Page 196 - Constructing Craft

Kiln building in the mid-1970s at Craft Potters. Photo: Julie Warren.

Technology

The history of craft has often been portrayed in terms of this uneasy relationship

between craftspeople and technology. The enduring nature of this unease is
evident, even in more recent times, in the statement made by Richard Sennett, a

commentator on contemporary technology, in 2008.

The greatest dilemma faced by the modern artisan-craftsman is the
machine. Is it a friendly tool or an enemy replacing work of the human
hand? In the economic history of skilled manual labor, machinery that
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began as a friend has often ended up as an enemy.

For earlier craft movements – such as the Arts and Crafts Movement – the machine
was to be treated with caution, if not outright contempt ‒ handmade/good, machine-

made/bad. This simplistic construction was formed as a result of the belief that the
pre-industrial crafts of the medieval period were of a higher quality than factory-

made items. However, as we saw in Chapter One, we cannot compare medieval

craft, where everything was made by hand, with modern machine-made items
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because it was mostly the items made for the rich in medieval times that survived.

Craftspeople, both during the Arts and Crafts movement and the studio craft

movement, had a tendency to focus their criticism on machinery when, in fact, what
may have enraged many was the pervasiveness of technology in a wider sense. As

Constructing Craft