I’ve had Glenn Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft on my shelf for a few months now, but I didn’t feel compelled to open it until I read (and enjoyed) Adamson’s article on sloppy craft in the British Crafts Magazine.
While I wasn’t wholly convinced about the way Adamson often uses art as a way to frame craft, overall I thought it was a worthwhile read. Adamson describes five characteristics of craft, supplemental, material, skilled, pastoral, and amateur. I found the chapters on pastoral and amateur most interesting and relevant to me.
While reading the chapter on pastoral, I found myself thinking a lot about my own lifestyle and the type of business I want.
The chapter on amateur felt pertinent to the discussion that’s been going on online lately. This particularly struck me: “In theory, hobbyists are beneath the notice of the expert. In practice, though, the line between the two is often a blurred one. The boundary must constantly be policed, both through the power of institutions and the maintenance of skill or conceptual difficulty among individual professionals.”
