The Dialogue Between the Craftsman and the Material - a Research of the Creating Process

When talking about craft, the perspective of creating and making is often ignored. This essay tries to find out the subjective factors that forms a woodworking process. The primary situation is the dialogue between the craftsman and the greenwood which is analysed both practical and theoretical. The practical conclusions consists in the theoretical framework. The crafting situation is based on personal thoughts and experiences. The traits of the wood should be visible in the finished object. The challenge is to adapt the possibilities of the situation, to refine the material into something better. This thoughts about creating processes based on possibilities in the surroundings, derived from the art manifest Adhocism- a Case for Improvisation, from 1972. It´s about behaving critical to progression and growth, as it means today. They exerted immediate action and therefore used local materials. They searched already existed subsystems in the surroundings and in the piece of wood. The craftsman's knowledge then becomes how to adequately distribute their time and effort. In the process of making, the craftsman oscillate between intuition and awareness. It creates a gap in between, where the craftsman is free to create. The act is directed by personal emotions, impressions and interaction with the situation. The process is driven by questions like ”what if ” or ”what might be”, like a guessing logic driven by curiosity. This is depicted like a theory of play. It has it´s own purpose in the seriousness of the game. When that decreases, it´s game over. It often happens simultaneously with the finishing of the crafted object.Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen i Kulturvård, Ledarskap i slöjd och kulturhantverk 15 hp Institutionen för kulturvård Göteborgs universitet 2014:3