Slow craft

One of the blogs that I read daily is In A Minute Ago. It's a fiber arts blog and this post is about something mentioned on there, but please don't turn away, even if you're not a fiber artist. This doesn't apply just to fiber arts only. The specific thing mentioned on that post is "slow cloth" but this is relevant across the arts and crafts fields, really. If you don't care about the cloth part, fine, scroll down to the bottom. I've talked to people. I know that a lot of people feel the same way as me in what I'm about to talk about.

Sharon, of In A Minute Ago, recently posted a post about "Slow Cloth" but also called it "Slow Craft". And here's the gist of this: what has happened recently is that craft has become cool. BUT a lot of people take this in the same way they take the rest of their lives: in a very hurried pace. What this means is that we're seeing the proliferation of "Last minute handmade gifts - in 15 minutes!!!" kits. The person goes out, buys a kit, and makes the same exact thing that fifty other people made. Most of them change NOTHING and very little thought is put into this. Now, if a craft truly only takes fifteen minutes, but you selected the parts yourself and truly thought about what the person you are giving it to would like (or, if not got a gift, something you'd love to have), I think that could probably be considered slow craft. What we're talking about here is pre-made, might as well have bought you that ever-present butter-cheese-caramel-popcorn-in-a-tin kits. Where very little thought or time commitment is involved on your part. Slow Craft is the opposite of this.

“Do you think we need a craft philosophy that celebrates the handcrafted object made with care and meaning without regard to time?” - pulled from Sharon's blog.

Yes, frankly, I do.

For instance, one of my big pet peeves is Scrapbookers. (I've instantly gotten myself hated by a lot of people, I know, but this is how I feel and I'm not afraid to say it.) I'm not talking about people who make real scrapbooks. I'm talking about someone who announces herself (it's usually a her - though there are men who do this) as a Scrapbooker and goes to her Scrapbooking meetings and groups where they all make the exact same layout. Or worse, she goes to the Scrapbooking store and buys a completely pre-made layout, takes two minutes to shove it in her scrapbook, and then sticks the appropriate picture in the appropriate box. I even saw one that, in the white space where the photo goes, said "INSERT PICTURE OF SON PLAYING FAVORITE SPORT HERE." Ok. How much less thought do you need? ARGH. I remember when scrapbooks were exactly that - books of scraps. You had pictures in there, sure, but you also wrote little bits, and attached memorabilia, ticket stubs, playbills, maybe the napkin from your wedding, or a small map of where you went - even if it was just your route from home to work - and various other things that had meaning to you. Things nobody even thinks of putting in their scrapbook anymore. If I never saw one of those "Scrapbooks" again, it would be too soon. Why do people even bother? Why don't they just stick the picture in an album? Or, even better, why don't they design a page THEMSELVES, without the use of premade pages and die cuts? Maybe even, I dunno, make their own background? What bothers me the most is that these people who put so little thought into it suddenly call themselves "Very Creative". Argh. These people COULD be being creative. It isn't hard. But, instead, encouraged by the idea that these things are creative, they stick with that. They don't expand. I'm frustrated for them.

It isn't so much about the time, but about the thought behind it.

And, if you're wondering where the term "slow cloth" came from, it follows in the tradition of Slow Food.