Craft Activities Research Articles

The Emergence of Industrial Districts in Mid-Nineteenth Century Baltimore

A MARKED transition in form and function accompanied the rapid population growth in several North American cities during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Although commerce continued to dominate the urban economy, new types and organizational forms of manufacturing increasingly assumed important roles.1 Such developments generally altered or even displaced some traditional crafts in the manufacturing and occupational structures.2 At the same time, unprecedented numbers of German and Irish immigrants arrived in the cities. Despite innovations in intracity transportation, the alterations in scale, function, and population composition occurred without commensurate changes in the mode of urban movement, and the big cities remained essentially pedestrian at mid century.3 This combination of events resulted in urban areas with a geography that was transitional between the early mercantile city and the later turn-of-the-century industrial metropolis.4 In characteristics such as population size and composition, emergence of large-scale and producer-goods' manufacturing, and embryonic phases of commuting, the mid-century city displayed industrial form. In characteristics such as dominance of commerce and pedestrian movement, persistence of some craft activities, and general heterogeneity of land use, the American city was still mercantile. The geography of the mid-century transitional city is not clearly understood. Conventional descriptions of a congested, heterogeneous urban landscape frequently rest on impressionistic surveys of contemporary data and confusing, often imprecise, sketches of change. Indeed, interpretations of the transformation of the mercantile city into the industrial metropolis understate the patterns and processes of the transition that, by encompassing decades of change, comprises a period of urban experience capable of influencing the subsequent industrial one.5 The early industrialization of some sectors of production, by involving large numbers of people and sizeable parcels of land, contributed to the evolution of a mid-nineteenth-century urban structure. In this paper, the location of all industrial activities in 1860 for the

From Craft to Art

The paper studies popular music as a production process and delineates the varieties of its social organization. It explores the problems endemic to the collaborative nature of the production process and examines in detail the job experiences of one collaborator in particular, the sound mixer, during a period when craft activities were being transformed into artistic activities.

Gurensi Basketry and Pottery

Among the Frafra of northeastern Ghana, the dry season is a time of considerable craft activity. The Frafra, who live in and around Bolgatanga, can be divided into three ethnic groups: Gurensi, Tallensi and Nabdam. Although all three groups engage in craft production, the Gurensi are the most industrious and artistically caried. In fact, about 40 percent of the adult Gurensi population is engaged in one way or another in the manufacture or sale of baskets, bags, fans, smocks, leather products, pots or carved calabashes. These items are made for both local consumption and for export, in which case they supplement the subsistence economy of the area. In this article, the most wide-

WHY ART EDUCATION FOR THE ELDERLY BLIND?

The primary eye diseases causing blindness are of a relatively geriatric nature, and therefore the various rehabilitation centers attempting to counsel and aid newly blind persons find they must cope also with the characteristic problems of the elderly. Identification and analysis of the types of problems this population encounters, through literature on the topic and observation, leads one to the unexpected conclusion that art can play an essential role in the amelioration of these problems. Art and craft activities can provide a process of self‐analysis for therapy toward adjustment; inculcate beneficial attitudes such as flexibility, sensitivity, and independence; and offer aesthetic and social satisfactions to help replace others that have been lost. Thus we must preserve for the blind those asepcts of art that are still accessible to them and nurture their experience in artistic endeavors for education, adjustment, and satisfaction through art.

