The Twist of My Panties
In August’s Real Simple magazine there is an article called “Confessions of a Former Crafter,” by Jacquelyn Mitchard, which has set my teeth of edge.
If you happen to have a copy of the magazine, feel free to follow along.
It’s a well written piece, and if you have five minutes in a bookstore you might want to check it out. To summarize, Ms. Mitchard declares her freedom from handicrafts. She says that she doesn’t like them, doesn’t want to engage in them, and that she’s tired of apologizing for her uncraftiness. She’s not a crafter, and that doesn’t make her bad, unsocial, or unfeminine.
Okay, fine. Obviously this woman has had a different experience with crafts than I have. Among my family and friends, I’m a bit of an outlier when it comes to craftiness. Yes, I have a few friends who knit and crochet, but most of my friends see my fiber obsession as that cute little thing I do. I mean, of course, there’s all of you, but I’m friends with you because you knit, spin, crochet, sew, whatever.
This, of course, does not invalidate Ms. Mitchard’s experience. It seems that she grew up among crafters, and all of her friends are crafters, and she feels pressure to be a crafter as well, and she desires to throw off the shackles of craft.
Peachy.
Here’s where my panties get in a twist:
Before we go further, let me make a distinction between crafts and actual art – a distinction that’s wholly my own and redolent of the bias born from my ineptitude. I don’t put original photography or fine woodworking in the same category as, say, creating note cards with stamps I’ve carved from raw potato pieces. (That would be crafts.) An elegant stool or a wooden box is a time-treasured artisan form; a beautifully made picture is a historical document as well as a pleasure to the eye. These are the work of artists. But a newly baked loaf of bread coated with shellac and tied with a ribbon is something else. As I see it, that’s the work of someone young enough to be forgiven, old enough to be forgiven, or with way, way too much time on her hands.
Hmm. Well, at least she admits that she’s biased. And while I agree that the particular crafts she mentions in this example aren’t my passions, I still think she’s making a distinction with which I am not wholly comfortable.
Does it get better?
I have no real gripe with Nancy Monson [author of Craft to Heal] until she asserts that modern-day handicrafts are direct descendants of the “decorative vases molded by ancient Chinese cultures or the ornate tombs of the early Egyptians.”
Nancy, please. Work with me here.
Am I supposed to draw a straight line from hot-gluing a jack-o’-lantern appliqué on a sweatshirt to the calligraphic scholar painting and cloisonné enamelware of the Ming dynasty? Will some anthropologist gaze with awe upon the one garment, a sweater for my college boyfriend, that I tried to knit? (I was elated that all the stripes were in the right place until I realized that I had somehow managed to close off the openings for the arms.)
Okay, now hold up.
With any given art form, there are a few masters and countless amatures. The artists chosen to decorate the tombs of royalty in Egypt were the best in the land – they were the artists who rose above all others.
Even if you want to argue that the stitches I make and the things I create are “just crafts” and not art, there is no one in the world who can convince me that knitting, as a whole, is not art. No one – NO ONE – could convince me that Alice Starmore, Debbie New, Galina Khmeleva, and Kaffe Fasset aren’t artists. Anthropologists may not give a rat’s ass about my socks and scarves, but I bet they’ll be pretty enthused about Debbie New’s Madonna and Child or Alice Starmore’s Katherine Howard.
Every time I reread this article, I wonder if maybe I’m overreacting. Ms. Mitchard is welcome to dislike crafting, to run as far and fast as she can away from yarn and needles and paper and glue. More for me. But her dismissiveness and disrespect for the artistic aspect of handicrafts rankles me. Sure, not everything that falls off my needles is a priceless work of art, but knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, and yes, even scrapbooking have the potential for art. Not every person who puts a paintbrush to canvas is an artist, and not every knitter is a “mere” crafter.
Edited to Add: (Sorry for the late addition, but I was thinking about this in the shower…)
I think what bothers me most, though, is the inherent (though possibly unintentional) sexism in the article. Again, Ms. Mitchard is entitled to her opinion, and I think no less of her for not liking what she consideres crafting. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but notice the distinction between the things that she values and the things that she denigrates.
Things that she specifically labels as art or worthwhile pursuits: writing, photography, woodworking, painting, reading, exercise, massage, sculpting, metalworking, deconstructing books, complaining about men, Pilates, watching TV (!)
Things that she specifically labels as craft or “lesser” pursuits: knitting, embroidery, painted platters (china), crochet, stamping, shellacked bread (is there a name for this?), sewing/quilting, stenciling, wreath-making, collaging, appliqué, scrapbooking, felting, macramé, beading, weaving
Do you notice a dichotomy here?
