Draft Craft Manifesto

I’ve been trying to pin down what is driving the increasing popularity of crafting for a while now. This is what I’ve got so far:
1. People get satisfaction for being able to create/craft things because they can see themselves in the objects they make. This is not possible in purchased products.
2. The things that people have made themselves have magic powers. They have hidden meanings that other people can’t see.
3. The things people make they usually want to keep and update. Crafting is not against consumption. It is against throwing things away.
4. People seek recognition for the things they have made. Primarily it comes from their friends and family. This manifests as an economy of gifts.
5. People who believe they are producing genuinely cool things seek broader exposure for their products. This creates opportunities for alternative publishing channels.
6. Work inspires work. Seeing what other people have made generates new ideas and designs.
7. Essential for crafting are tools, which are accessible, portable, and easy to learn.
8. Materials become important. Knowledge of what they are made of and where to get them becomes essential.
9. Recipes become important. The ability to create and distribute interesting recipes becomes valuable.
10. Learning techniques brings people together. This creates online and offline communities of practice.
11. Craft-oriented people seek opportunities to discover interesting things and meet their makers. This creates marketplaces.
12. At the bottom, crafting is a form of play.

UPDATE:

See Craft Manifesto in MAKE.

Comments

[Sara]

I would like to add some things to your great list:
- the joy in the process of using your mind and skills for creating
- the satisfaction in learning by doing
- the magic of creation, when the result of your efforts turns into something completely new and unpredicted, and usually much better than your initial plan

[Sara]

since I'm on this track...
Crafting is meditative.
Crafting with others inspires thoughts and, of course, more crafting.

[Sister Diane]

Wonderful stuff!

Off this comment,
10. Learning techniques brings people together. This creates online and offline communities of practice.

I'll add:

The creative process brings people out of their mundane worries, and allows them to more freely express the contents of their hearts. Being with others in creative activities is a way to immediate and deep connection.

[Ulla-Maaria]

Hello Sister Diane,
Thanks for the amendment. I believe the objects of crafting are primarily social objects in the way that they lay ground to a special connection between people. A Finnish philosopher Pekka Himanen suggested concept of "enriching communities", where people feel that they can be something more together. (As opposed to "impoverishing communities" where one has to be less than one could be, like employees complying to the rules of an autocratic workplace). Making together (may that be code or cozies) certainly seem to have this dimension of renewing together.

[Cinnamon]

Excellent list! And I don't disagree with any of it. I do digital graphics work by day so I rarely have anything tangible to prove what I do all day exists. I returned to crafting when I got this job because I missed the handwork of previous positions.

A few years ago, a friend and I created a craft show called the DIY Trunk Show in Chicago, Illinois. This year we created our own Craftifesto which you may find interesting, and which proves some of your points above. http://www.diytrunkshow.com/about/#craftifesto

[artsandcrafts]

heh well i must say on the issue of #10, you had me at "brings people together!"

but actually first i was going to write because i think your manifesto is a true marvel, i'm sure we all have been thinking so many of the same thoughts recently; reading every phrase, i am in awe of your far too rare ability to be both deeply logical and compassionate. i fear i'm coming across as sycophantic, but i really don't mean to be.

which brings me to the second reason i was going to write, to trash you :) you had me more-or-less word-for-word until #11, when you say "This creates marketplaces." the rest of #11 is a breath of fresh air, but it seems to me that #4, especially the brilliant bit about the "economy of gifts," makes that last bit redundant, and moreover actually restrictive.

maybe i'm misunderstanding you but i think discovering "interesting things" and meeting our "makers" can be done in infinitely more places than just the market, and it seems important to me to leave those possibilities completely open. so i guess maybe my question to you is, in an economy of gifts, do we even know a marketplace needs to exist?

perhaps it's not a marketplace, but a... hmmm... party?

[Mickey Nardo]

Several additions from someone known as a "serial hobbyist."
...You can leave your project for a long time, and when you come back it's just like you left it - an old friend.
...If you have a difficult and frustrating job [mine was psychotherapist], crafts are relaxing. The materials "do what they're told" as opposed to many other things in life.

