The dictionary definition of craft gives us a starting point for understanding what somebody means when they say the word, but it doesn’t capture the full essence.
Where do dictionary definitions come from? Merely the usages of the word. To create a definition, you study how the word is used in as many example sentences as you can find.
Here’s the definition of craft in the Oxford English Dictionary, as a noun:
An occupation or profession requiring technical skill and know-how, esp. one which involves using the hands; a manual art or trade.
As a verb:
To make or devise (something) with skill, expertise, or ingenuity.
When I hear craft used in place of words like make, what comes to mind is an emphasis on careful attention to detail, along with an appreciation of the process, not just the result. The act becomes an art instead of a means to an end, and as a result, a lot of care is put into it.
Neither of the above definitions capture this idea, but I wouldn’t expect them to. It is nearly impossible to express all the nuances of a word in just a couple sentences.
To help define craft as I hear it, I’ve collected quotations from an article in the October/November 2018 issue of American Craft magazine. If the article is still around, I’d encourage you to read through it and make your own interpretations. The quotations below are only the ones that capture the essence I’m looking for.
Craft [is] a value that can apply to any endeavor, be it music, gardening, food, film, even lifestyle…there’s magic in handling materials with thought and care, an ideal all of us can understand, appreciate, and pursue.
—Joyce Lovelace, the author of the article
Craft is applied creativity. It’s the process of turning the spark of an idea into something tangible and beautiful using your own hands, skills, aesthetic, and vision. It could be a poem, a bowl, a pair of shoes, a plate of food, a sculpture, a building, a song.
—Susannah Daly, founder and creative director, Renegade Craft fairs
Craft, to me, is the skill developed, applied, and made manifest through practice and discipline in the fabrication of a work of art. Could be a chair, a lasagna, a painting, a symphony, or a monologue.
—Nick Offerman, co-host, NBC’s Making It; woodworker
Someone once told me, “If you give a darn about how something is made, then it’s craft!”
—Fabio Fernández, artist; past executive director, Society of Arts + Crafts, Boston
Craft to me is a particular skill combined with artistic integrity, created and developed into something that is appreciated by people. This can be applied to physical materials—wood, clay, stone—or aviation, music, visual art.
—Sarah Archer, arts and culture writer
Craft is the mastery of material and technique.
—Erik Demaine, origami artist, professor of computer science at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
I believe craft is the outcome of numerous small actions, carried out endlessly and sometimes repetitively. But after a while, something emerges which is substantial and has its own unique character, however commonplace the activity that produced it.
—Judith Weir, official composer to Elizabeth II
What is craft? Broadly speaking, I follow the Richard Sennett line that craft is about someone doing a job well for its own sake. It’s important to stress that a sense of craft is present throughout all walks of life, from manufacturing industry to fine art, technology [to] medicine.
—Grant Gibson, past editor, Crafts magazine, Crafts Council, UK
Craft is a way of doing things involving deliberateness and attention to detail and representing the accumulation of skill over time. Craft invites a life in which the objects that surround us speak to us of what is important. For me, craft can be embodied in things as disparate as Cherokee baskets, a Sam Maloof chair, or—I hate to say it—an iPhone.
—Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez, president, North Bennet Street School, Boston
I view the notion of craft not as limited by materials, but as a process. I frequently use the term “skilled making” when discussing craft, which can encompass most materials. Craft to me is often an integral part of the process when making artwork. Craft, however, always exists as a physical artifact; it cannot subsist as concept alone.
—Mia Hall, executive director, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina
Craft is a commitment to a lifelong conversation with material and process. While style and technique evolve over the course of a maker’s career, craft is that most fundamental desire to feel, articulate, and understand the complexity of your own work.
—Brian Giniewski, ceramist
We think of craft as the overlap of science, the technical aspects and boundaries of the medium; art, one’s personal touch and lens; and tradition, the time-tested vocabulary of movements and ideas that are shared generationally.
—Jonathan Wingo, brand ambassador, The Balvenie scotch whisky, Dufftown, Scotland
Craft is the intentional expression by hands of what is in the mind, melding respect for materials with mastery and purposeful use of technique.
—Lisa Bayne, CEO, Artful Home, Madison, Wisconsin
Craft refers to works done where the imagination and the hand of the maker are evident. Often the value of a piece is in the workmanship of the artist rather than what it’s made of.
—Marian Burke, who with her husband, Russell, endowed the new Burke Prize, awarded by the Museum of Arts and Design
The pushing and pulling of materials and processes in order to test their physical limits and perceptual boundaries.
—Stephanie Syjuco, artist; assistant professor in sculpture, University of California, Berkeley
For me, craft involves an awareness of a human having been responsible for an object’s creation, as if the maker’s presence never entirely leaves the object. This presence could come from an element such as visible stitching, or just in witnessing the thoughtfulness that was needed to bring the piece to life.
—Kat Roberts, author