Page 208 - Constructing Craft

education, by changes in the economy, and by the new ways that ‘craft art’ was

being marketed. Increasingly, as the graduates of the new craft design courses
emerged with their diplomas and degrees, they were as likely to set up their studio

in a city as in the countryside, they looked no different to other young art students –
as in fact had been the case with the generation of craftspeople that came before

them – and they welcomed new technology. With the increasing numbers of
craftspeople and the associated increase in supplies of craft, new outlets

proliferated in towns and cities. Buyers could now choose from a range of

craftworks produced by many craftspeople. Where once trips to the countryside to
see craftspeople living and working were a part of a ‘cultural’ experience, now city

dwellers could visit galleries to ‘invest’ in craft art. In Bourdieuian terms, there was

more symbolic and cultural capital to be acquired in the cities and the work was
valued most was more ‘art-like’.

Constructing Craft