[Doug]

I spend most of my time building software applications. This manifesto applies to all creative endeavours - engineering, software development, building trades, anything where one starts with tools and materials and applies creative thought to make something new. We are all artists at heart.

Thanks for the post.

(found this via BoingBoing, have blogged at my blog and posted at the Lotus Developer Domain over at IBM -- http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf/DateAllThreadedweb/b732e93d45920e148525701d0036cd5d?OpenDocument

[artsandcrafts]

yes i'd just like to add that i read this from the perspective of a musician and it rings just as true

[wendy]

Love the craft manifesto! I'd like to share some ideas on the same subject. I've put these together for a clothing swap that I host called Swap-O-Rama-Rama
http://gaiatreehouse.com/swaporamarama.htm

I've clipped a few comments that are especially relevant to the craft manifesto.

Why Swap?
TEXTILE WASTE
In the creation, production, marketing, and disposal of clothing, there exists an opportunity to improve the care of the planet and the soul of the individual. In an endless search for newness, Americans consume resources for the creation of more, regardless of the fact that we exist amongst a fantastic surplus. This is easily seen in the amount of textile waste produced in the US. It currently comprises 4.5% of residential waste created. Each American is responsible for approximately 35 pounds, totaling 8.75 billion pounds per year. Fifty percent of the textiles consumed and discarded are made from synthetic fibers that are produced from oil, which has a negative effect on the Earth.

FASHION INDUSTRY & BRANDING
This cycle is perpetuated, in part, by the fashion industry, which encourages the purchase of new goods through a constantly changing vision of what is in style. Through advertising we are asked to view shopping as a creative endeavor, when in actuality it is only the designers who play a creative role in the process. The consumers creativity is simply in the selection. The consumer interprets styles, and this is the means to express their own uniqueness. The craft involved in the making of clothing, once viewed as a creative endeavor, is now left to the machine, which manufactures most of the clothing made today. The average person is ill-equipped for sewing, and distant from the creative process due to lack exposure and experience. After goods are purchased, consumers become advertising billboards as they tote logos and labels on all areas of the body. Branding, in its current form, creates distinct social divisions. Labels broadcast the spending power of the individual. This separates consumers into categories that reflect the size of their wallet rather than the expanse of their creativity.

DIY & Relabel
Swap-O-Rama-Rama utilizes the existing surplus of clothing to create ÒnewÒ recycled goods, at little cost, without consuming raw materials. In do-it-yourself spirit, through workshops and the collectivizing of ideas, it helps each individual break down the barrier between consumer and creator while inviting each individual to reclaim the creativity that has been lost to industry. Through hands-on experience, Swap-O-Rama-Rama invites the public to discover that the making of things is not an activity to be avoided in order to attain leisure, but rather a playful and leisurely endeavor unto itself. Finally, by re-branding clothing with self-celebratory labels, Swap-O-Rama-Rama invites us to see each other through shared creativity rather than through socio-economic status. All are invited to cover up existing branding with new self-celebratory labels that read Recycled, Modified By Me and the like. These are provided at each swap.

[Ulla-Maaria]

Wendy,
Thanks for your comment. This is an extremely interesting project you are doing, and it provides a concrete example of how people can start building a much more personal relationship to the objects they consume. Fashion as a cultural phenomenon still bears the idea that only the newest, the latest is desirable, and by purchasing the latest fashion, your credibility becomes renewed in certain social circles. As you well pointed out, we cannot afford to this kind of thinking. Our understanding of the fashion system (consumption, production, exchange) need to change into one where street fashion, vintage clothes, recycling, remodification and personalization of garments play a much greater role.

[Ulla-Maaria]

Another comment to artsandcrafts concerning the question "Why new marketplaces" in the Draft Craft Manifesto.
I read a study published by the Hobby Industry Association in the US, according to which the most common usage for craft projects is personal use or gifts. Some 15 % of the people that do handicrafting as a hobby also sell their products on-line, at fairs or in stores. I don't think people are making huge profits out of it, but surely it can provide some additional income to many.
In addition to crafters, there are hundreads of thousands of artists and designers in the world that do extremely intreresting stuff, but who are not getting much exposure to their creations. For me, the point about new marketplaces has to do with understanding what kind of infrastructure could provide a credible alternative to the hit-driven, centralized fashion industry.

