craft

[keryx]

There is a lot of "folk art" in Amish country that I think of as akin to simple life porn. Like, look at the cute leetle girl in her bonnet with her fuzzy animal! How quaint that she won't go to school beyond 8th grade! It just feels exploitative.

So, I think of all cultural fixation on things Mennonite and Shaker and whatnot as sort of a pornography of simplicity. But there may be more to it - that there's something in this other culture that appeals to our idea of ourselves as living more shallow, technical lives than we want. And maybe we'd like a little more slowness, a little more craft. To be able to spend months with our family sewing a quilt or something.

Cause as a culture we don't really allow for much craft. There's very little interpretation of our own work (not just our jobs, but all work we do) or others' as the work of craftsfolk. Can you even imagine a culture where table bussers and cashiers and computer programmers were all expected to think of their jobs as a meaningful craft - something they could perfect and control? I think that'd be swell.

Comments

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I think feminists make that assumption out of privilege. Some paid work is structured to be meaningful and rewarding, and I think the battle to include women in the workforce was meant to include us in that happy workforce (one reserved mostly for women with a degree of privilege), not the actual drudgery that work becomes for a lot of folks.

I love craft blogs and DIY bloggers in general (zinesters' websites are often brilliant little zine creations themselves). But all work could be like that with the right structure for it.

[libskrat]

True, but there's another aspect to it also. A few of us find the work involved in childrearing to be astounding drudgery. Only we're not allowed to admit it, 'cuz then we're eeeeEEEEEEeeeeeeevil.

I'm evil, by the way. :)

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Valid point. I guess I should say all work could be meaningful and rewarding for someone who wants and freely chooses it. That's a key part of the childrearing discussion that gets left out a lot.