I don’t mind in the slightest if she doesn’t enjoy traditionally feminine pursuits – there are a lot of traditionally feminine pursuits, even in that list, that I can’t stand either. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have value, or that they are incapable of ever being considered art. It is this devaluing that eats at me, that sets me on edge and makes me grind my teeth. It is wonderful that we women now have access to masculine pursuits, but this idea that anything men can do women can do just as well carries with it the danger of placing more value on these masculine hobbies. And not just hobbies but professions and attitudes and familial roles. When women seem to be fighting to be more like men, it reinforces the idea that feminine pursuits are less important.
It’s a problem; one explored by far more brilliant minds than mine; that this article really brought it home for me. ALL of these pursuits are worthwhile – all of them have the potential to be craft, and all of them have the potential to be art. Let’s stop wasting our time by declaring some good and some bad, some masculine and some feminine. It accomplishes nothing and devalues us all.
1Carole
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 3:07
I’d want to read the entire article before I formed a real opinion but it sounds like you’ve got some valid points. I have seen things at craft fairs that make me personally cringe but that doesn’t mean that other people don’t consider those same things lovely. Isn’t beauty (or art, in this case) in the eye of the beholder?
2ellie
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 4:07
Meh, I think I might be her opposite (without having read the article). I feel about “art” how she feels about crafts. And I hate that there is so much discussion about art v. craft that always seems to value art over craft. I personally value a well crafted item over a terrible poem any day. Why should a well crafted item even desire to be put in the same category as so much pretentious nonsense. Which is not to say there is no art that I appreciate, but like the author may have been surrounded by preasuring crafters, my crafting, like yours, is more looked upon as an oddity and kind of quaint. I also get annoyed at all the “not your grandma’s” whatever, as though we invented something new rather than learned a traditional craft, as though it’s so embarrassing to carry on this tradition that we have to re-brand it. Anyway, that’s my angry non-thought-out rant. But art v. craft really gets me riled up. It always seems to me the only distinction is that it’s art if you go around calling it art rather than any inherent property of the item itself and that’s too arbitrary a distinction to be of much value.
3Lee Ann
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 4:13
I’m kind of surprised that Real Simple would solicit an article like that…but if she thinks that watching TV is an art, well…summat tells me she’s jokin’…
But still. Joke about typically boy crafts too, eh? Oh, wait. That circuitboard might last a bit longer than my scarf and might…gasp…make something move something else. Whoops. It’s “useful.”
I’m finding that a lot of humour articles lately are swinging toward the “let’s make fun of everyone who is not me” instead of “let me make fun of myself because honey, me and a glue gun, we are not ready for primetime…” and it kind of annoys me.
Maybe I just need new panties, but I’m pretty well with you on this one.
4Nicole
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 4:39
I read that article and it bugged me too. I figure people who criticize things like knitting are just jealous of those of us who CAN make sweaters with arm holes.
5Chris
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 5:04
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Imbrium. I’ll have to sit down with this article at the library.
Those who can’t do denigrate those who can?
6ellie
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 5:17
p.s. – I somehow missed that you’re part of Cass’s Yarn Hags dealy – go team!
7naomi
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 5:28
Your point that there’s a skill range for all of these pursuits, whether “art” or “craft”, is a good one–I don’t think it’s valid to separate crappy snapshots from “original photography” without making a similar distinction between my not-even-fraternal-twins socks and something like Debbie New’s knitted portraits.
I also agree that valuing traditionally male activities more highly than traditionally female ones is dangerous. As I see feminism, the point is that people are equal: men have just as much right to pursue “feminine” tasks as women have to pursue “masculine” ones, and that’s as much as either person wants.
8katie
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 5:46
“…that cute little thing I do.” heh. Yes, that is exactly what most of my friends think of my knitting.
I’m with you. If you had talked to me ten years ago I would have fully been on Ms. Mitchard’s side but I was slowly but surely won over to crafts. The day it really hit me that I had switched sides of the fence was when I was explaining how I believe knitting (not necessarily my knitting for sure) is an art to a friend who is a professional artist. She got that glazed look in her eye that I used to get. Instead of getting flustered I found myself getting angry inside but did politely change the subject.
Just because something is useful does not make it “not art”. Not that this is Ms. Mitchard’s point, since she obviously believes some useful things are art, but it’s what really changed my mind on the matter.
9margene
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 6:37
The debate over of what is art and what is ‘craft’ has a long history…it’s ongoing and rarely satisfies any ‘crafter’. Ms. Mitchard may think she’s funny but IMHO she’s so not. You should put your points into a letter and send it to the magazine. I’ll bet they get a load of letters.
10Carrie
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 6:42
Art may be beautiful, but GAWD I hope my sweaters and socks are never hung up on a wall to be admired.
