![NSRW Japanese potter at his wheel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/NSRW_Japanese_potter_at_his_wheel.jpg)
A craft or trade is a
pastime
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...
or an
occupation
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
that requires particular skills and knowledge of
skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale production of
goods
In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants
and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not tran ...
, or their
maintenance
Maintenance may refer to:
Biological science
* Maintenance of an organism
* Maintenance respiration
Non-technical maintenance
* Alimony, also called ''maintenance'' in British English
* Champerty and maintenance, two related legal doctrine ...
, for example by
tinker
Tinker or tinkerer is an archaic term for an itinerant tinsmith who mends household utensils.
Description
''Tinker'' for metal-worker is attested from the thirteenth century as ''tyckner'' or ''tinkler''. Some travelling groups and Romani p ...
s. The traditional term ''craftsman'' is nowadays often replaced by ''
artisan
An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...
'' and by ''craftsperson'' (
craftspeople
An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...
).
Historically, the more specialized crafts with high-value products tended to concentrate in
urban centers
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...
and formed
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
s. The skill required by their professions and the need to be permanently involved in the
exchange of goods often demanded a generally higher level of
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, and craftsmen were usually in a more privileged position than the
peasantry
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
in
societal hierarchy. The households of craftsmen were not as self-sufficient as those of people engaged in agricultural work, and therefore had to rely on the exchange of goods. Some crafts, especially in areas such as
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
,
woodworking
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, woodworking joints, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
History
Along with Rock (geology), stone, clay and animal parts, ...
, and various stages of textile production, could be practiced on a part-time basis by those also working in agriculture, and often formed part of village life.
When an
apprentice
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
finished his apprenticeship, he became a
journeyman
A journeyman, journeywoman, or journeyperson is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that fie ...
searching for a place to set up his own shop and make a living. After he set up his own shop, he could then call himself a
master of his craft.
This stepwise approach to mastery of a craft, which includes the attainment of some education and skill, has survived in some countries until today. But crafts have undergone deep structural changes since and during the era of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. The
mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
of goods by large-scale
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
has limited crafts to market segments in which industry's modes of functioning or its mass-produced goods do not satisfy the preferences of potential buyers. As an outcome of these changes, craftspeople today increasingly make use of semi-finished components or materials and adapt these to their customers' requirements or demands. Thus, they participate in a certain
division of labour
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...
between industry and craft.
Classification
There are three aspects to human creativity - art, crafts, and science. Roughly determined, art relies upon intuitive sensing, vision and expression, crafts upon sophisticated technique and science upon knowledge.
Handicraft
Handicraft is the "
tradition
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
al" main sector of the crafts, it is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or by using only simple tools. The term is usually applied to traditional means of making goods. The individual
artisan
An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...
ship of the items is a paramount criterion, such items often have cultural and/or religious significance. Items made by
mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
or machines are not handicraft goods. Handicraft goods are made with
craft production
Craft production is manufacturing by hand, with or without the aid of tools. The term "craft production" describes manufacturing techniques that are used in handicraft trades. They were the common methods of manufacture in the pre-industrialized ...
processes.
The beginning of crafts in areas like the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
involved the governing bodies requiring members of the city who were skilled at creating goods to open shops in the center of town. These people slowly stopped acting as
subsistence farmers
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
(who created goods in their own homes to trade with neighbors) and began to represent what we think of a "craftsman" today.
In recent years, crafts and craftspeople have slowly been gaining momentum as a subject of academic study. For example, Stephanie Bunn was an artist before she became an anthropologist, and she went on to develop an academic interest in the process of craft - arguing that what happens to an object before it becomes a 'product' is an area worthy of study.
The Arts and Crafts Movement
![MorganWoodworking](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/MorganWoodworking.jpg)
The term ''crafts'' is often used to describe the family of artistic practices within the family of
decorative art
]
The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...
s that traditionally are defined by their relationship to functional or utilitarian products (such as
sculptural
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
forms in the vessel tradition) or by their use of such natural media as
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
,
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
,
ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
s,
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
,
textiles
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
, and
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
.
The Arts and Crafts Movement originated in Britain during the late 19th century and was characterized by a style of decoration reminiscent of medieval times. The primary artist associated with the movement is
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
, whose work was reinforced with writings from
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
. The movement placed a high importance on the quality of craftsmanship, while emphasizing the importance for the arts to contribute to economic reform.
Studio crafts
Crafts practiced by independent artists working alone or in small groups are often referred to as studio craft. Studio craft includes
studio pottery
Studio pottery is pottery made by professional and amateur artists or artisans working alone or in small groups, making unique items or short runs. Typically, all stages of manufacture are carried out by the artists themselves.Emmanuel Cooper, ...
,
metalwork
Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...
,
weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...
,
woodturning
Woodturning is the craft of using a wood lathe with hand-held tools to cut a shape that is symmetrical around the axis of rotation. Like the potter's wheel, the wood lathe is a simple mechanism that can generate a variety of forms. The operator ...
,
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
and other forms of
woodworking
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, woodworking joints, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
History
Along with Rock (geology), stone, clay and animal parts, ...
,
glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a Blowpipe (tool), blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer'' ...
, and
glass art
Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glas ...
.
Craft fairs
A craft
fair
A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks.
Types
Variations of fairs incl ...
is an organized event to display and sell crafts. There are craft stores where such goods are sold and craft communities, such as
Craftster
Craftster was an online community for crafting and do it yourself (DIY) enthusiasts. Users post pictures of craft projects they have made and others comment and ask questions about how it was made. The Craftster.org website closed on December 19 ...
, where
expertise
An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable s ...
is shared.
Tradesperson
A tradesperson is a skilled manual worker in a particular trade or craft. Economically and socially, a tradesperson's status is considered between a
laborer
A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...
and a
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...
, with a high degree of both practical and theoretical knowledge of their trade. In cultures where professional careers are highly prized, there can be a shortage of skilled manual workers, leading to lucrative niche markets in the trades.
See also
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Communities
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References
External links
{{Authority control
Skills
Medieval economics