Traditionally, art has been held in greater esteem than craft. High art includes sculpture and painting. Craft traditionally includes ceramics, glass, fiber, metal, and wood. In 1790, the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote in his Critique of Judgment that art was "free" and "pleasant in itself," whereas handicraft was "mercenary" and "imposed on one as work."

The esteem of art grew as it became defined as useless, while craft's reputation eroded because it was functional. A wood chair or a clay pot has functional value, whereas a painting's only value is decorative. American Craft Museum director Janet Karden confirmed this prejudice when she said that craft is valued less than painting, sculpture, architecture, and even photography.

The bias against craft is cultural and did not exist in previous times. Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance all respected skilled activity and craft expertise. Unfortunately, the pendulum may be swinging once again, as it did in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution caused a backlash against cheap, shoddy machine-made goods.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was born in the 19th century as advocates longed for a return to the traditional way of making things, a yearning for the middle class values of the common man, and a belief that meaningful work ennobles mankind. The personal touch distinguished handcrafted goods from "evil" machine goods, and began to close the gap separating the artistic merit of high art from craft.

Increased art education since World War II has spurred a renewed popularity in arts and crafts. More significantly, Marcia Manhart, executive director of the Philbrook Museum of Art, noted that boundaries separating art from craft have blurred with art education and as craft artists have displayed an inventiveness and lack of regard for functional purpose. The result has been a form of pluralism, or "crossover," as exhibitions, scholarly debate, and artistic imaginations break down the boundaries of material, technique, function, and medium.

Today, it is not uncommon to see art that is functional (i.e. Sculptures to sit on), and craft that is useless (i.e. ceramic pots to look at). Art critic John Perrault believes that crafts deserves the distinction of art, not based on its functionality, but when it displays individuality and innovativeness.

With rare exception, furniture's role is to serve a function. A ceramist may poke holes in a clay vessel to alter its artistic appeal. Of course, it immediately ceases to be able to hold water, but that doesn't matter. It can sit on a shelf and still look like a vessel. Furniture makers don't have the liberty of making dysfunctional furniture, unless they abandon furniture's traditional role of being utilitarian. Don King's dysfunctional series of chairs (Woodwork, Dec. 1994) tell stories, display whimsy and emotion, and exude their own anthropomorphic personality. Arms, legs, seats take on new perspectives, mocking the roles we expect them to serve.

Woodworker and author Peter Korn places high emphasis on function. He views design and art as equally valuable manifestations of human creativity, differentiated mainly by the necessity of the former to consider utilitarian function. "As furniture designers, we're working with a lot more limitations than the fine artist. We're still exhibiting creativity," he says, "but it's from a different aspect than that of the sculpture or painter. Perhaps this is why woodworking is generally regarded as a craft or trade, and rather outside the arena of the fine arts."

The creativity we put into our furniture could be described as a "personal aesthetic," as Bay area woodworker Gail Fredell described it: the quality that it individually instilled in a piece by its maker. When furniture doesn't meet the criteria of art, for example, it may be that there are no original conceptual ideas, life experiences, or emotions expressed through the work.

Manhart's and Perrault's favorable view of craft as art is countered by jewelry-sculptor-teacher Bruce Metcalf. In spite of the credibility that has been afforded craft recently, many craftsmen still envy the prestige and financial rewards that artists receive. In an attempt to make their craft objects look like art pieces, they lose sight of the historical role that craft has played.

To establish whatever artistic merit crafts may possess-functional or otherwise-the establishment of craft and folk art museums such as the American Crafts Museum in New York City and the Abby Aldrick Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg, Virginia, acknowledge the importance of craft traditions and give it a respectability that has long been denied. At Colonial Williamsburg, the historical role of artisans and craftsmen is further extended and recognized through research, journals, and the re-establishment of traditional crafts such as wheelmaking, coppering, gunsmithing, engraving, printing, blacksmithing, weaving, silversmithing, cabinetmaking, and bootmaking.

In the contemporary art climate of Modernism, anything can be called art. Craft, however, relates to specific disciplines and is connected with its past, a concept that is often forgotten as craft objects become more useless. Metcalf asserts that craft's history is older and richer than that of painting, and identifies four distinguishing criteria:

1. Craft is medium-specific. Ceramics, woodworking, and metalworking require manipulation of the mediums of clay, wood, metal, and so on.
2. It must be made substantially by hand. The physical integration of hand and mind cannot be circumvented.
3. Craft is defined by use. Bowls, clothing, and furniture have function. Any aesthetic attributes such as beauty or decoration are of secondary importance to the fact that the object was made for a utilitarian purpose.
4. Finally, craft has tradition. Each discipline has a noble and lengthy history in many societies. By looking backward for inspiration, craftsmen can look forward for their own unique contributions.

Many factors have helped contribute to the blurring of distinction between art and craft. The Modernist art movement, in particular, enshrines aesthetic contemplation and uselessness, and theorizes on meaning and expression. Meanwhile, consumer affluence and mass production have relieved craftsmen from the need of making necessities. To gain credibility in the art world and relieve themselves of feelings of second-class citizenship, crafts people have adopted the tenants of Modernism.

In Metcalf's words, "Craft has embraced other Modernist assertions: the insistence on a rupture with the past; the celebration of newness and rejection of the familiar; the stress on originality."

Japanese potters Shoji Hamada and Soetsu Yanagi, and English potter Bernard Leach all expressed a definite bias toward the integrity of craft in its pure form. Yanagi wrote that people hang their picture up on the wall, but keep everyday objects close at hand. He contrasted "craft as art" which places utility secondary to beauty, and folkcraft which is unsigned and made by the people for the people. In the pure sense, folkcraft is an innocent unselfconscious form of craft that cannot be duplicated today by craftsmen who are inevitably better traveled, educated, and craft conscious.

Whether traditional or innovative in one's approach to his or her discipline, it should be apparent that art and craft are distinct, in spite of the implied blurring of distinction when they are combined in the phrase "arts and crafts." While anyone can indulge in their art or craft passion without first studying its historical traditions, pride dictates that we respect the qualities of each and avoid the trappings of snobbery, prejudice, or wishing something to be other than what it is. And when possible, incorporate our own personal aesthetic.