Arts and Crafts: The Healing Force

As Tim Yanke quoted, “There is life in movement, death in stagnation. I approach every painting with the idea that I want that painting to continuously move.” The country is so wounded, bleeding, hurt, and haplessly approaching to death right now. The country needs crusade to continue life—it’s not going to be healed by the upperclassmen and other earthly things. How are we going to give life? Arts and crafts are embedded in our life for as long as humanity has existed. What’s a good thing about arts and crafts is that it upholds the strengthening and development of the frontal cortex - the hub or center of creativity in the brain. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. Furthermore, it makes extensive and essential contributions to the well-being of communities. They are prevailing tools with which to engage communities in various levels of change. They are a means to public dialogue, contribute to the development of a community’s creative learning, create healthy communities capable of action, provide a powerful tool for community mobilization and activism, and help build community capacity and leadership. Even though they already know these aforementioned things, there are still various people who are wondering the genesis of arts and crafts. How did it come along the way? Where does it originate? Who influenced? So, to answer those queries, there is so called the “Arts and Crafts Movement”- initially developed in England during the latter half of the 19th century wherein, this movement, challenged the tastes of the Victorian era, was inspired by the social reform concerns of thinkers such as Walter Crane and John Ruskin, together with

the ideals of reformer and designer, William Morris. Those people were some of the first major critics of the Industrial Revolution. They were united not so much by a style rather than the common goal- a desire to break down the hierarchy of the arts and to revive traditional handicrafts and cake art that could be enjoyed by the consumers and the creator as well.

Their notions of good design were linked to their notions of a good society. This was a vision of a society in which the worker was not brutalized by the working conditions found in factories, but rather could take pride in his craftsmanship and skill. Ruskin, Morris, and others proposed that it would be better for all if individual craftsmanship could be revived-- the worker could then produce beautiful objects that exhibited the result of fine craftsmanship, as opposed to the shoddy products of mass production. Thus the goal was to create design that was... "for the people and by the people, and a source of pleasure to the maker and the user." Workers could produce beautiful objects that would enhance the lives of ordinary people, and at the same time provide decent employment for the craftsman.

According to Ruskin, modernization is the root of social evil. He fears about the loss of traditional handicrafts and traditional skills through modernization. In this movement, controversy was raised regarding how concrete it could be in the modern world. Furthermore, United Kingdom and United States distinguished from each other by their respective attitudes towards industrialization. Through the Europe and North America, this movement stood for anti- industrialism, while in America the ideas ever slightly different, they tended to embrace the machine more readily.

Morris embedded to us that looking back the history will served as a powerful tool for us to be inspired in creating arts and crafts. The rise of industrialization is the downfall of the movement. Because of the mere fact that they are more confident that achieving a progressive life is due to modernization, and it’s not because of looking back at the past. It seems to me

that the death of the movement is because the people were dazzled of the quantity over quality, which is certainly can be seen today. Whereas, increased of demands are not based on the quality but rather due to quantity. However, the best striking influence of this movement is the proportionality of good quality of designs to life. And now, despite of living in a modernized world, the people, and the country as well, are wounded, bleeding, hurt and approaching to death. I’d ask you, is modernization the only crusade to have life?