SOME YEARS AGO I visited my sister, who was in the middle of hosting a crotchet group. Half a dozen women sat around her living room, beavering away with their wool and needles.
One woman was crotcheting a version of a photograph of her granddaughter. The original photograph was poorly taken, with half the girl’s face in shadow. But the woman was reproducing it as accurately as she could, shadow and all.
And that’s because she was making a craft work, not an artwork. Crafts are all about the technique. But art, if it has a purpose at all, is to tell you something you didn’t already know: art expands your horizons. Crafts merely decorate your room.
