What is cræft?
Louis Elton on the Anglo Saxon conception of virtue at the heart of his £60,000 Cræft Prize
“The word cræft keeps appearing in Old English, but almost always in a compound — wordcræft, someone who’s very good with words; leechcræft, being good with medicine. In the rare instances where it’s used in isolation, it translates the Latin virtus. Virtue.
The true meaning of cræft is not ‘I work with my hands and that’s nice.’ It is absolutely not that. What cræft truly is, is a deep entanglement between hand, eye, mind, body, historical, cultural, geographical, material intelligence — all coming together in one potent, skilful means to will excellence into being.
If that’s what cræft is about — forging excellence rather than mere handiwork — there is no reason tools and technology are in tension with it.”
— Louis Elton, on the new £60,000 Cræft Prize for makers fusing heritage skill with frontier technology.