Presentation by Elissa Auther

For new-comers to the craft field, this lecture offered a useful introduction to the history and ideology of craft in the modern era. Elissa Auther gave a brief but ambitious overview of craft culture from the late 19th century up to the present.

The talk focused on the different roles of lifestyle and livelihood in various craft movements and the many ways in which discussions of identity, community and authenticity have been framed within the craft marketplace. Auther made the distinction between livelihood and lifestyle by defining the former as a means of living and making money while the latter is a source of social identity and consumption.

The first so-called Arts and Crafts Movement came as a response to the Industrial Revolution, a dehumanizing period in Western production when workers were forced into assembly lines and were no longer responsible for the full creation of a product. The practice of arts and crafts was idealized as a restorative lifestyle and was believed to serve as a catalyst for inward development.  Craft was meant to give meaning and agency to the people who practiced it, while also re-inserting meaning into the objects they produced.

In the 1960s, the craft movement re-emerged as a counter culture against corporate life that had developed from post-war culture.  Groups such as the Baulines Craftsman Guild aimed at turning craft into a livelihood as well as a lifestyle. This led the way for the counter-culture publishing movement that began in the early 1970s in conjunction with the emerging punk movement.  Projects included the making of ‘zines and handmade books by individual artists and independent publishers.  These artists and craftspeople pursued authentic living through crafting.

This ideology was appropriated and absorbed by the hyper-materialist culture of the 1980s through advertising and the corporate culture that it had once tried to subvert. Now it is commonplace to see companies marketing lifestyle choices rather than just products. You can buy a neat looking table and lamp at your local chain superstore that will complete your personal ideology of peace and harmony rather than crafting the furniture yourself.

Auther’s talk made it clear that the popularity of craft as a critique of capitalism has managed to re-emerge every twenty or so years. Again in the early 21st century we see craft as a way for marginalized populations to redefine themselves outside of corporate structures. The Arts and Crafts concepts of craft equating meaning, wholeness, authenticity and responsible consumption have come full circle and seem to take center stage in the more politically and socially active circles of craft and DIY with groups like the Pottery Liberation Front, Radical Cross Stitch, Gestures of Resistance and those behind the Handmade Pledge.

Reporting by Sarah Thibault, a graduate student in painting at California College of the Arts, who attended “Creating a New Craft Culture” on a student scholarship.

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Download the audio podcast
(Can’t open the file? Listen online here)
Read Elissa Auther’s biography
Blog coverage by conference attendees:
Ask Harriete, by Harriete Estel Berman
emiko-o reware, by Emiko Oye