About

Welcome to Craft Conscious: an ever-evolving resource for the craft curious and a meeting place for those seeking deep and broad conversations about craft objects, ideas, and makers.

This site centers feminist and anti-racist content and is informed by you, the craft community. At Craft Conscious you can find sample syllabi, reading lists, artist lists, and video mini-lectures organized around ten ideas:

Capitalism, Care, Community, Embodiment, Gender, Nature, Performance, Race, Spirituality, and Tradition.

Like most communities, Craft Conscious is imperfect and in-progress. If you would like to add to a resource, contribute a sample syllabus, or suggest a correction, please do! Email Anna at ahelgeson@warren-wilson.edu or complete our contact form.

Click here for the: Creative Mornings video about how this site came to be.

Some Questions.

Capitalism: Who profits most from the everyday objects in our home? Does the person responsible for creating the object, whose labor made it possible, have a sustainable life?

Spirituality: How can handmade objects connect us to each other and the natural world?

Race: How has the history of racialized labor, and forced free labor, impacted how we value objects?

Performance: How can some objects act as relics of a performance, evidence of a performative act? And how does this impact our relationship with time?

Embodiment: How do makers who create clothing, mugs, furniture or other objects intended for embodied engagement, consider the end users body and how does this impact empathy?

Nature:  Where are the elements of the natural world most evident in our home, how do makers need to connect, care for, and tend to natural materials to create their best work?

Gender: How does our conception of history shift when we consider objects in domestic spaces (spaces historically created by and for women) with as much thought and nuance as great works of art in marble clad museums?

Tradition: How does our relationship with the present change when we acknowledge the ever present past? When we recognize rituals, family histories, and skills passed down from generation to generation as valuable?

Care: When everyday objects have increased value how do we care for them differently? How can mending, making, and crafting contribute to self-care and why is care belittled so often in mainstream contexts?

Community: When we acknowledge that most things are made by teams of people how does this shift our view of singular genius and individuality? When makers are our neighbors, whose livelihoods depend on selling objects they’ve made, how does this change how we value objects?