Art: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
Craft: an activity involving skill in making things by hand.
Even the definition could persuade one to believe that art is superior to craft. Art is perhaps for those who have developed a taste for the finer things in life. Art is for the sophisticated. Art requires great training to produce it and to interpret its nuanced meanings. It is not common or meant to be accessible to all.
Craft, on the other hand, is for everyone apparently and can be produced by everyone as well. It is usually a three-dimensional object possibly having a useful quality that far outweighs its beauty. It is not one of a kind. It is not special. It is not of great value or worth. And lately I have felt very much a part of this lesser category.
Flash back to a summer day in the year 2006 where I am out walking and having one of my conversations with God. I had just quit my job, having spent the previous five years teaching 5-year-olds at a preschool, wondering what in the world I was doing teaching preschool. Or teaching anything. I was supposed to be a writer. What in the world had happened to me?
So as I'm nearing the street to my house this overwhelming thought forces its way into my mind: make garlands. This was worse than trying to be a teacher because as much as I struggled trying to figure out how to be a teacher, or more specifically, how to be around teachers and work with them, I had no idea what it meant for me to make garlands. And how was making anything going to help me be a writer?
But then I remembered the story I had written about an old woman making stars with hearts in the middle of them and I decided to follow the instructions of my own writing and made a star just like I had written it into that woman's life. I then made the stars smaller and made hearts with stars in the middle of them and after figuring out the details, produced a garland. I then made another with tiny trees, and cut up an old blanket to make angels. After my application was accepted at the local farmers' market, I set up shop and sold garlands.
I sold boxes and boxes of garlands! I attached the story I had written and soon it had become a gift for many to give and a way for people who were looking for something unique to decorate their homes with handmade art. Or was it a craft? I had not used someone else's idea or pattern but had created my own. I had not copied anyone's design. I was the author of the story that described the ornaments from which these garlands were made. I was the sole creator, the artist.
For years I would be referred to as a crafter and because of the farmer, baker, or crafter designation at the market; I was fine with that. I never compared myself with those who had studied fine arts or had degrees in art. I had been sewing since I was ten years old and learned from my mother. She also taught me to do embroidery and we spent many cold Michigan winters doing crafts inside our warm home. But crafts were usually kits in which we followed instructions and made something like the picture on the box, sort of a paint-by-number type of activity.
But that never satisfied me. I wanted to turn shoe boxes into doll house rooms furnished with empty spools from thread for chairs, cardboard tables, matchbox beds with tiny cloth blankets, and curtains for the windows. I would take scraps of paper and cloth to make whatever I wanted. I would also design clothing for the paper dolls since I would get immediately bored with the small selection available with their perforated edges. I would draw more, make more, create something new and different. I would then write stories so that these paper dolls could do more than just stand around on their tiny cardboard stands. They could live their lives according to my scripts!
Somehow I reasoned that journalism was the course of study I should take since majoring in English meant I would have to be a teacher and that was the one career I never wanted to have. Settling to tell someone else's story seemed to be a good plan though it never really materialized in the way I thought it should. And I was left with the dream of writing stories, while collecting meager paychecks from dead-end jobs.
Still, I did not call myself a writer or an artist for a very long time. When one says she is a writer, the very first question one is asked is: what do you write? When there is no good answer, it is best not to say it. At least by calling myself an artist I could leave it up to the person looking at what I made to decide whether or not it could be called art.
And so it has gone, for the past eight years.
Recently I found out about an arts and crafts cooperative calling itself a gallery and looking for guest artists to rent shelf space. When my application was accepted I felt like I had become successful as an artist. Being in a gallery would give what I made more value and worth than it would otherwise have. I could tell my friends that my ART was in a GALLERY. No more would I have to say that I was a crafter.
But business has been slow and whether I am an artist or a crafter, I will not likely break even for the first time since I started selling my wares. Life at the farmers' market is not much better. Neither place has gone out of their way to photograph or advertise my work and there remains that nagging voice inside my head repeating the same thing it has said to me ever since I was a child: you are a writer. Write.
I do write. I am writing now. I write prayers for my church. I think about self-publishing quite often. I wonder how I could incorporate my art with my writing. And how I can accomplish all of this in the midst of my part-time job back at the preschool where I now feel that each day spent with a baby is more like an immeasurable gift from God, than a waste of my life.
I have reached that certain age when I no longer need to prove myself, even though I still sometimes fall into that ditch of approval-seeking behavior. Whether or not I have been slighted by those around me in reference to my work need not worry me. I know who I am.
I am a writer.
