Arts and Crafts

Activity to keep the children from killing each other at summer camp by having them produce crafts. In the days where consumerism was merely rampant instead of pervasive, it had the added benefit of producing souvenirs.

Give me a puzzle, a marker, a ball of yarn or some glitter and glue, make me worry no more.

We know what this entails, we know the time. One hour or more of what they call creativity, we know better, rather structured and obscured. This is no secret. We are not artists but cannot admit it. Although we want to believe it's just something to do, it has become an epithet, a pejorative term, something we do to forget while the part of us underneath remembers. Give me a project. Look what I made.

This is not art, this is distraction

Spend part of your day sorting tiles, tying knots, stringing beads. Ojo de Dios. Think about the knots. Think about the watercolor no time to think about the evil. Hang the woven yarn above your bed that is God's eye watching you. Hang the painted plastic from the window to catch the sunlight, why? I need that sunlight a lot more than it does.

we remedy the symptoms while waiting for the cure
yes this is needed.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a “solid and functional approach” to design and architecture. Largely based on the notion that good craftsmanship was necessary in providing quality decoration, William Morris, a major player in the movement, believed it also to be a “social program.” The primarily British and Scottish movement stresses an honesty in the expression of materials and the importance of functional architecture. In addition to Morris, other key architects and designers included Philip Webb, Charles Annesley Voysey, Richard Norman Shaw and Sir Edward Lutyens. Important buildings include Philip Webb’s Red House, Deanery Garden and Viceroy’s House.