I haven’t read the article, but I’ve encountered the attitude you describe. I don’t know if I’m getting older (and therefore developing the “in my day” streak) or if it’s a cultural thing, but the attitudes I’ve seen around lately are kinda pissing me off, when I bother to acknowledge them at all. (Most of the time I’m too busy knitting to care what other people think about me knitting.) Whether it’s a book, a religion, a hobby (whether you’re Monet or me), everything is important to someone, and it’s rude at the very least to suggest that because *I* don’t value it, it’s worthless. It’s an arrogant, elitist view and I find it tiresome.
11Sway
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 7:13
As someone who sees the highest echelon of crafting as art, I find it difficult to contain my disgust for this woman. It’s one thing not to like crafting. But it’s astounding to me that this woman is so behind the times that she has no access to the crazy talent that’s present in the crafting world. All art forms grew from the desire to create practical products. For example, weaving and knitting in order to have clothes to wear, cooking in order to eat otherwise difficult to digest foods, drawing to record history before the written word, etc. Maybe she doesn’t see the need to applique sweatshirts, but to each her own. Why is she so bothered by other people’s pursuits? Also, if cooking is not an art, I’d like to let the staff of Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines loose on her. This woman needs to shut up and actually learn about things before she spouts her mouth off. If she thinks crafts are useless, she should not wear clothing and live in a dark cave eating berries.
12Kim
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 7:29
I wandered this way from Cass’s post about the yarn hags (btw Go Yarn Hags!) but am glad I wandered. I need to read a copy of that magazine and perhaps post a letter myself.
I think it would floor that writer to know that many great European Museums are filled with Needlework as art. Needlepoint is a type of artwork. Embroidery. Knitting. Lacemaking. She needs to take her inferiority complex and go see her psychologist.
You make great points! Thanks.
13Lacy
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 9:49
As a cultural anthropologist, I think it’s silly to say that crafts are not as valid as the “high art” forms that she mentions. Anthropologists want to study all of a society, not just what is considered “high art.” Perhaps it’s my own bias towards studying popular culture, but I think that your scarves and socks do matter in a larger, historical sense. It’s quite interesting that a person sits and takes the time to make these items by hand when they are so readily and cheaply available today. I think that act says quite a bit about people within this society, in much the same way that “high art” speaks of a certain group of people within our society. And of course it’s always interesting when the two intersect, like when I saw a textile exhibit of scarves in the MFA Boston a few years back.
14Elisabeth
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 11:06
From reading the comments, I can tell you are preaching to the choir here. I think this whole craft vs. art argument has materialized because “crafting” has become so hugely popular that people realize that they can’t just criticize it outright so they end up saying, “Well, it’s not ART,” as if that is a more acceptable way of saying, “I think what you do is dumb.” Well, many things are not ART but that does not mean they have no value (you know like science, or history, or, well, science [I may be biased on that last one]). And even “crafters” view what they do differently. Some call it craft, some art, I often look at it a bit scientifically, some see knitting as math writ large, and then there’s the Yarn Harlot who views it as a sport. I, personally, don’t mind how people categorize it, as long as it’s not as “crap.”
15BigAlice
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 11:24
I think the craft vs. art debate is dumb and mostly meaningless. Really, what does it matter what the line is? If I decide I’m an artist, than who the fuck is it who can tell me that I’m not? The craft/art argument has raged through the quilt world for years and years and it’s and old and tired discussion, never resolved. I think the only decision on it that’s meaningful is the one you make in your own head.
I’m tired of the arrogance of people like the author. If it’s not your thing, then you don’t have to do it. I think she’s a shithead for dismissing ‘crafting’ (e.g. ‘woman’s arts’, as you point out) as essentially a waste of time. Why can’t a loaf of bread be art? Talk to the Duchamp toilet, sucker.
16Tonia
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 13:15
Sounds like she needs to get her head out of her butt. Ummm archeologists are excited to see hand knits from years past. They are excited about anything that defines the time period of a culture.
People put a urinal on a wall and call it art, so what about stamping, quilting, scrapbooking isn’t art? It defines each person’s likes and hobby in our culture and is just as important as the next craft/art. If everyone was a painter then would that be the only “art”.
Yeah that is just anoying. So what she isn’t artistic or crafty. It almosts sounds like she is jelous.
17--Deb
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 14:46
I do admit that I don’t exactly consider shellacking a loaf of bread to be “art,” either . . . does that make me a bad person? (grin)
18Sydney
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 15:35
Thanks for the post Imbrium. You made some good points. I’ll have to read the article next time I’m in the bookstore. From what you’ve posted, it sounds like activities she likes are art. Activities she doesn’t like are not. The art versus craft argument has been going on a long time but I’ve never understood why and what difference it makes.
19lorinda
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 18:56
Interesting post and great comments.