Craft: an activity involving skill in making things by hand.
Even the definition could persuade one to believe that art is superior to craft. Art is perhaps for those who have developed a taste for the finer things in life. Art is for the sophisticated. Art requires great training to produce it and to interpret its nuanced meanings. It is not common or meant to be accessible to all.
Craft, on the other hand, is for everyone apparently and can be produced by everyone as well. It is usually a three-dimensional object possibly having a useful quality that far outweighs its beauty. It is not one of a kind. It is not special. It is not of great value or worth. And lately I have felt very much a part of this lesser category.
Flash back to a summer day in the year 2006 where I am out walking and having one of my conversations with God. I had just quit my job, having spent the previous five years teaching 5-year-olds at a preschool, wondering what in the world I was doing teaching preschool. Or teaching anything. I was supposed to be a writer. What in the world had happened to me?
So as I'm nearing the street to my house this overwhelming thought forces its way into my mind: make garlands. This was worse than trying to be a teacher because as much as I struggled trying to figure out how to be a teacher, or more specifically, how to be around teachers and work with them, I had no idea what it meant for me to make garlands. And how was making anything going to help me be a writer?
But then I remembered the story I had written about an old woman making stars with hearts in the middle of them and I decided to follow the instructions of my own writing and made a star just like I had written it into that woman's life. I then made the stars smaller and made hearts with stars in the middle of them and after figuring out the details, produced a garland. I then made another with tiny trees, and cut up an old blanket to make angels. After my application was accepted at the local farmers' market, I set up shop and sold garlands.
I sold boxes and boxes of garlands! I attached the story I had written and soon it had become a gift for many to give and a way for people who were looking for something unique to decorate their homes with handmade art. Or was it a craft? I had not used someone else's idea or pattern but had created my own. I had not copied anyone's design. I was the author of the story that described the ornaments from which these garlands were made. I was the sole creator, the artist.
For years I would be referred to as a crafter and because of the farmer, baker, or crafter designation at the market; I was fine with that. I never compared myself with those who had studied fine arts or had degrees in art. I had been sewing since I was ten years old and learned from my mother. She also taught me to do embroidery and we spent many cold Michigan winters doing crafts inside our warm home. But crafts were usually kits in which we followed instructions and made something like the picture on the box, sort of a paint-by-number type of activity.
But that never satisfied me. I wanted to turn shoe boxes into doll house rooms furnished with empty spools from thread for chairs, cardboard tables, matchbox beds with tiny cloth blankets, and curtains for the windows. I would take scraps of paper and cloth to make whatever I wanted. I would also design clothing for the paper dolls since I would get immediately bored with the small selection available with their perforated edges. I would draw more, make more, create something new and different. I would then write stories so that these paper dolls could do more than just stand around on their tiny cardboard stands. They could live their lives according to my scripts!
Somehow I reasoned that journalism was the course of study I should take since majoring in English meant I would have to be a teacher and that was the one career I never wanted to have. Settling to tell someone else's story seemed to be a good plan though it never really materialized in the way I thought it should. And I was left with the dream of writing stories, while collecting meager paychecks from dead-end jobs.
Still, I did not call myself a writer or an artist for a very long time. When one says she is a writer, the very first question one is asked is: what do you write? When there is no good answer, it is best not to say it. At least by calling myself an artist I could leave it up to the person looking at what I made to decide whether or not it could be called art.
And so it has gone, for the past eight years.
Recently I found out about an arts and crafts cooperative calling itself a gallery and looking for guest artists to rent shelf space. When my application was accepted I felt like I had become successful as an artist. Being in a gallery would give what I made more value and worth than it would otherwise have. I could tell my friends that my ART was in a GALLERY. No more would I have to say that I was a crafter.
But business has been slow and whether I am an artist or a crafter, I will not likely break even for the first time since I started selling my wares. Life at the farmers' market is not much better. Neither place has gone out of their way to photograph or advertise my work and there remains that nagging voice inside my head repeating the same thing it has said to me ever since I was a child: you are a writer. Write.
I do write. I am writing now. I write prayers for my church. I think about self-publishing quite often. I wonder how I could incorporate my art with my writing. And how I can accomplish all of this in the midst of my part-time job back at the preschool where I now feel that each day spent with a baby is more like an immeasurable gift from God, than a waste of my life.
I have reached that certain age when I no longer need to prove myself, even though I still sometimes fall into that ditch of approval-seeking behavior. Whether or not I have been slighted by those around me in reference to my work need not worry me. I know who I am.
I am a writer.
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