Art or Craft

I recently entered a juried art exhibit.  The rules of the exhibit encouraged fiber art and in fact last year my quilted wall hanging was accepted.  But this year it wasn’t.  Now that is OK, sometime artists are at the whim of the jurors.  Whatever the juror interprets as acceptable is what goes in.

I learned after the show that the jurors (it was a committee) in this case was not following the theme of the art exhibit but more if the piece was ‘real art’.  So many times anything made with fiber (other than paper) is not considered art but craft.

So that got me thinking (again) what is the difference between art and craft?   I looked up a number of different dictionaries.  Some definitions had the same elements for both.  Both included creativity or imagination.  Both included some skill involved like painting, weaving, sculpting.  But the big difference seems to be the use of the finished product.

A craft item while it could be beautiful to look at also had a function.  A piece of pottery could be used to serve food or drink.  A quilt is meant to cover a bed.  A piece of embroidery could be part of a napkin or towel. A knitted shawl is meant to keep someone warm.

A piece of art is meant only as a decoration, to be on display.  It has no other function than for aesthetic purposes.  And some definitions added that it was art if on display in a gallery.

Now this is a dilemma many fiber artists face.  The techniques we use whether it is quilting, knitting, weaving, felting are typically used to create things people use in their every day life but those same techniques and sometimes even the finished ‘functional’ product can be aesthetically beautiful, as much as a painting.

Quilting now has a category called “Art Quilts”.  These are often wall hangings that can be as beautiful as a painted canvas (and sometimes the wall hangings are painted).  But because they are made of techniques that if used on a bigger scale can cover a bed, does that make them less artistic?  I don’t think so. 

So how do we change the perception of what Fiber Art is – not just a functional item but a piece of aesthetic art?  That is the question I have been asking myself.  I don’t know if I have the answer but here are some of the ideas I have come up with.

We need to change our idea of ourselves.  It is OK to say “I am a quilter” or weaver or knitter or whatever.  But what if we said “I am a Fiber Artist”?  That is what got me into the Fiber Artists group here in my city.  A Quilt guild member came up to me and told me about the  fiber artist group and added at the end, “And what you do is art”.  Well, OK, sign me up.  No one had ever called what I do – in this particular case with punchneedle embroidery – as art.  Since then I have described myself as a fiber artist.

What if we displayed more of our work on the walls of our homes?  You have woven or knitted a shawl to wear.  Great!  But how would it look if instead of hanging it in a closet when you are not wearing it, you displayed it on your living wall? 

Not only display what you do as art in your home but talk about your needlework as art.  Describe it to others as art.  And don’t let anyone tell you “Oh you just knit” or “That is just a quilt”.  No tell them that is Fiber Art. 

If you have a chance to enter a show or exhibit that accepts Fiber Art, do so.  Even if your piece isn’t accepted in the case of the juried show, you are entering your work as art.   And even if the jurors don’t see it as art such as the jurors supposedly did in the recent show I entered, somewhere down the line, what I enter or what you might enter may change someone’s mind about what art is.

What you do is art whether it is displayed on a wall in a gallery or on the shoulders of your back.  Functional or not, it is beautiful and it is art.

©2019   Cheryl Fillion