what_is_craft epitome of incomprehensibility As alluded to in dream_crafts, there was a real discussion in my artisan committee about what counts as a craft. One person said that a current member shouldn't have been allowed to sell mosaics made with tiny sticker gems because those came from a pattern. "It's like paint-by-numbers," she said. This started an argument in my head. See, I liked the mosaics; even if they were from patterns, they took a lot of work, and I'm friendly with the artisan in question. On the other hand, don't I think originality is important? If I were doing that, I'd make up my own mosaic designs. But for beading, don't we follow templates too? When I made my bead people ("perlesonnages"), I took a pattern from Beadlings, a Klutz kids' book, before branching off my own way...lengthening the arms, adding spring-rings to the top to make pendants, using larger diamond-shaped beads for some skirts so that they'd interlock... I kept silent, not thinking it worth disturbing the peace, but my brain came down on the side of "Following patterns is OK, so let's not be too picky about this - as long as we don't let people sell stuff they don't actually make. Especially Tupperware, because that's boring." 220718 ... e_o_i I did go to a craft show once where someone was selling Tupperware! Which might have been useful if I needed containers, but kind of detracted from the crafty atmosphere, in my view. So I'm in favour of a sell-stuff-you-make-yourself policy for the local craft group I'm with, but I don't really care to split hairs on what counts as craft. She questions herself: should I care? I mean, my partner specializes in aesthetic philosophy. Then again, I was a TA for Sociolinguistics last term, and my reaction to a recent French/English kerfluffle in Quebec was "It doesn't matter THAT much which language you speak. It's all language." 220722 what's it to you? who go blather from