The Craft and the Makers showcases savvy businesses that are choosing to focus on craftsmanship and aiming to create things with a soul. A decisive role is played by melding tradition and innovation-from the raw materials used to the finished product. The book introduces small enterprises as well as the personalities that drive them. These artisans are using their skills to produce handicraft that meets the highest standards. Whether furniture, porcelain, or leather goods, all of the products featured here offer today's true luxury: the perfect fusion of creativity and craftsmanship that results in quality and durability.

Here is the first comprehensive survey of modern craft in the United States. Makers follows the development of studio craft--objects in fiber, clay, glass, wood, and metal--from its roots in nineteenth-century reform movements to the rich diversity of expression at the end of the twentieth century. More than four hundred illustrations complement this chronological exploration of the American craft tradition. Keeping as their main focus the objects and the makers, Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf offer a detailed analysis of seminal works and discussions of education, institutional support, and the philosophical underpinnings of craft. In a vivid and accessible narrative, they highlight the value of physical skill, examine craft as a force for moral reform, and consider the role of craft as an aesthetic alternative. Exploring craft's relationship to fine arts and design, Koplos and Metcalf foster a critical understanding of the field and help explain craft's place in contemporary culture. Makers will be an indispensable volume for craftspeople, curators, collectors, critics, historians, students, and anyone who is interested in American craft.

A creative renaissance blooms in Brooklyn. At its heart is a thriving community of artisans producing a remarkable variety of handmade goods. In Brooklyn Makers, photographer Jennifer Causey captures the spirit of this homegrown movement by documenting thirty of the borough's most celebrated craftsmen. This eclectic mix of established and up-and-coming makers includes bakers, ceramic artists, clothing designers, florists, distillers, and more. With an eye for small details, Causey's charming photographs reveal each artisan at work in their own space. Her lively interviews reveal what inspires them, keeps them motivated, and their thoughts on the city where they live and work.

"Crafts were central to daily life in early modern Japan. They were powerful carriers of knowledge, sociality, and identity, and how and from what materials they were made were matters of serious concern among all classes of society. In Craft Culture in Early Modern Japan, Christine M. E. Guth examines the network of forces--both material and immaterial--that supported Japan's rich, diverse, and aesthetically sophisticated artifactual culture between the late sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Exploring the institutions, modes of thought, and reciprocal relationships among people, materials, and tools, she draws particular attention to the role of women in crafts, embodied knowledge, and the special place of lacquer as a medium. By examining the ways and values of making that transcend specific media and practices, Guth illuminates the 'craft culture' of early modern Japan"--

Lose yourself in the creative process with 35 meditative makes. In today’s busy world, it can be difficult to find time to slow down and make time for the simple joy of making, so Clare Youngs has designed a wide range of beautiful and tempting projects to help you experience the pleasure and satisfaction that making something with your own hands can bring. The best thing about practicing mindfulness through craft is that you have something tangible to show at the end, and you can start small with the coral reef-inspired embroidery hoops, or just by making pompoms and tassels to be added to the edge of a pillow or blanket. You can learn techniques such as block printing, punch needling, shibori dyeing, weaving, macramé, and quilting, all of which encourage a mindful approach, and a way to experience a feeling of “flow”. Make unique things for yourself and your home, using natural materials such as wool, cotton, linen, and leather. Clare is a believer in making new things from old, using what you have, and adapting old fabrics to counteract a throwaway society, and all her designs have a Scandinavian-inspired, modern esthetic.

Classic and innovative hands-on projects for kids ages 3 and up designed to teach both heritage skills and how to think creatively. Handcraft is part of human nature: we build, we create, we innovate. The 20+ projects in this book from an experienced art educator weave a story of human innovation and creativity, from the very beginnings of building shelters in the woods to tinkering with recycled materials. Heritage skills teach children how to be independent and capable makers; fiber and wood projects offer rewarding crafts that also teach planning, preparation, and safe risk taking; and tinkering activities connect the low-tech process of making and doing with innovation. From soap carving and knot tying to building toy cars and junk robots, this book brings the fun of making things with your hands to young kids and links skills of the past with the present. The book also explores how to set up a maker space and teaches foundational workshop practices that can easily be applied to the home studio. Each project offers extensions for different ages and abilities and provides guiding questions to enrich the experience for both the maker (teacher/parent) and the apprentice (child) to encourage and celebrate creative, practical play.

Picture a throng of tiny devils and angels, or a marching band so small it can fit in the palm of your hand. In a Mixtec town in the Mexican state of Puebla, craftspeople have been weaving palm since before the Spanish Conquest, but over the past forty years that art has become more finely tuned and has won national acceptance in a market nostalgic for an authentic Indian past. In this book, Katrin Flechsig offers the first in-depth ethnographic and historical examination of the miniature palm craft industry, taking readers behind the scenes of craft production in order to explain how and why these folk arts have undergone miniaturization over the past several decades. In describing this "Lilliputization of Mexico," she discusses the appeal of miniaturization, revealing how such factors as tourism and the construction of national identity have contributed to an ongoing demand for the tiny creations. She also contrasts the playfulness of the crafts with the often harsh economic and political realities of life in the community. Flechsig places the crafts of Chigmecatitlán within the contexts of manufacturing, local history, religion, design and technique, and selling. She tells how innovation is introduced into the craft, such as through the modification of foreign designs in response to market demands. She also offers insights into capitalist penetration of folk traditions, the marketing of folk arts, and economic changes in modern Mexico. And despite the fact that the designations "folk" and "Indian" help create a romantic fiction surrounding the craft, Flechsig dispels common misperceptions of the simplicity of this folk art by revealing the complexities involved in its creation. More than thirty illustrations depict not only finished miniatures but also the artists and their milieu. Today miniatures serve not only the tourist market; middle-class Mexicans also collect miniatures to such an extent that it has been termed a national pastime. Flechsig’s work opens up this miniature world and shows us the extent to which it has become a lasting and important facet of contemporary Mexican culture.