Cloth weaving cloth, clay shaping clay: Toward a religion of beauty (or folkcrafts as a way of dwelling poetically)

Prompted by Heidegger\u27s search for great art in the modern times, this paper looks into crafts as answering the philosopher\u27s frustrated call. Using Soetsu Yanagi\u27s idea of a religion of beauty, which turns to the ordinary as beautiful, it suggests that crafts - carefully made by hand while considering its affinity with nature and the human body that uses it - is a way of being, the way Heidegger described the way of dwelling poetically. Copyright 2012. C & E Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved