spends more time as my background wallpaper than the copious pieces of Art littering my machine's hard drive. Granted, not all photoshoppers aspire to that level of muse release. But then, neither do all painters.

I do see the rationale behind your differentiation. It's hard to argue with except on general principle: that, as suggested above, assigning an inherent negative value to technology is going to dismiss many things which otherwise would seem (common-sense or instinctually) to be worthwhile. I.e., there are people who make Art with whatever is around them, and I don't think they should be penalized just because "whatever's around them" happens to be high-tech.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Clarifications:
-- When did I say anything was worthless?
-- I was attempting to describe a spectrum of activity under the digital image manipulation umbrella, with "head-swapping" at the low end and braindump to blank canvas at the high end. I was not intending to tar it all with one brush.
-- "Must be done with technology" was the determining factor, not "can be done with technology". Those who would be making things regardless, but happen to be using tech are not what I had in mind. First, I was classifying activities, not people. I have a second, but I'm not quite finding the words for it. It has something to do with attitude and motivation, and whether the activity is driven by desire to create or by marketing, but that's not entirely it. Dependent on Big Business versus made easier by Big Business, but possible without. Martha Stewart vs. self-sufficiency.

The more I think about it, there are two axes here. Art/Craft and helpful after the fall/not helpful after the fall. Which suggests 4 categories:

Art with survival value[1]: painting, music, traditional poetry (the sort that makes things easier to remember, ala traveling minstrels and newsbearers and other oral traditions.), recipe creation, pattern creation
Art without survival value: programming, digital imagery, photography (unless film and the other necessary supplies are easier to make than i think they are)
Craft with survival value: sewing, knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, cooking, carpentry
Craft without survival value: Hrm...cross stitch? Plastic canvas. Paint by numbers? Plastic lace lanyard making?

[1] survival after the fall of civilization, not survival now, throughout

[baxil.livejournal.com]

You didn't say anything was worthless; I was trying to extrapolate so that I could make my argument-on-general-principle. 'Tis possible I overstated my case.

One way or another -- it was the distinction between "art without survival value" and "craft without survival value" that I was not previously seeing in your classifications. I'm happier now that AwoSV has a place in the scheme.