The World of Crafts

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Traditionally the crafts are divided into five categories: clay, fiber, glass, metal, and wood. Some of the crafts are difficult to place, for example beadworking in Cameroon, where gourds, jewelry, wooden stools, sculptures, flywhisks, toys, baskets, and sculptures are some of the items that are covered with beads. Stone and bone carving do not seem to fit either. Those were put in the "other" category.

There are a few books devoted to crafts as compared with books about art. The following books present a reasonably good introduction to different crafts:
A Short History of Glass, by Chloe Zerwick is a survey of glass production from pre-Roman times to the present.
Furniture: A Concise History, by Edward Lucie-Smith covers the period from ancient Egypt to the present.
Textiles: Five Thousand Years, edited by Jennifer Harris is an excellent textile history survey.
Ten Thousand Years of Pottery, by Emmanuel Cooper.
Jewelry: From Antiquity to the Present by Clare Phillips is a very good overview of the subject.

Links:
Crafts of Cameroon
Akan metal casting, textiles, woodcarving, pottery
Adire African Textiles
Polaroid transfer
Carol Ventura's Professional Page
Mathematics, Art, and All That

Last updated on January 26, 2008, maintained by Andrzej Gutek, photographs by Carol Ventura