Marcia Santore - Craft Artists: A Practical Career Guide

EDITORIAL BOARD

Eric Evitts has been working with teens in the high school setting for twenty-three years. Most of his career has dealt with getting teens, especially at-risk students, to find and follow a career path of interest. He has developed curriculum for Frederick County Public Schools focusing on antibullying and career development. He is currently a counselor at South Hagerstown High School.

Danielle Irving-Johnson , MA, EdS, is currently the career services specialist at the American Counseling Association. She exercises her specialty in career counseling by providing career guidance, services, and resources designed to encourage and assist students and professionals in obtaining their educational, employment, and career goals while also promoting the importance of self-care, wellness, work-life balance, and burnout prevention. Danielle has also previously served as a mental health counselor and clinical intake assessor in community agency settings assisting diverse populations with various diagnoses.

Joyce Rhine Shull , BS, MS, is an active member of the Maryland Association of Community Colleges Career Affinity Group and the Maryland Career Development Association. She presently serves as an academic adviser in higher education, and teaches Professionalism in the Workplace as an adjunct professor. Her experience also includes two decades of management and career education of vocational courses and seminars for high school students.

Lisa Adams Somerlot is the president of the American College Counseling Association and also serves as director of counseling at the University of West Georgia. She has a PhD in counselor education from Auburn University and is a licensed professional counselor in Georgia and a nationally approved clinical supervisor. She is certified in Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Strong Interest Inventory, and Strengths Quest administration.

CRAFT ARTISTS

PRACTICAL CAREER GUIDES
Series Editor: Kezia Endsley

Computer Game Development & Animation , by Tracy Brown Hamilton

Craft Artists , by Marcia Santore

Culinary Arts , by Tracy Brown Hamilton
Dental Assistants and Hygienists , by Kezia Endsley
Education Professionals , by Kezia Endsley
Fine Artists , by Marcia Santore
First Responders , by Kezia Endsley
Health and Fitness Professionals , by Kezia Endsley
Information Technology (IT) Professionals , by Erik Dafforn
Medical Office Professionals , by Marcia Santore
Skilled Trade Professionals , by Corbin Collins

Published by Rowman & Littlefield
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Copyright 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Santore, Marcia, 1960author.

Title: Craft artists : a practical career guide / Marcia Santore.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2020] | Series: Practical career guides | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: Craft Artists: A Practical Career Guide includes interviews with professionals in the following fields. Tattoo Artists; Ceramic Artists; Glass blowers; Blacksmiths; Jewelers; Woodworkers Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019038957 (print) | LCCN 2019038958 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538134306 (paperback) | ISBN 9781538134313 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: HandicraftVocational guidance. | Decorative artsVocational guidance.

Classification: LCC TT149 .S36 2020 (print) | LCC TT149 (ebook) | DDC 745.5023dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038957
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038958

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Being a craft artist means making things that are both beautiful and useful. Studio-Annika/Getty Images

C raft artists have the joy of creating beautiful, well made, aesthetically pleasing objects that are also useful. Craft artists may be small businessper-sons or may work for small or large companies. If you love to work with your hands and create unique things, then craft art may be for you.

There is something deeply satisfying in shaping something with your hands. Proper artificing is like a song made solid. It is an act of creation.Patrick Rothfuss

A craft artistor artisanis someone who makes one-of-a-kind, unique objects that are beautifully constructed by hand. The term craft implies something that is well made by hand, has a use beyond an aesthetic one, is unique or made in small quantities, and is more special than something produced in a factory.

Craft artists primarily use natural materialssuch as wood, clay, fiber, metal, or foodstuffsand turn them into useful and unique things. Some crafts are taught in art schools or college and university art departments; others are learned by working with a master artisan to learn the techniques, rules, traditions, and business of that particular craft.

Creativity is very important to a career as a craft artist, but it takes more than good ideas. It takes knowledge of your craft and what others who are pursuing it are doing to move the craft forward. Many people begin a craft art career as a hobby. In order to be good enough at your craft to do it professionally, youll need to work hard to develop and improve your skills, to understand your materials, and know what others are accomplishing in the same craft. Youll also need to understand your business, and to develop a workable plan to build a clientele and market your finished products.

The term craftsmanship speaks to skill in a particular craft, to the quality of the design and work in an object that is made by hand by someone who knows what theyre doing. Of course, the term craftsman also refers to women, so craftsperson and artisan may both be better terms to use when talking about people. But the concept of craftsmanship as a mark of quality is so well established that the term continues to be used to mean both men and women.

Craftsmanship is the quality that comes from creating with passion, care, and attention to detail. It is a quality that is honed, refined, and practiced over the course of a career.Richard Glover

According to Todd Oppenheimer and his team at the Craftsmanship Initiative,

At its base, the term craftsmanship describes an object that has been made with the highest quality, by someone who fully understands the materials and techniques involved. On a higher level, craftsmanship is defined by the values that such work requires, such as precision, integrity, and durabilitytoday more often called sustainability. These principles apply to any pursuit, from fashion to farming, from film to physics.