ABSTRACT
In the popular imagination, crafts tend to be viewed as sets of practices that involve mindless repetition and the reproduction of identical objects. In academia, too, craft is often conceptualised as lacking creativity, and therefore as being in opposition to art or design. Wood veneering, for instance, was one of the most highly valued crafts in the eighteenth century. But for Arts and Crafts theorists, the products of veneering too closely resembled the mass-produced commodities of the Industrial Age. Veneer craftsmen strove for perfection and their art concealed the rough surfaces and imperfections of timber under smooth and glossy strips of wood. A ceramic pot-in-the making will typically pass through the hands of at least two, if not more, persons. These are the worker who makes the clay body and another who typically fires and glazes the pot.
