The worlds of fine art and craft are far more intertwined than a visit to an art gallery might suggest. They say that good design is 99% invisible - if you know where to look, there is artistry embedded in the very fabric of our everyday lives. From the labour invested in handmade objects, to the designs, like a beautiful typeface, that are so ubiquitous - such a part of our day to day experience - we could be excused for forgetting they were ever designed at all.
This collection offers a selection of works that honour the craft in art. Artists, or artworks, that blur the edges of these delineated worlds by incorporating a celebration of hand-making and simple materials and objects. Or artworks that at one time would have been intended to have a functional use - such as the small prints made to be pasted into the inside cover of a book to communicate who owned it. Artworks that, albeit beautifully designed, were not made for a frame.
Fine art and craft traditions have not always existed in separate worlds. Prior to the renaissance painters started their career as an apprentice, learning their trade like textile or metal workers would. With the increasingly industrialised production methods emerging over the course of the 19th century, many artists began to be concerned that, with machine-made objects, we were losing touch with the existing traditions embedded in our everyday environment. A shift occurred in London in 1888, with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in London. All of a sudden the social and intellectual value of craft traditions was given serious consideration. The previously taken for granted handmade and everyday objects clothing us and furnishing our houses might be as culturally valuable as those lining the halls of the Louvre.
Craft, and the so-called ‘decorative’ arts have long provided both a medium and a source of inspiration for artists: as the subject of a still life, as seen in Dorothy Braund’s precariously stacked ceramic dishes; or by providing a form not usually associated with fine art - like Mirka Mora’s hand stitched soft sculptures. Historically, it has been in the realm of decorative arts that many female artists were able to carve a practice of their own. The eventual recognition that many of these works should indeed be considered ‘fine art’ is a testament to their own status as artists, and to the countless hours of creative labour filling second hand stores everywhere.
At a time when objects and clothing might be cheaply acquired and even more easily disposed of, it’s likely most of us hold onto at least one or two items that have little financial value; everyday objects with a value less tangible. A cup, a jacket, or a chair that speaks to the individual who made it, or the loved one who owned it before. Objects, like artworks, that were carefully considered in their design and deserving of loving custodianship going forward. While works of art might continue to act as incredibly special, unique objects of contemplation, they might also remind us of the art embedded in the everyday. As timely a reminder in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth.