[cimba]

Your blog and manifesto are very interesting. I also would like to add something: crafting can be (in my case is) a form of therapy, intended as an activity that you do primary for yourself (as a form of taking care) and that leaves you with an object you did with your hands, empowering your self esteem, in some ways. Maybe this fact can be called a form of relax, as stated, though maybe in some cases, for some people, crafting can be a relax time that also contribute to help "psychologically".
sorry for my english, thank you, ciao!

[Ulla-Maaria]

Grazie Cimba, that's a good amendment. I really like your blog.

[Fern Lady]

I just came across this and find it utterly intriguing and wonderful. I'll be sure to pass this on through my blog!

[Kerry Woo]

Ulla-Maaria,

Excellent! Thanks so much for helping to understand why there is a deep need to craft/create -

For me, whether it's woodworking, LEGOs, writing, drawing or even blogging, I believe that there is wellspring in creativity in each of us that our Creator placed in each of us. The things I can't craft are meant to be enjoyed via other vessels such as poetry, music, sculpture, dance, etc. I think the key is that we strive for excellence; that's where the deepest sense of pride and personal gratification comes from when we hear "well done".

My kids have made birthday and Father's Day cards for me on construction paper with collage images - these I cherish greatly. Maybe there is something to offering hand crafted gifts at Christmas or other times; could it be that a crafted gift is a among the deepest expression of love?

[BJ Fogg]

I saw you in Make magazine and figured I should visit your blog.

Very interesting!

In fact, it's downright refreshing.

--BJ Fogg
Stanford University
YackPack (Founder & CEO)

[Moon]

Exellent observation, and very inspertional.
By talking mainly when you were talking about craft and its hidden magical meanings, i was thinking about the INVISIBLE ARE concept, it's has got some very intersting link to the 'Almost Invisible Art' (AIA)?

""AIA is Art made for the sake of its own, without any explanation or excuses. AIA does not seek publicity and is not made for the sake of money. AIA is experiemental in its approach, and seeks to approach complexity in its own terms. AIA is about Action, not Re-Action, the Self of the Artist having Control over the production, working with hirself and others. AIA seeks to play with the idea of Invisibility. AIA is fiercly independent, yet designed for interaction with other performers. AIA is a form of Art available to everyone, working in a no budget/low budget setting just as well as with ample funds."

http://www.totse.com/en/ego/artistic_endeavors/162045.html

[JasonY]

Saw your Manifesto in Make magazine and reposted it on my site (with attribution and links). Hope you don't mind.

I love it! What a great way to think about the world. Thanks for summing up so well.

My wife and I have two big cutout aluminum letters on our living room wall: "LIVE" and "CREATE". They're there to remind us that the time we have is limited, and making stuff is a great way to use it.

Jason
Austin, Tx

[Utilly]

Brenda Dayne, (who writes quite often for Interweave Knits) sets out her knitters manifesto in her latest knitting podcast in which she riffs off your draft craft manifesto.

It can be found here:
http://www.cast-on.com

[Ulla-Maaria]

Thanks for the tip! Work inspires work. ;-)

[Ulla-Maaria]

Amit Kohari and Andrew Hayward have created a great database of quotations and fortunes called quotationsbook.com. I was very glad to notice that also Craft Manifesto can be found there!

[sjwhidden]

hey i hope you don't mind but i liked your draft manifesto so much that i pasted it on my craft blog.

[Patrick]

I'm also cut & pasting the manifesto (giving you credit for it, of course) on my blog, hoping my friends will read it, provoking some lively discussion. Wonderful points. I'm in agreement with what you said.

[York]

Very nice. The Craft Manifesto plainly indicates the pleasure of creation. I have the unmistakable feeling that you are the crafter even if you don't make a living as a crafter. Inspired by the fine ideas, I presented the concept of creative-eco, and it make our eco-related project named tie on bloomie.org that is a platform for online projects more enjoyable and creative. It goes without saying that to contribute to the protection of the environment has the social significance. Additionally, I wish people have a great time doing eco. I think creative activities or play is one of possible answers.