A reliquary

This was the first project I made while studying woodworking. It is made of Walnut, Holly, and Ebony.  It is based on traditional Italian reliquaries and Byzantine architecture.


I was considerably less educated in the philosophy of craft when I made this piece than I am now, and I consider it more of a work of art than a work of craft. It is art with an incredibly complex and difficult process of making.

does being made of wood with traditional joinery make a piece craft? or is the soul of craft somewhere else? somewhere more esoteric, somewhere we've lost sight of.

In a broad stroke I would define Craft as "the synthesis of Art and Labor"

Yanagi Sōetsu defines Craft this way:

"Things made to be used by people in daily life, such as clothes and furniture. Something different from fine arts, such as pictures made to look at"

He goes on to distinguish two different kinds of Craft: Folkcrafts and Artist crafts.

Folkcrafts:

"Unself-consciously handmade and unsigned for the people by the people, cheaply and in quantity," 

Artist Crafts:

“made by a few, for a few, at a high price. Consciously made and signed.” 

What is Craft?

What is Craft?

What has Craft been in the past? 

In a world so dominated by mass production and centralized industry the concept of traditional folkcrafts as defined by William Morris and Yanagi Soetsu is dead, and that is mostly because there are so few people who remember that definition. 
This blog hopes to explore where their definition came from, and where it has gone, to the end of increasing our understanding of what fine Craft can and should be, from aesthetics to philosophy.


I am a woodworking student at the Vermont Woodworking School in Fairfax Vermont, and I am not a craftsman as I would define it in the traditional sense.