Roxanne made me a spoon.
In sixth grade here in Wellesley you take Industrial Technology (don’t call it “wood shop” or you’ll be sternly corrected, trust me). The culmination of the class is carving a spoon from a block of wood.
I put the spoon to use immediately. The day it came home I stirred lentil soup with it and last night I used it to scrape caramelized onions from the bottom of the pot while getting ready to assemble some pizzas.
In addition to its usefulness I immediately loved the beauty of this spoon. I love that it’s handle is curved, that the top looks like a bird’s face, that the bowl is bumpy and has a hairline crack. I love that my child who can’t stand the sound of sand paper sat in IT class for a week wearing thick gloves and noise cancelling headphones while she sanded it smooth. I loved her daily dinner time updates on the stages of its creation and her excitement in presenting it to me on the last day of the term.
In high school I took a lot of art classes and made a lot of paintings and drawings I was proud of. By the end of senior year I had a big folder full of finished work. What always frustrated me about making fine art, though, was that I couldn’t think what to do with it. My mom framed a few pieces, but the rest of the contents of the folder ended up in a pile under my bed. It was beautiful, but not useful. I knew I didn’t want to be an artist.
Craft is the solution to that problem. Making a mug or chair or a quilt takes just the same amount of specialized skill, time and effort as painting a landscape, but in the end you can drink from it, or sit on it, or snuggle up under it on a cold night.
Of course craft suffers from this utility, too. Craft is typically seen as lesser in value than art from a commercial standpoint. It’s made to be used and worn out. The spoon will get stained, perhaps even burned, and one day the hairline crack will grow too wide and the spoon no longer function as a spoon. But to me the difference in commercial value is arbitrary. Between now and then the spoon will enrich my life by infusing the daily task of making dinner with the beauty of something carved from a block of wood by my first baby whose feet are now larger than mine and is nearly a woman herself.
Craft is art gone productive. It’s art you can stand on or drink tea from or lie underneath. Craft is art you can stir lentil soup with.
Oh, I adore the spoon!! For 20 years, I worked in arts and crafts at a summer camp and the last few years it was getting so hard to find a “shop” teacher to run our woodshop. We relied on the talents of kids really…international 20 year olds with some carpentry training, but not experienced teachers. I am thrilled to see that it is being taught again in school. Perhaps it is part of the new “makers movement” that has taken over like a storm in all the art conferences I go to as an art teacher. Funny thing is that as an artist I’ve always been a maker, and do not need a new hip label! But if this gets kids working with their hands in maker spaces schools will fund for their programs than that is the best thing ever!!!
And like the quilts that I make, handmade things should be admired but used too! Bet your lentil soup was all the more delicious for it! Beautiful!!
They no longer teach sewing in the middle school here, but at least they still have wood shop (although if you call it that the kids get mad!).
That is when I learned to sew… in middle school (junior high school) too! My grandmother had one of the original treadle singer sewing machines in our house and I remember showing her with such excitement what I learned on the “new fangled” electric machines at school! My principal just brought in a bunch of sewing machines to our school for our new “maker space.” Maybe sewing will come back again, if not under a new name.
Yes! I’ve always pushed for sewing machines to be considered when libraries are thinking about makerspaces, and not just the hottest new tech bits. That’s great that your school is doing it!
I love this post and I love craft. I am much more drawn to making functional items, especially quilts and textiles but I’ve recently made some wooden spoons and absolutely love making them (and using them)! I’d be curious to hear what tools/process your daughter learned at school. Her spoon is fabulous.
I have a serious appreciation for wooden spoons now. I’d love to learn to make one myself and I can also see becoming a collector.
If you do get into collecting spoons (hey, everyone needs a hobby!) try to find a spurtle as well. They’re fun.
what a touching tribute to Roxanne’s work of art! It is very impressive to create such a beautiful spoon from a block of wood.
Thank you, Longia. It’s such a thrill for me to know that you read my blog!
‘Craft is art gone productive.’
Love this and it’s so true. Craftsmanship is a beautiful and useful skill in whatever field it is applied. Roxanne’s spoon does and will hold so many memories, so much beauty and can be used to enrich your everyday life in practical ways.
What a lovely post and beautiful spoon! I have fond memories of what was called Industrial Arts when I was in junior high (long time ago!). I still have the chess board and napkin holder I made.
Such a thought-provoking post. I wonder if products that don’t sell well (as in your post “when the product is the problem”) are things that people are unable to easily categorize into “art” or “craft.” I’m sure there are many reasons things don’t sell, but knowing whether something should be used or displayed is probably a big one.
I really enjoyed your post, it sparked some thoughts. (http://whenhopeisdeferred.blogspot.com/2016/01/craft-vs-art.html) The treasure of using something so lovingly made is really hard to match.
what a beautiful way of expressing the value of something made for you by someone you love. Thank you.
Craft can be artful but is not always (in fact often isn’t) and art can be a craft. Art has a function for the maker and the perceiver, which is to accelerate and allow our senses to be exhorted, and to appeal to our spirit and emotions and it can provide balm for both. I have finished embroideries under the bed, they might be made into cushions, they might be wall hangings (so craft really made into art) or they might stay where they are. but still looked at regularly. Without the art they would not become crafts. Without skill (craftsmanship) the art would not be expressed.
There is skill in craft but sometimes it is soulless and flat if artistry is not also present, and often it is the thing that lacks. There is many a dull knitted, functional useful object for instance. Some people though are able to make art with their knitting skills, e.g. the use of colour work such as Fair Isle or intarsia. Art may actually be a lot quicker than craft sometimes and I would even argue that anyone can do it – it is an expression of our individual self and we can all do that. We might however dispute what ‘good art’ is. Craft can take a long time and be skilful with practical function but be ugly and ‘dead’ and the finished object be shut away and not used because we just can’t stand to use it in its ugliness. It happens a lot with presents which are not to our taste.
