A New Craft History Paradigm

This article is presented in two parts. Part I is an overview of the sea change in craft studies among scholars, curators, and artists. It also documents the shift of craft history studies into an emerging post-disciplinary field, still at home academically in art schools and university art history departments, but now greatly influenced by anthropology, ethnography, sociology, material culture, critical theory, women’s studies, and other disciplines. In illustrating this shift, the author compares her experience when employed (1976–1997) as museum librarian at the former Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles with the current program of the renamed (Craft Contemporary) museum. She also compares three craft history textbooks. Part II describes the author’s search for teachers of craft history and records the results of a survey conducted in May 2021 of twenty-eight craft history teachers in US and Canadian colleges. The comments are so diverse the author could not summarize them, and she includes excerpts from all who answered the narrative questions. Though gender and race bias in craft studies must still be confronted, as in art history studies as a whole, the teaching of craft history is moving toward a global perspective. However, the practical need to break down the global into more manageable parts is a pedagogical and bibliographic challenge.