The Shape of Craft

To say that there, today, is increased interest in craft in large parts of the Western world is superfluous. Craft is today present in such different contexts as big influential art shows such as Documenta or the Venice Biennale, or in your local coffee chain where you can most likely purchase a generic cookie stating that it is handmade. It is an interest that has been around for quite some time and is also something that can be found in academic contexts. Perhaps the best example of this, in an Anglo-Saxon milieu, is the Journal of Modern Craft. It was founded in 2008 with the aim of reflecting the complex role of craft beyond traditional material-based understandings. Instead, the journal editors wanted to strive towards an understanding of craft in a broader cultural landscape where it could ‘just be as relevant to artists, architects, designers, politicians and philosophers as it is to artisans’.1 It is here, in a situation of rereading craft, taking it out of the comfortable corner with a pre-understanding of what craft means and does, that Ezra Shales’s The Shape of Craft should be read. Shales is currently Professor of the History of Art at Massachusetts College of Art and has, for many years, been a strong and unique voice in formulating the complexity of craft.