Art lives and reaches out and touches us (when it works for us on an individual basis). Pure craft may or may not do the same, but often providing functionality without joy. Your wooden spoon has a life outside of itself because you know its story and actually it does have beauty because the personality is still there in one who is learning their skill. The ‘perfect’ wooden spoon purchased from etsy even if still hand turned, will not have that same connection and therefore will be unable to lift the new owner in the same way. Yes it will be admired but only up to a point. A hand painted wooden spoon however, will raise the level of that connectivity and interaction and the item will become more meaningful. A hand painted spoon may or may not be used. It still has a function however. To be pretty is not to be useless at all. All art has a function; it just might not be a ‘practical’ tangible one. Who is to say practical function is the be all and end all? It certainly is not for me. I think William Morris’s adage that something should either be useful or beautiful to fit perfectly.
I don’t see that one needs to raise up craft while demoting art. Art has function too. Those chairs we sit on, the TV we watch, the bookshelves we utilise, the computer I sit at, well they came from the creative mind that visualised them and no doubt drew them before they became functional objects. The appeal of apple products for instance, is for how they are perceived as looking as well as for their function. Art is everywhere in life – books, both the covers and the original concept and design of how they work, even the script itself. Art is everything that makes our life worth living and improves upon it. Art is the attention to how the spoon looks, craft is the creation of it and art is what finally breathes life into it or the lack of it leaves it sad and lifeless.
The good thing is, we don’t have to choose.
Thank you for this thoughtful article. I feel less guilt for enjoying sewing rather than painting and sculpture that I trained in! My sewing is “process”
oriented and I am always hopeful to have a lovely outcome as well! At my age with health issues, sewing and creating patterns is fulfilling by being productive.
By the way, the spoon is Beautiful! I see the effort, pride and love your daughter gave to this project . Thanks Abby.
Ellen, you speak my language!!! I have a degree in fine arts and spent my life as a painter and illustrator, and presently as an art teacher. When someone asks what I do, I say I am an artist, a painter. But fabric, fibers, quilting, sewing… and most lately Abby’s podcasts on sewing, quilting and blogging… is such a passion for me that I wonder if I should change my description of who I am! Never feel guilty for enjoying the process of creating anything!
It’s a very beautiful spoon! I love the concentric rings in the bowl of it, and the depth of it too. The thing about spoons is that they get even better with age and use: smoother, worn along just the one edge as you stir against the bottom of the pan, deeper in colour..more beautiful. But if the difference between art and craft is function, I’m not sure there really is much difference: art, for me at any rate, is a conversation – and conversations have a function too. The difference is that we don’t all speak the same language! Enjoy the soup 🙂
I love this post and the spoon and your thoughts put into words. Can you put those last 3 sentences on a shirt or a tote bag or a print to hang in my sewing room?? beautifully written.
Holy moly, that is one handsome spoon! Please tell your daughter: “Well done!” And credit to you for putting that fine creation to work immediately. Nothing says love like hand-crafted items and food.
I doubt we will ever resolve the is-it-art-or-is-it-craft question. In my mind, they overlap in so many ways that it seems a bit pointless to enforce a distinction. I do, however, prefer the term “handcraft” to “crafty,” which, in my opinion, diminishes the creative process and investment of time involved in hand-made work, especially with original designs. There is beauty and pleasure in making something from scratch, and we would be wise to focus on making whatever brings us pleasure — art, craft, or lentil soup. It’s all good.
Always interesting to read your posts and listen to your podcasts, Abby. Spoon carving seems to be ‘on the pulse’ — the American Craft Council is holding a hands on spoon carving workshop in conjunction with their wholesale/retail fair in Baltimore. I assume that this workshop is aimed at craft appreciators/buyers, versus the fair’s craftsellers.
Parallel to this, the ACC are also emphasizing making by running a #yourrightbrainiscalling social media campaign. I think that the craft of using one’s hands (with or without skill), is less anxiety-causing than the idea of making art to many people. Long ago I went to art school and was taught that art is ‘about something.’ Perhaps, that’s why I now make felted hats?
Wonderful post, Abby. My favorite part is your joy at getting dinner table updates as the spoon project progressed. I share your daughter’s excitement as a skill unfolds. That’s the coolest thing about making. May there be many projects ahead long after the school bell ends the day.
Beautiful. I also have that pile of fine art sitting under my bed, and an array of useful craft worn, used and loved.
Yessssss. This is such a fantastic post and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I too find the most beauty in the things that are useful, which is why I always try my best to create “beautiful” things. In fact, I pretty much wrote exactly that when I re-worked my About Me page last year. It makes me smile to know that you think the exact same way 🙂
Agree with everything you say. My daughter is in pre-school right now (starting KG this fall!) and she brings home a ton of artwork, some of which I frame and others I put in the recycle bin or hang on the fridge. Sometimes she will catch me in the act and demand to know why I am “throwing” her beautiful picture away. I am often at a loss of words but now I’ve started telling her the truth. She gets it. There is a reason there isn’t any expensive art (or as art collectors call them investment pieces) on my walls. Whatever few things I have displayed are the ones I made myself or are framed photos. I have a ton of pottery gifts from my friends and family and every time I sip a beverage or eat soup from those lovingly made pieces, it reminds me of them.
My hope is that one day my daughter will create pieces for kitchen, walls and hopefully her body 🙂
#craftforever
Oh this is LOVELY, thank you! I’ve been struggling to articulate what I love about being an upholsterer and you nailed it. Art is AWESOME, but I adore the idea of something beautiful that we actually use, even when we use it until it’s threadbare and homely – ESPECIALLY then 🙂