A long time ago, well, 28 years ago, I guess, since my son Jesse was a baby then, Kingston, Ontario, where I was living, held a Women in the Park day. It was a show of arts and crafts, including poetry readings, singers, and musicians, and all the displayers and performers were women. I was a weaver back then, and so had a weaving booth.
A reporter from the local newspaper, the Whig-Standard, if I remember correctly, came to interview some of the women. He spoke to the people in their booths around me and all of them, the painter, the embroiderer, another weaver, said that they were artists. When he came to me, I told him I was a craftsperson. I made practical items, placemats, bags, shawls, jackets. The other weaver made things that hung on the wall. At the time, even though I knew that if I hung one of my mats or shawls on the wall, I could charge a higher price, I took pride in making things that people would use. And, of course, useful things were not art.
It's interesting to me now how clear that dichotomy was. Now it is not nearly as clear. Art exists in many forms, including things that people use. A piece of clothing or a hand-made chair can be art. So, how does one define what is art and what is craft?
I don't think that they are necessarily separate. Creating art requires skill, and skill is what a craftsperson acquires through openness to learning, much practice, and dedication. As a quilter, I had to learn to sew a straight line, a reliable quarter-inch seam, to cut precisely, and so on. As a writer, I had to learn, not only to dream up a character, but how to bring that person alive for the reader. Craft is necessary as part of creating art.
This doesn't mean, though, that craft is secondary. I wouldn't be able to write fiction if I didn't have basic literacy. Does this mean reading and writing are less, somehow, than creating fiction? I don't think so.
This discussion leads back to the idea that if a quilter follows a pattern, she isn't being creative. I suppose I could say that if someone knows how to cut and sew accurately, she will create the exact same quilt that someone else of equal skill would make. The only difference would come in each of their selection of colours and textures in fabric. Maybe. But what does that say of someone who makes a kit, and so would create an identical quilt to someone using the same kit?
Despite this sort of argument, I still think a person making a quilt from a kit is being creative. She cuts every piece of fabric, handles it, sews every stitch. I notice, though, that I'm saying she is being creative, not that she is creating a piece of art.
Is she? I have to say no. She is being creative because she is making something. She starts with something that exists and turns it into something else, using her mind and her hands, Tools, also, of course, such as a needle and thread, or a sewing machine. But it is she who directs these tools, who gets them to help her make the final item.
Hmmm. I seem to be no closer to defining what is art and what is craft. I'm not sure that I need to, though. Being creative, no matter what is created, is in itself enough. I think that as a weaver I was being creative, even when I made twenty identical placemats to sell. Actually, that's not a good example, because I tended to take a pattern from a book and build on it to make something I liked better. And I selected the weight of cotton and the colours.
But as a writer, am I doing anything more than that? Many people have said that there is a finite number of stories in the world. I have a book that says there are only 36 different stories, and another book that lists 20. Clearly those authors are building on what they perceive exists already. This, in my mind, demonstrates the difficulty of trying to define something that is creative.
No matter the number, whenever I write a new story, I am taking something that has been told before, and building on it, changing it a bit, hoping that readers will see it as fresh and new, and that it resonates for each individual who reads it.
The same can be said of quilting. Quilters, whether they make traditional quilts or art quilts, are building on what has come before. That's how art evolves. Modern abstract art came about only because painters in the past learned from what existed and decided to change it a bit, put something of themselves into it. Contemporary music doesn't sound like that written by Mozart or Bach, but it can only exist because those composers wrote music.
I think I'm beginning to understand what I'm getting at. This blog is useful for me, because it helps me explore my thoughts on these issues.
Whatever the end result, craft has to exist before someone can create art, just as older art has to exist so that new art can come into being. Everyone who quilts has learned the craft. People who do kits are improving their craft. They might get to the point where they want to begin changing some of the fabrics in the kit, or even buy only the pattern and select all the fabrics themselves. Whatever the end result, they craft something, and in doing so, are creative. When I write a story, I am using words that have existed for a long time. I often use plots that have foregone conclusions. Readers know that a mystery will end with justice being done, and a romance will find the couple working through their conflicts to a happy ending. The true craft, in writing in a traditional genre, is to make a story that is, by definition predictable, seem new and relevant to readers who have read dozens, or hundreds, of other mysteries or romances.
That's what quilters do, whether they use a kit or design everything from scratch. They build on the craft they have acquired. It's human nature to put something of ourselves in everything we do, even if we follow a pattern. No two people are exactly alike, and no two quilts will ever be exactly alike, simply because two different human brains and pairs of hands created them.
Back when I was in Kingston, I answered that reporter the way I did not because I thought my work was somehow less worthy or skilled or interesting than that of the people around me. I answered because I disliked the idea that somehow art was better than anything else. I still do. I know writers who look down on people who write in commercial genres such as mystery and romance, saying that those books are aimed at the lowest common denominator, and so are badly written. Everyone thinks romances are easy to write, because you just follow a formula. I can assert, based on experience, that books that are easy reads are some of the most difficult to write.
There is a kind of elitism in those who claim that their work is art, and so is exalted over all else. Literary books sell far fewer copies than do commercial books. The press run for my three literary books was 500, 1000. and 3000. The press run for my first romance was 100,000 copies. I've heard a number of arguments for why literary books sell fewer copies, including that the literary books aren't displayed at the front of the store as are the commercial books, or that literary books can be read only be people who appreciate them because they require more intelligence and work on the part of the reader. Not all literary writers and readers are snobs, actually only a few I've met are, and there are snobs among commercial writers and readers. I use this as an example to show why I don't like to tag anything as being 'art'.
I don't know if literary books are art. I don't really know what art is. But I do know that we have no right to put down anyone who reads, no matter what they read. To those people, their favourite books, whether they be romance or literary, are good books. Those books are well-crafted. Whether or not they are art doesn't matter.
Look at how many painters and composers were ignored while they were alive. Only after did someone recognize their 'genius'. There are at least as many examples of things that were seen to be great art at one time, only to be forgotten later.
Obviously no one can say for sure that something is art. Personally, I plan to not worry about it. I'm going to continue to develop my craft, and I'm proud of what I can do with my brain and my hands. Not so proud as to think I have nothing more to learn, of course, There is always more to learn, both from what has come before and from what I can achieve if I challenge myself.
If I was asked now by a reporter if I am, as a quilter, an artist or a craftsperson, I would proudly say that I'm a craftsperson first of all. I would add, though, that in everything I do, I am creative.
