Amateur Craft provides an illuminating and historically-grounded account of amateur craft in the modern era, from 19th century Sunday painters and amateur carpenters to present day railway modellers and yarnbombers. Stephen Knott's fascinating study explores the curious and unexpected attributes of things made outside standardised models of mass production, arguing that amateur craft practice is 'differential' – a temporary moment of control over work that both departs from and informs our productive engagement with the world. Knott's discussion of the theoretical aspects of amateur craft practice is substantiated by historical case studies that cluster around the period 1850–1950. Looking back to the emergence of the modern amateur, he makes reference to contemporary art and design practice that harnesses or exploits amateur conditions of making. From Andy Warhol to Simon Starling, such artistic interest elucidates the mercurial qualities of amateur craft. Invaluable for students and researchers in art and design, contemporary craft, material culture and social history, Amateur Craft counters both the marginalisation and the glorification of amateur craft practice. It is richly illustrated with 41 images, 14 in colour, including 19th century ephemera and works of contemporary art.

This edited book focuses on the organization and meaning of craft work in contemporary society. It considers the relationship between craft and place and how this enables the construction of a meaningful relationship with objects of production and consumption. The book explores the significance of raw materials, the relationship between the body, the crafted object and the mind, and the importance of skill, knowledge and learning in the making process. Through this, it raises important questions about the role of craft in facing future challenges by challenging the logic of globalized production and consumption. The Organization of Craft Work encompasses international analyses from the United States, France, Italy, Australia, Canada, the UK and Japan involving a diverse range of sectors, including brewing, food and wine production, clothing and shoe making, and perfumery. The book will be of interest to students and academic researchers in organization studies, marketing and consumer behaviour, business ethics, entrepreneurship, sociology of work, human resource management, cultural studies, geography, and fashion and design. In addition, the book will be of interest to practitioners and organizations with an interest in the development and promotion of craft work.

Examines four novels that feature domestic handcrafts and how they shaped Victorian life and the Victorian novel.

This doctoral dissertation provides a theoretical examination of amateur craft as a differential practice. Concepts drawn from an inter-disciplinary source base are used to define, characterise and elucidate features of amateur craft practice that have long been presumed superfluous and opposite to valorised 'professional' practice. I investigate the attraction, motivation and complexities that lie behind this widespread, yet largely understudied, phenomenon of modern culture. Studies of everyday life, social history, aesthetics, material culture, art criticism and craft theory help conceptualise the position of the amateur, and case studies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - including the paint-by-number mania in 1950s USA, suburban chicken keeping, and amateur railway modelling - serve to substantiate the theoretical claims made. The thesis is not comprehensive in its coverage of either a specific craft medium or a particular chronology or geography. Instead the thesis is divided into three thematic chapters: amateur surface intervention, amateur space, and amateur time. These chapters reveal some of the unexpected consequences of subjecting amateur practice to serious study. The examples demonstrate how amateur craft practice is differential within capitalism,dependant on its structures while simultaneously stretching, refracting, and quietly subverting them. As a reprieve or a supplement to an individual's primary occupation, the constrained freedom of amateur craft practice fulfils an essential role within modern life, providing a temporary moment of autonomous control over labour-power in which the world can be shaped anew.