Art therapy for the drug addict

THERE is hardly a field for the application of art psychotherapy today, of more urgent importance than the readjustment of the drug addict. The sudden, almost vehement, wave of drug abuse, especially among American teenagers and young adults, has placed the task of social readjustment almost into the realm of the impossible. From the revival of totally disintegrated minds, to socially disoriented individuals, follows a long list of needs for which therapy of various kinds seems to be a seriously considered means. Since the beginning of the century, art has been applied in various educational and healing ways, many of which had never been dreamed of before. We have learned how much this “play” with crayons and clay means, breaking down the barriers of an unreasonable intellectual over-education. On the other side, there is hardly a mental institution in existence in which patients are not kept occupied with what has come to be called “Occupational Therapy.” A great variety of art uses have evolved. These do not need to be ennumerated or described in any detail in this paper. We only want to establish the fact that the educational or healing use of the arts is almost a common occurrence today. Therefore, that art might be, or become a valuable instrument for rehabilitating thousands of narcotic addicts, should not be considered farfetched. On the contrary, one could actually designate it as a lack by default. Indeed, by walking into one of the residential addiction treatment centers one could not fail to observe photographs, paintings, drawings, and the like done by the inmates. We learn that in most cases these dilettante expressions have not been induced by the staff, but grew from the self impulses of the residents. Of course, earlier in life, some had followed photography or some other kind of art impulse. Often, it is simply the self-creating occupational impulse that carries some fruit. In some such institutions, art and craft activities have been inaugurated with good results. However, these undertakings have hardly ever been connected with actual therapy in other than a rather superficial way, or as a part of a wider therapeutic procedure. It is the purpose of this paper to point out essential alignment of art and therapy with the narcotics addict. As an introduction, we might ask what the areas are in which it appears possible to influence the total status of a drug addict in a direct way in order to relieve him from his addiction. First, in all art there is a certain amount of physical activity, which means a vitalization of physical as well as mental activity. Most addicts suffer from a disorientation, and many, like most heroin addicts, experience a lack of impulse for all activity. The impulse “to do,” whatever it may be, should mean an impulse to activation-be it handicraft or drawing, painting or photography, or making music. It may lead to a reduction of the lethargy. It is an instinctive human desire to find outlets for innate impulses. From his earliest days, a child has the impulse and desire to play. Grown-ups, aside from their professional chores, have a similar desire for activity outlets. It is easier to challenge an addict on the line of such “free-time activities,” than with the drudgeries and unpleasantness cdnnetted with utility work such as wiping the floor and washing the dishes. In whatever we make the addict do, an agreeable feeling, pleasantness, and enjoyment should be the undertone. Our first task is to create this tone by whatever means possible. The next task is to “get the addict off his chair into

Artesanato Paraibano: Um estudo sobre identidade e território em Associações de Artesãs da Paraíba

Com o movimento de revitalização do artesanato brasileiro na década de 1990 incentivado por políticas públicas, a atividade artesanal torna-se atrativa ao setor econômico e cultural no país. Partindo-se do pressuposto de que a produção artesanal é beneficiada pela organização de artesãos em associações e cooperativas, a presente pesquisa investiga os efeitos do associativismo no desenvolvimento do artesanato paraibano sob a ótica do artesão. Por meio de um estudo de casos múltiplos em quatro Associações de Artesãs, a pesquisa revela um artesanato que se estabelece junto ao território como reflexo de abordagens assistencialistas e mercadológicas aplicadas pelo setor público, sendo influenciado pelo setor econômico e negligenciado como atividade cultural.

Authority and Democracy—I

‘In the hands of my Superior, I must be a soft wax, a thing, from which he is to require whatever pleases him, be it to write or receive letters, to speak or not to speak to such a person or the like; and I must put all my fervour in executing zealously and exactly what I am ordered. I must consider myself as a corpse which has neither intelligence nor will; be like a mass of matter which without resistance lets itself be placed wherever it may please anyone; like a stick in the hands of an old man, who uses it according to his needs and places it where it suits him.’St Ignatius’s ideals about the nature of authority were derived from sixteenth-century Spanish culture and although perhaps not quite so drastically expressed today, his view of the Superior/Subordinate relationship still constitutes a central element in the thought pattern of many participants in the modern debate in the Church. This dialogue should be of interest to social psychologists, because it illustrates one of the recurring themes of that discipline, the forms of authority and people’s perception of them.Before the war, Kurt Lewin and his associates Ronald Lippitt and Ralph White tried to compare the effects of three kinds of adult leadership on the behaviour of a group of American boys. The setting for the experiment was a number of small ‘clubs’, ostensibly set up to carry out a variety of craft and recreational activities, and the adult leaders of the clubs were described as Authoritarian, Democratic and Laissez-faire.