ARTS AND CRAFTS

Small wooden sculpture depicting a Native American mother holding her child. Garden of the Gods Trading Post, Colorado Springs, Colorado (October 2006).

:''For the design movement, see Arts and Crafts movement, for the record label, see Arts & Crafts (record label). For other uses, see Arts & Crafts''
'Arts and crafts' comprise a whole host of activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's own hands and skill. These can be sub-divided into handicrafts or "traditional crafts" (doing things the old way) and "the rest". Some crafts have been practised for centuries, while others are modern inventions, or popularisations of crafts which were originally practised in a very small geographic area.
Additionally, this term refers to the Arts and Crafts movement, which was a social revolution veiled in a design movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, whose proponents included William Morris and Edwin Lutyens. They believed that medieval craftsmen achieved a joy and fulfillment in the excellence of their work, which they strove to emulate.
These activities are called ''crafts'' because originally many of them were professions under the guild system. Adolescents were apprenticed to a master-craftsman, and they refined their skills over a period of years in exchange for low wages. By the time their training was complete, they were well-equipped to set up in trade for themselves, earning their living with the skill that could be traded directly within the community, often for goods and services. The Industrial Revolution and the increasing mechanisation of production processes gradually reduced or eliminated many of the roles professional craftspeople played, and today 'crafts' are most commonly seen as a form of hobby or art.
Most crafts require a combination of skill, speed, and patience, but they can also be learnt on a more basic level by virtually anyone. Many community centres and schools run evening or day classes and workshops offering to teach basic craft skills in a short period of time. Many of these crafts become extremely popular for brief periods of time (a few months, or a few years), spreading rapidly among the crafting population as everyone emulates the first examples, then their popularity wanes until a later resurgence.
The term 'craft' also refers to the products of artistic production or creation that require a high degree of tacit knowledge, are highly technical, require specialized equipment and/or facilities to produce, involve manual labour or a blue-collar work ethic, are accessible to the general public and are constructed from materials with histories that exceed the boundaries of western art history, such as ceramics, glass, textiles, metal and wood. These products are produced within a specific community of practice and while they differ from the products produced within the communities of art and design, the boundaries of such often overlap resulting in hybrid objects. Additionally, as the interpretation and validation of art is frequently a matter of context, an audience may perceive crafted objects as art objects when these objects are viewed within an art context, such as in a museum or in a position of prominence in one’s home.
The term can also refer to the useful rural crafts of the agricultural countryside.
Craftmanship refers to Plato's idea of specialization, in which the lower society has a specific job in the greater society so that it functions properly as a whole.

Contents
Types of arts/crafts
Crafts involving textiles
Crafts involving wood, metal or clay
Crafts involving paper or canvas
Crafts involving plants
Other crafts
External links

Types of arts/crafts



★ There are almost as many variations on the theme of "arts and crafts" as there are crafters with time on their hands, but they can be broken down into a number of categories:
Crafts involving textiles


Banner-making

Canvas work

Cross-stitch

Crocheting

Curve stitching

Embroidery

Knitting

Lace-making

Lucet

Macrame

Millinery

Needlepoint

Patchwork

Quilting

Ribbon embroidery

Rug making

Sewing

Shoemaking

Spinning (textiles)

Spirelli (also see Scrapbooking)

String art

Tapestry

Tatting

Weaving

T-shirt art
Crafts involving wood, metal or clay


Metalworking

Jewelry

Pottery

Sculpture

Woodworking

Cabinet making

Chip carving

Marquetry

Wood burning

Wood turning

Polymer clay
Crafts involving paper or canvas


Bookbinding

Calligraphy

Cardmaking

Card Modelling

Collage

Decoupage

★ Iris Folding

Marbling

Origami

Papercraft

Papier-mâché

Pergamano - parchment craft

Quilling or Paper Filigree

Scrapbooking

Stamping
Crafts involving plants


Basket weaving

Corn dolly making

Pressed flower craft

Straw Marquetry
Other crafts


Balloon animal

Beadwork

Doll making

Dollhouse construction and furnishing

Egg decorating

Etching

Glassblowing

Lapidary

Mosaics

Pioneering

Stained glass

Toy making

External links



Founders of the Arts and Crafts movement

The Arts and Crafts style, 1860-1910

William Morris

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