craft in America

I finally got a chance to see the PBS series Craft in America. I was so sorry that I missed it when it originally aired. The topic is one close to my heart not just because of the work that I do, but because of the craft world I grew up in. My parents became involved, very young in the reemerging craft world of the seventies. My dad worked as a traditional blacksmith for a very long time. The smell of coal still immediately takes me back to the forge where he worked when I was little. This was my dad's day job. To make extra money as young newlyweds my parents managed a variety of food related businesses within the very large craft show that friends had began. Everyone we knew was involved my grandparents, aunts and uncles and most friends of the family. Our family history is full of stories like "The year the pancake booth caught on fire".

Later my mom began making hatboxes. She had a tiny spot in our tiny laundry room with a tiny black and white TV, where she would work when she wasn't chasing after my brother who was a toddler at the time or when she wasn't at her regular job. My parents were very interested in the Shakers and my dad began learning how to make Shaker boxes, working in the basement where the ceiling clearance wasn't much more than his height of 6 feet. Slowly he began to work on more and more complicated projects, eventually creating beautiful furniture pieces.



The shows we did were often based on colonial and traditional crafts so they usually involved colonial costumes. As a little girl obsessed with Little House on The Prairie, this was fine by me. I feel pretty certain that all the years spent around reenactors and other crafts people obsessed with historic accuracy had a lot to do with me choosing History as a major so many years later.

I think it's so interesting what an integral part of life craft is. The social role it plays is astounding. Before craft blogs or dare I say, the internet, the craftsmen looked forward to the craft shows where they could swap gossip and gain inspiration from one another. I suspect that this social connection is why my grandmother at the age of 81 still manages the Commissary at one of the largest craft shows in the country. I also think it gives my parents a great deal of pleasure to see that my generation is picking up where they left off and reinventing what craft means.