Pandemic Crafts and Craft Pandemics
My personal musing on the influence and status of crafts due to the pandemic.
2020 was an unusual year for many people but it has also seen a surge in DIY in crafting projects. This increase in creative expression has not just been with parents and children, it has in fact spanned the age groups and given many people the time and space to realise their artistic dreams.
It is interesting that despite the surge in personal creative projects the art has also suffered a major blow this year, and it is not just the performing arts that have suffered. Museums, creative workshops and hobby groups have been challenge to find alternative ways of engaging with the public. Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype have now come to the forefront of social mediums even more than before, as a way to connect with like minded people and share crafting and artistic endeavours, get and give advice and fulfil the need for being social for those of us that are missing socialising.
Crafting is a wonderful activity to positively influence mental health and mental productivity. It has been studied, tested and proven multiple time with a variety of creative activities that crafts can have a fantastic impact upon those who practice them. Cre3ative activities have the potential to help with anxiety and have also been recoded as helping with neurological recovery.
The real question is how will this change the attitude to the arts in the coming year. Will it become a more wide spread hobby than it already is? Will people become more enamoured with the idea of creating their own items or customising things themselves?
It is hard to answer these question as crafts have never gone away they are always present as hobbies, family activities and business enterprises. Although they are not always valued highly educationally or business wise crafts are bold and have always been a popular hobby, it is likely they always will be. For me the true question lie in whether crafting itself will influence the way that business advertise to us, the way that we engage with the world and the confidence to try new things. Will these potential changes be traced back to crafts or will they just be lumped in with all of the changes this pandemic has, and will, leave us with.
Bibliography
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- Craftscouncil.org.uk. 2020. 4 reasons craft is good for your mental health. [online] Available at: <https://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/stories/4-reasons-craft-good-your-mental-health> [Accessed 16 January 2021].
- Crystal, D., 1993. The Cambridge Paperback Encyclopaedia. 1st ed. Avon: Cambridge University Press.
- The Century of the Self ‑ 3: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads; He Must Be Destroyed. 1960. [DVD] Directed by A. Curtis. UK: BBC.
- Fostvedt, B., Horghagen, S. and Alsaker, S., 2013. Craft activities in groups at meeting places: supporting mental health users’ everyday occupations. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, Volume 21(2), pp.Pages 145–152.
- Schumaker, J., 2001. The age of insanity. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
