craft

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The creation or decoration of handmade artefacts with a practical purpose, using technical skill and manual dexterity. Crafts may be culture specific, such as Sioux beadwork in American Indian art. Pottery, weaving, basketry, paper work, woodworking, and the manufacture of jewellery and stained glass are considered traditional crafts, many of which can be traced back thousands of years. The difference between craft and objects of ‘fine art’ lies in both the artist's intent and in the object's functionality. The line between fine art and craft is ever changing, and today many educators and art historians refuse to place works into such narrow categories.

Tension has sometimes arisen between those ‘artists’ who consider their work more expressive and cultured, and ‘crafts people’, who do not regard their work as purely functional. The reputation of craft began to deteriorate following the Industrial Revolution, when machines began to mass produce furniture, silverware, glass, and other previously handcrafted items. Efforts to revive the crafts during this era included the 19th-century Arts and Crafts Movement.

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