Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the creativity of wood carvers. Two opposing opinions exist – some consider wood carvers to be artists and others to be craftsmen. I’ll discuss what criteria distinguish a self-taught artist from a craftsman, who determines those criteria or makes them?

Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on the creativity of wood carvers and their production. From the historical perspective, in Lithuania the wood carving constituted a branch of the wood processing craft, and its practitioners were primarily artisans seeking to make their living from this trade. No artisan worked without first receiving demand or requests. In the traditional village community creativity and craft went hand in hand. The master was both an artisan and an artist. The opposition between craft and art acquired distinct shape only in modern times.

Today in Lithuania, there are many self-taught wood carvers who make sculptures, memorial monuments, ornamented household items, interior attributes. Most of them sell their creative works, some work only if acquire orders. Some from this activity makes a living, for others it is a hobby. Many of them participates in amateur art exhibitions. Self-taught artists are united by the Lithuanian Folk Artists' Union, to which not everyone engaged in creative activities is admitted. A member must meet certain criteria. Today two opposing opinions exist in society – some consider wood carvers to be artists and others to be craftsmen. In the presentation, I’ll discuss what criteria distinguish a self-taught artist from a craftsman, who determines those criteria or makes them? Is it important for the concept of an artist that the person belongs to the Folk Artists’ Union? How to move from a craftsman to a status of the artist – following or breaking the established criteria and rules?

Paper short abstract:

Actors, whose professional work is to produce musical instruments out of wood, operate in a field of tension between norms and creativity, incorporated craft knowledge and increasing digitalization. To what extent do their actions and attitudes confirm or break the rules of their crafts:wo:manship?

Paper long abstract:

The demands on the production of wooden musical instruments are reflected in conflicting ideals: Is the perfect violin the one that comes closest to a Stradivari? Or is it necessary to get over traditional rules and develop new models? The making of wooden musical instruments is oriented towards a perfect sound and form. As a result, the canonized standards and one's own creativity mark two poles of the crafts:wo:menship which become even sharper in face of an increasing competition between hand-made and CNC-made products – a tendency that applies to the woodworking crafts in general, but is particularly evident in regard to musical instrument making in which the incorporated knowledge is shaped as an interaction of hand, brain, eye and ear.

This paper focuses on the everyday practices and self-interpretations of violin and recorder makers and follows the questions: How do craftspersons in pursuit of their (own) ideal position themselves in the field of tension between traditional norms and own creativity, between incorporated craft knowledge and increasing digitalization? To what extent do they hereby break or confirm the rules of crafts:wo:menship in making wooden musical instrument? To answer these questions, the paper deciphers practices, interpretations, risks, and (individual) ideals of actors in the contrasting fields of professional making of violins (where competition among the craftspersons is particularly high) and recorders (where digital-technical standards are widely used) and argues on an empirical basis by analysing observations in craft businesses and interviews with craftspersons.

Paper short abstract:

Rules are patiently observed untill they are finally overcome, annihilated. Technical achievement in Jian Zhan traditional pottery is tacit, observed, latent, inscribed on the body and action of the performer, who is not following the rules of the canon of his art for he naturalized them.

Paper long abstract:

Jian Zhan pottery in Xiong Zhong Gui's workshop in Shuiji zhen, North Fujian Province, is a union of everyday rituals performed by skilled practitioners who have mastered their own phase of work. They have been trained, through imitation and repetition of gestures and acts, untill they have naturalized and incarnated those technical procedures. During the wearing hours of work they dedicate total, deep concentration on their making, that resembles a long performance of aptitude and dexterity. The process of enskilment, dwelling in a certain environment, responsibility for their work, inscribed as it is inside a tradition of which they are aware, even though they themselves reveal only a few words to the anthropologist, these processes are manifest in their total subtraction from the society to which their families belong: temporally for some, spatially for others.

They do not follow rules because they are inserted into a consciousness, into a self-sustaining economy of the workshop in which there are no rules but tacit knowledge, silent acceptance of destiny and heritage continuity, so they have to adapt their performances to this situation and make their own schedule, organize their work. The Master of the workshop's guidance is silent and pervasive, but latent. He is the founder of the workshop, the repository of that specific tradition, the conveyor of technical secrets that make this pottery style unique, primus inter pares. The study of the chaine operatoire of Jian Zhan is relevant for an understanding of creativity, standardization of art and chinese society itself.

Paper short abstract:

Ethnography of skill is a method to analyze the skill of craft makers in artefacts. The knowledge base and interpretations are derived from tacit, experimental and verbal knowledge contained in the research data, of the researcher and the interaction between them.

Paper long abstract:

Skills are learned culturally in interaction with the social and ecological environment. Craft skills are largely based on experiment and sensory based tacit knowledge which can be observed in the process of making, as well as in the end products. Museum artefacts act as silent witnesses of their maker’s craft skill and creativity. They also create the image of tradition and represent power in the choices they make about what is deemed worthy of preserving in the collections and what is left out.

It is relevant to ask, what does the skill museum artefact represent reveal of the rules by which they were selected to the collections? And further on, how can the skill museum artefacts represent be analyzed? These questions are answered by using the ethnography of skill where the knowledge base and interpretations are derived from tacit, experimental and verbal knowledge contained in the research data, of the researcher and the interaction between them.

The research data consists of 110 knitted mittens dating from 1876 to 1969 in the collections of the National Museum of Finland and experiences of knitting the copies of museum mittens that reflect the sensory experiences of knitters both in the past and in the present. As a sideline of research the research process raised autoethnographical observations of how today’s knitter experiences the creative aspects of knitting.

Paper short abstract:

Within the ethnographic record, metalworking has been cross-culturally attested as typically male expertise. In this contribution, the organization of metalworking as (male?) craft expertise will be discussed through historical anthropology and prehistoric archaeological data.

Paper long abstract:

In the Aegean prehistory, during the Early Bronze Age, in particular, metal objects have long been studied as markers of rank, craft specialization, and socio-political change. A prominent prehistoric archaeologist of his time, Gordon Childe, claimed that the first smiths were the first to abandon kinship ties. According to him, male itinerant smiths worked in exchange for shelter and food and were the first independent craftsmen. New data emerging from excavations of settlement in Early Bronze Age western Anatolia and eastern Aegean, however, shed new light onto craft specialization and early metalworking in this region and period. In this contribution, the organization of metalworking as (male?) craft expertise will be discussed through historical anthropology and prehistoric archaeological data.

At the Early Bronze Age settlement of Çukuriçi Höyük in western Anatolia, metal production was not only attested in single workshops but was overall village expertise. At this site, metalworking was associated with other domestic activities, within houses. The Early Bronze Age settlement of Çukuriçi Höyük, therefore, provides evidence for metalworking as a part-time, generalized craft, that was integrated into the domestic mode of production. At Çukuriçi Höyük, metalworking cannot be understood as typically a male craft, commonly identified as such within the ethnographic record. Instead, metalworking at this site appears to cross-cut gender and age differences within and between houses. As this contribution shows, metalworking at Çukuriçi Höyük may not have led to the abandonment of kinship ties but their reinforcement, through cooperation and knowledge sharing between houses.