The no-favourite child problem in "handmade"

What we lost when we learned to love all craft equally

The Flattened Landscape
On the cost of celebrating everything handmade

We have learned to love craft by forgetting how to see it.

Walk through any contemporary exhibition of traditional textiles and you will find democracy at work: the Kantha quilt holds equal wall space with the Banarasi sari, the potter's bowl sits confidently beside the court jeweller's filigree. In our well-intentioned zeal to honour all things artisanal, we’ve collapsed the vast landscape of “human making” from centuries-old craft traditions to folk art to Etsy bits and bobs into a single, generous catchall: Handmade. We have flattened the landscape of making into a single, generous category where every stitched, woven, or shaped object finds welcome.

All handmade. All celebrated. All, we are assured, equally valuable expressions of human creativity. This feels right, even necessary. After centuries of hierarchies that elevated some traditions whilst dismissing others, we have chosen inclusion over exclusion, appreciation over judgment. 

But what if this kindness has cost us something essential? What if we have gained democratic appreciation at the cost of discernment?

The ‘Categories’

Considering a more tempered perception of these categories: 'fine' and 'folk'.

Fine craft typically emerged from courts, temples, or wealthy merchant patrons who commissioned specialist ateliers. These traditions employed complex drawlooms and expensive raw materials, laying immense emphasis on technical virtuosity. Consider the pietra dura of Italy and India (parchin kari), made of semi-precious stones embedded into marble; the Banarasi and Kanjeevaram textiles, traditionally weaving real gold and silver into silk. It operates like a classical language: with established grammar, codified technique, and