Why Craft?
Importantly i choose to work with craft because i enjoy the personal, thoughtful touches you can create using your hands. I like how i can zone out and go into my own world where it is just me and the project at hand. I like how time and effort needs to be put into a project as well as the concentration and motivation. With regards to craft i love watching the work grow; it gets more and more exciting the closer i get to the end of each hand-made piece. The work is never far from my thoughts. I puzzle over and imagine different shapes, colours, textures and stitches as i work and deliberate over each piece. I am always proud of what i do because i made it; my hands physically makes the pieces. Even if i am not necessarily happy with the final piece, i am still proud of my accomplishments.
When i work with any media in a creatice way i find a psychological growth and release within myself. Being creative allows me to relax, to think and to release emotions of all natures. It is fantastic therapy! Psychologically, through conjoining craft and fine art practises in my work, i have been able to think more about my work. I have always been an impulsive maker, creating lots and lots of work just becuase i could. This project has allowed me to slow down, stop at times, step back and think more about the pieces i make and whether they work or not. At the same time i am learing about myself as a creator of arts. I have realised that i can critic myself and i dont have to like everything i do. It is ok to dislike a work and disguard it. I have learnt not to be afraid of questioning what i do and to think of it in ways that someone would who does not know what my work is about. I am my first and most important critic.
I want to join fine and decorative arts together in a kind of ‘collaboration’ of thoughts and skills. Much like William Morris and May Morris I feel that art has an inherently beneficial and elevating effect on all who come into contact with it. I amy be contradicting myself here but i feel that even though craft plays a big part in my life, that well, art is just art. Craft is as important as the Fine Arts, as they both have a humanising effect of aesthetic culture. I feel strongly that Craft can say just as much to the maker and the audience as Fine Art. The subcatergorisation of arts i feel can and is somewhat pointless in some ways. All art and creativity shows skills and thought process and it all represents life in a visual format. A format that all people from all walks of life and cultures can read into and understand or relate to in some way.
When it comes to my work i am sure there is a boundary between my Craft pieces and my Fine Art concpets. However i only see these boundaries myself when i am creating at home or for my craft group. When i am in the university grounds i am able to focus on connecting the two and seeing where they fit together or whether they do not. I can think more about how the materials and the aesthetic nature of each piece is important. I think (maybe naively) that i have the best of both applied art and decorative art worlds in one place. Craft is invariably employed to evoke the home and so i want my work to bring the feeling of home to Fine Art so it feels inviting and safe but also allows for thr concept to still shine through. To discuss this further i want to bring in Grayson Perry as his work and critical thinking has had a large impact on my work. I am using a section from my dissertation (a quote form GP himself) to discuss this further as it all thinks to my current project. This will be continued in next post………………………
