Thinking through craft

Adamson, G., (2007), Thinking through craft, Oxford, New York, BERG.

p11

"artworks are something made that have become more than something simply made".

craft does not function as a vehical of self doubt and rigorous internal analysis that art does-far from it. It is instead a supplement of the art work, .... A supplement is that which provides something necessary to another, "original" entity, but which is nonetheless considered to be extraneous (irrelevant) to that original....the supplement as pointing to a "lack", which might be present in a single work....

p12
"the guilt frame that surrounds a painting ...is not part of the artwork, but ...conveys the sense of the paintings importance, it props up the artwork".

p59
"the way in which something has been produced shows itself in te finished product. the way it shows itself is what we call facture".

p71
"it's not the technical side of it that matters: it's something beyond that".
The implication is that the proper response is not theoretical discussion, but shoulder-shrugging  amazement. when somebody's' got "it" ...we are usually content to admire, rather than analyze.

p74
"good workmanship is that which carries out or improves upon the intended design. Bad workmanship is what fails to do so and thwarts the design.

p74/75
...craft skill never comes free; it must be learned. ...skill is something that seems noteworthy only from the position of the unskilled.

p81
...any craft had inherent moral integrity as a creative experience, so it followed that every child should be educated to become 'self-expressive craftsmen...'.  The inclusion of artistic and vocational courses in school's curriculum was not a way to make education a more efficient way of building the economy, but rather a means of working towards "a sound society".

p83
...technigue applied through materials gives access to a universal whole.

p84
"The best education is one;s own experience.Experimenting surpasses studying".

p139
If modern art....is grounded in serching for self-awareness, then amerterism is a form of creativity that can never be intergrated into this model.In the popular imagination, hobby crafts ar on a par with such activities as stamp collecting and weekend sport - activities done in a spirit of self-gratification rather than critique.
p140
Sewing in the living room or woodworking in the garage are activities that reflect a culture of prosperous excess.
.....idle hands make for potentially revolutionary work.Similarly, the succassful displacement of unused time into harmless leisure activities has been vital to the project of capatalist expansion.
....there are huge profits to be gained by selling commodities (materials/equipment) to aspiring craftspeople, amaturs perform a valuable ....service to the economy.
Presicsely because they are made so lovingly, homemade crafts betray the degree to which their makers are integrated into the larger structure of capitalist ideology, in which commodidity forms are the primary carriers of meaning.
p152
Seek to be good but not to be great
A womans noblest station is retreat
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight.
Domestic worth still shuns too atrong a light.

p153
"Quality is something that a white Anglo-Saxon protestant man does .....Quality is expensive decoration for rich people who happen to be blind."
p155
rather than "untying the apron strings" the artists involved in womanhouse were "keeping the apron on, flaunting it , and turning it into art"