It reminds me of the Disney show I watched today with my daughter. A mom quit her job to stay home and care for the blended family. The teenage daughter was completely offended and kept referring to her mom as “trying to recreate a 50’s family.” I think it’s the same kind of bias that you encountered in the article–if your career choices/creative outlets are more traditional or feminine, then they are of less value than mine. Not a message I want to be sending to the next generation.
20Amanda
wrote on 10 August 2007 at 20:30
Hell yeah! I agree that I would need to read the whole article before forming an opinion. But just based on the excerpts you chose, it sounds like she is devaluing what many great creators have done.
21Erin
wrote on 11 August 2007 at 6:23
Very well said. In my opinion people are far too concerned with judging. It’s all we do, what’s good and what’s bad, etc. Everything, and I mean everything has value. It may not have value to you, but it has value to at least one person on this globe and that’s all that really matters. Enough with this idea of “my _____ (fill in the blank) is better than your _____” It’s merely a difference in preference and different is ok.
22Plum Texan
wrote on 11 August 2007 at 19:32
Oh my God, I am so glad that I wasn’t the only one who reacted to the article this way. I finished it feeling rather confused as to what I should think, as well as vaguely insulted. On the one hand, if one does not feel the draw to handcrafting of any sort, it is an acceptable thing. But on the other hand, declaring that all such handcrafts are less than art is arrogant and dismissive.
In the end, the whole thing added up to the fact that as much as she wants to believe otherwise, Mitchard still feels the need to be defensive about her lack of interest, which makes her words ring hollow. May I one day have an agent and book deal as good as hers…and may I never think that such a thing entitles me to demean other women.
23heather
wrote on 12 August 2007 at 7:16
nicely put, you’ve made me want to go look at the original article (I am very curious about this one!) Funny that RS would have an article like this since they have had “how to knit” articles in the past, maybe it is a bit of antimartha-ness going on as well. (Found my way here by a link through Ravelry)
Just one question, what type of Minwax stain should I be using on my bread?
24Ragnar
wrote on 12 August 2007 at 8:47
This pushes all my buttons as well, so much so that I had to go off about it in my own post. Keep fighting the good fight.
25Mary
wrote on 12 August 2007 at 10:58
I think trying to define what is “art” vs. what is “craft” is an argument for the ages.
And why is “art” considered “better”, or a higher form, than “craft”, anyway?
I think “artistry” and “craftsmanship” are terms that can be used interchangeably.
If you watch Antiques Roadshow, you see things labeled as “folk art” (another name for craft) going for high dollar, as high as (or higher than) many paintings (art) they show.
Value is in the eye of the beholder. And I don’t particularly value that writer’s opinion, if she sees no value in crafts.
-Mary
(sent here by Cass’ blog contest)
26Sarah Schmidt-Lee
wrote on 19 August 2007 at 13:54
Thank you thank you.
After reading articles in Interweave Knits about knit (and woven!) artifacts that really are preserved in museums and studied with the same kind of attention as Ming Dynasty Vases, I was particularly frustrated by that comparison. . .
27Leslie
wrote on 20 August 2007 at 14:15
Oh dear, these are tough questions. Chaucer says the purpose of art is to teach and entertain. That makes good sense. If a book is a dreadful slog and is all arty about itself, does it fulfill its artistic mission? Likewise, if a film is action packed and has nothing new to say about the human condition, is it art?
For me, the medium isn’t the issue. It’s the intent behind the work and boundaries it pushes that elevate it into that special realm where the viewer is moved in some way.
The fiber arts are a perfectly respectable artistic medium. Ms. Mitchard’s boyfriend sweater was clearly not a work of art. But some of the political and performance pieces spooling out from the fingers of today’s fiber artists, yeah, big time art.
Thanks for bringing this up!
28Vallen Queen
wrote on 24 August 2007 at 21:09
Art is art if the person who makes it says it is. No one else gets to decide that. Other people only get to decide what they like or don’t like.
29myrnatheminx
wrote on 9 March 2008 at 14:39
“Things that she specifically labels as art or worthwhile pursuits: writing, photography, woodworking, painting, reading, exercise, massage, sculpting, metalworking, deconstructing books, complaining about men, Pilates, watching TV (!)”
Hmm, point of information:
I don’t see where she labeled watching TV, pilates, complaining about men, etc., as art in this article. I do see that she said she would prefer to watch TV or take a pilates class than participate in crafting. (p, 72)
All she seems to be saying above is that she would rather participate in these activities than craft.
She writes that she experiences relaxation and emotional release, benefits Monson claims for crafting, from “reading, massage, and exercise.” (p. 70)
That’s entirely different than what you are imply in your post.
Clearly, there is some devaluing going on in her article, however, it also sounds to me that she feels devalued by some because she doesn’t like to craft. Sounds like there is some sensitivity about being devalued on both sides.