Howard Risattis A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression details the boundries between what is useful and expressive of human endeavor in craft, what is merely aesthetic or expressive in art and what is merely useful in industry.
Thomas Moore wrote an interesting dialogue inspired very much in the essence of Platos Republic, called Utopia, and hence set down low-tech rules for a sustainable community, making use of everything, even criminals, in complete self-reliance, a place where craft was essential to survival.
It is true that we no longer live in a society where craft is essential to survival, as we have the industrialized era of disposable products and then apart, we also have the realm of art that satisfies our need for expression.
But something was lost when we lost craft, we lost the self-expression of that which has a functionality, quality and is non-disposable, we lost sustainability.
Due to their quality, crafts may not be a consumers paradise, but they are the sustainable paradise as they use the minimum energy required to be manufactured, energy that is more than abundantly repaid throughout the life-expectancy of the product and most importantly, they express human endeavor in ways that art itself cannot, nor ever will and that is functionality.
This 352-page hardcover, written by Howard Risatti, forward by Kenneth R. Trapp, published by The University of North Carolina Press, in October of 2007, 44 illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, measuring 5 ¾ x 9 ¼and shipping at 1.4 pounds.
As we become a more sustainable society, we need to value the common craftsman and craftswoman for what they are, useful artists, very different from the artist or the industrialized products with the same uses.
A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression is a book that gives clear focus for understanding the role of the craftsman and craftswoman for a more self-reliant reality that resurrects the marriage of the useful and the expressive of human endeavor; once known as craft, can once again bring us a sustainable society that values itself and the environment.
