Keeping rural and domestic crafts alive

Craft-making skills often used to be passed down in families from one generation to the next. Sharing a craft was and still is a long-standing method of binding family members together. The bond between craft to makers has traditionally been personified via the image of mother and daughter knitting, mending, baking or sewing harmoniously. These popular images, common in the 1950s, create a romanticised notion of a specific feminine domestic ideal in which skills and knowledge are enjoyed and passed on. However nowadays, people are picking up these crafts on their own, and instead of them being skills of which are almost 'forced' upon them, they have now become enjoyable by regular folk who are looking for creative pass times. Depending on your perspective, you may see it as an importance to have creative hobbies due to wanting to keep specific domestic crafts alive, or perhaps it's just something you enjoy or are good at; but for me personally, i feel that as a creative person, i want to keep the art of craft alive - i refuse to allow machines to take over the makers, and thankfully slow crafting is something i find much joy in. I feel a lot of rural crafters especially have romanticised the handiwork involved with making items, it has done a full circle and has almost become a way of life again. The cylic nature of life kicks in, and past ideas always come back to be revived once more. What better place to look for inspiration than the past, i always think.

My biggest influencer has and always will be William Morris. I wrote my dissertation on his life, and how the arts and crafts movement essentially breathed a new life into traditional folk art within Britain. The idea of keeping traditional craft alive is part of the backbone within my own creative designs - sometimes i have to sit back and contemplate whether it is worth spending so much time on something when it is readily available to purchase at a cheap price, but i am now putting my beliefs and morals at the front of everything else, and despite a little more time and money being eaten up, it's well worth it to know i am following in my ancestors footprints, and dedicating time and energy to a much more worthwhile cause that holds so much more history and meaning.

There are so fantastic videos and pages on the internet, talking about heritage crafts and the revival of ancient techniques, such as this page on talks of craft renaissance and the preservation of these processes. Morris was a firm believer in working in the most traditional of manners, almost completely rejecting modernity and newer material processes. He worked solely with natural dyes, hand processes and ensured that the maker connected with the product they were making. He hired guildsmen who had worked years to hone in and specialise in their craft. Work was scarce around these times in the 1800's, as this is when the industrial revolution came into place and knocked many craftsmen out of business. Morris wanted to ensure these people a solid job, with clean working conditions and stable wages, which is just what he did. There is a reason behind the prices being higher for artisan products, and it's because there was a real set of hands who sculpted them; a real human with years of knowledge and talent.

We really do take for granted what we have, (and yes i am one of those people too!)- but if you would like a small reality check, i would recommend watching this video.

i recently discovered that air b&b have teamed up with HCA (heritage crafts association) where people can partake in workshops run by specialists from the HCA teaching endangered crafts, such as clog making and wheelwrighting. You can read more about it here. It's so fantastic to hear companies doing things like this, as it needs to be taken more seriously - Our world would be a very different place if these crafts never existed.

I urge all makers, and even if you are not a maker, to research more into the history of the crafts used to forge everyday items you use. Perhaps your belief system will be changed and swayed, i know that mine was.