AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE EXISTENCE OF ART, ART/CRAFT, AND CRAFT SEGMENT AMONG CRAFT MEDIA WORKERS

Abstract

In the last twenty years there has been a dramatic resurgence in the creation, sales, -and use of hand-crafted objects in the United States. However, the craft media workers of today no longer serve their local community creating utilitarian objects, but work in diverse styles according to diverse standards. Becker (1978) has proposed that three largely distinct segments exist among craft media workers: an art segment, an art/craft segment, and a craft segment. These segments can be distinguished from each other by their differing conventions and orientations. These conventions and orientations then serve as the basis for cooperative activity and result in the segments not only creating different styles of objects but with different institutional links and audiences. This study, utilizing data from a national survey of craft media workers conducted for the National Endowment for the Arts, tests Becker's propositions by examining whether craft media workers who have different conventions and orientations constitute different segments having different training, involvements, markets, goals, satisfactions, and problems.