What’s art? What’s craft? There’s a value judgment implied in the issue that’s made me I avoid forming a position on the question for years.

The distinction between art and craft is often moot to me, and crafty folks don’t need to be judged on the validity of their creations as art, anyway. Who wants their hard-won skills at the potter’s wheel or behind the knitting needles put down as being “non-art”? Can’t people merely enjoy the results of creativity without fussing over unproductive labels? And anyway, isn’t it a mere question of “I know art when I see it”?

Recently I have found an idea that I think does both craft and art their due. Craft includes all the elements of creating that can be passed from one person to another. You can train a person for craft, but you can’t train a person for art — not for the creation of art itself, that is. (+)

Whenever an idea can be made real for others to experience, some measure of craft is in everything that gets the art produced; the mixing of the paints, the stitchery, the tuning, the technique; everything that the creator learned from others, or could pass on to others. Craft is doing/making, art is envisioning/creating. Art is what a creator does that no one could have taught them to do. Art is the idea in the form, and craft is sound production of form.

I got the basis of the idea that craft is teachable and art isn’t from “The Art of Translation” (1957), by Theodore H. Savory. In it he makes an extended comparison of translation to drawing and painting (p. 30-31). He compares faithful vs free translation of poetry to realistic vs impressionistic painting, and he compares learners’ mistakes at drawing to learners’ mistakes at translation. In a typical move for me, I found the analogy to be inspiring, and without meaning to, I read meaning beyond Savory’s actual text, synthesizing his idea and others to come up with the definition of art and craft above.  Later I described the idea to friends, recalling a concrete definition of art vs craft in Savory’s book, but on close rereading I found that there is no such statement. I can’t even find a paraphrase of the “teachable craft” idea in Savory, but it is certain that’s where the came from for me.

(This kind of incidental synthesis of ideas while reading, and the resulting trouble with not knowing where my ideas come from, just drives me crazy. My scholarship needs a lot of work.) (+)

In the first half of the 20th century, Savory was one of “the few men in Britain who can justifiably call themselves arachnologists”, according to the book cover. More on Savory: Theodore H. Savory. Savory was interested in good science writing, and he developed his book on translation after noting the remarkable contrast between translating science writing and translating literature. Why is the first task more straightforward?

(I think searching for the answer to this question helps to illuminate the difference between art and craft. One idea Walter Benjamin discusses in his famous 1923 essay “The Task of the Translator” is that translation can be used as a tool to discover the essence of art. Also, Benjamin claims translation can differentiate literature from non-artistic writing: http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/benja.htm – see point #2) (+)

To try to develop some particulars about art vs craft, I’ll discuss writing. The craft of writing is composed of basic language skills and literacy plus some training in composing clear prose. When a writer has something to report, good thinking should produce good writing (and the writing should improve the thinking as well, but that’s another topic) (+). The writing passes along ideas and information to the reader, who gains new knowledge and new tools for inquiry and thought, if all goes well with the writing and all is sound in the concepts.

The art of writing is composed of the elements of writing craft above. The writer is free to do anything with that craft, to choose any object or goal with the writing. A writer can aim to transmit any idea, and produce any effect on the reader. (Another idea from translation theory) (+) In writing literature, the author makes choices and produces content that no other writer could have done.

Almost all artistic work involves a measure of craft. Everyone needs to learn how to mix their paints, after all. Or do they? Some statements of art don’t require much craft work to be done by the artist, just presentation work. I’m thinking of installations of “found art” objects, for instance, or some kinds of minimalism.

Also, art that depends on native talent and energy with little or no development of artistic skills can be nearly craftless. Here I’m thinking about certain garage band punk rock, but there are other examples as well, like in my homemade furniture in the pictures above. In these shelves and table there is experimentation, crude problem solving, some native design sense, and some sweat, too. I’m proud of them and I like the way they work and look, but I’m a hack. (I’m lucky I didn’t hack my thumb off with the circular saw.) Just like in my digital photography that captured the images, just good enough for my purposes was all I was aiming for. I also cook the same way I make furniture — like a mad scientist, working fast with the material, tools and little skills that I’ve got. I love that creative process that’s just barely under control! And I appreciate some art and some craft in the products of the process.

So, last thing: Isn’t there some kind of training in the “art” part of art? Yes, and that’s what my next post will be about, and what wonderful Daniel Pinkwater’s book The Artsy Smartsy Club is about, too. More on The Artsy Smartsy Club: The Artsy Smartsy Club (+)

The image above is from my folder of quilt top drawings I made in MS Paint. Designing quilt tops is something I used to do a lot of, before I moved on to some other way to occupy myself. I even made a few place-setting sized quilts before the quilt thing faded. I still love the quilts though, and the mania will someday come back! The Paint drawing belonged in the quilt top file because of its looks, but if I had such a folder on my computer, it would have to go in “Solutions to Puzzles” or some such thing.

What I like about using this as the first image in this blog is that it combines at least two things that I like enough to have show up here: games and quilts. It shows the solution to the Puzzle Room puzzle in Zork III. It would make a fine quilt design if I took off the numbers (and maybe the arrows).

Quilt designs can be intoxicating. In my goof-off time, I have gotten drunk on them for weeks. Look:

www.visionaryart.com

So, games and quilts. Other stuff I expect to talk about is just stuff like: books art poetry translation. teaching English driving writing Brazil. cats comics crosswords. music lyrics bikes coffee. food labyrinths maps cities. childhood parenthood partnership love.

Just like today’s post, I expect this blog to be an online record of dabbling at my current interests. Enjoy it if you find it! If I keep up the blogging I might even make it back around to quilts someday!

About the blog: Bosque is Portuguese (and Spanish) for woods. And that’s me! This blog is about stuff I’m doing in my goof-off time.

About the Pacific Northwest’s very own Stonehenge: An American Stonehenge in Maryhill

Sam Hill, the man who started building the concrete Stonehenge in 1918 (near the end of The Great War) as an anti-war monument, must still be rolling in his grave after those who completed his work put up a plaque glorifying war.  Hill thought that sending soldiers off to die in war was like a ritual slaughter of innocents.  Those who dedicated the monument in 1930 thought that going to war was a way to display patriotism.

At this beautiful site, perched on the edge of the Columbia River Gorge, overlooking Washington and Oregon farmland, you can read the jarringly conflicting historical marker and dedication plaque:

“Humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war”

“This monument is erected in the hope that others inspired by the example of their valor and their heroism may share in that love of liberty and burn with that fire of patriotism which death can alone quench”