Art or craft?
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
William Morris, a leader of the Arts & Crafts Movement
There can be no better place to start a piece about whether cider-making is art or craft than by quoting a key figure - perhaps the key figure - of the Arts & Crafts Movement, William Morris. Polymath, poet, novelist, translator, socialist and designer of, most famously, textiles and wallpapers but also of carpets, embroideries, tapestries and tiles, Morris was a champion of the principle of handmade production, in discord with his era’s focus on industrial “progress” and efficiency.
We’re writing this blog in response to one by the Caledonian Cider Company entitled “Can cider be art?” and a flurry of friendly exchanges on social media led to an invitation for us to express a reasoned opinion. And we should stress that this isn’t a quarrel, we have no point to prove or score to settle. It's banter. From afar - they make their cider 516 miles away from us - we admire and respect the way they do things (possibly because there are some similarities with the way we do things) and we enjoy reading their blogs, not least because they include quotes from Proust, and in these strange time some blogging ping-pong is a welcome distraction. But back to the question at hand; art or craft?
William Morris’ dictum reveals our answer. Whilst there are certainly beautiful ciders (as well as some pretty terrible ones) it would be stretching things to suggest that a bottle of cider is “beautiful” in the way a sculpture or painting can be. Tom Oliver’s oak matured, bottle conditioned, 2018 Yarlington Mill is a joyous creation, a unique and skillful expression of flavour and aroma, is something to be admired and treasured (given that it’s quite difficult to get hold of) … but it doesn’t warrant a permanent place resting on a mantlepiece or hanging on a wall, whether full or empty. Because it isn’t art.
Art is the expression of imagination, of feelings, of emotion, of thought, of ideas in a visual form. Art is the result of creative instinct and ability. Art has aesthetic and emotional value. Art is unstructured. Art can be expressed and interpreted in limitless ways. Art is unique. Art comes from and stirs the heart and soul.
Craft is an activity, a form of work. It comes from the application of learned skills, using tools, resources and materials. Craft has decorative or functional purpose. Craft is structured, can be reproduced, can be measured and valued. Craft comes from the mind and body.
We’re pleased to be cider-makers. For the majority of our working life our response to the “what do you do?” question was an incoherent mumble about selling this or that, here and there, regretting that a one-word answer such as “doctor”, “engineer” or “journalist” wasn’t available to us. Now, at long last, we have a one-word (or one hyphenated word) answer: cider-maker. So in asserting that cider isn’t art we are not trying to diminish what we do. Far from it; we love being cider-makers.
Henri Matisse, Dance
But we’re craftsmen and craftswomen, we’re not artists. Yes, we’re creative and we express our individualism in the way we make our ciders. Yes, our ciders can engender an emotional as well and a physical response. Some ciders may even have an aesthetic value. But majestic though Tom Oliver’s oak matured, bottle conditioned, 2018 Yarlington Mill cider was, it wasn’t art. The bottle we drank was identical to the bottles that he produced immediately before and after our bottle; Henri Matisse painted only one “Dance” and Rodin sculpted only one “Kiss”. Beautiful though it may have been the primary purpose of the bottle we drank wasn’t aesthetic, it was its utility value. And its utility value can be fairly easily measured and understood, certainly compared to “Dance” and “Kiss” whose only utility value is aesthetic. Tom Oliver’s cider will be appreciated by different people in different ways and will undoubtedly stir the senses … but doesn’t stir the soul and doesn’t make us reconsider life and love and all its glorious uncertainties. Tom Oliver makes his cider in the same way that Caledonian Cider and many others do; he mills and presses apples and then ferments the resulting apple juice; art has no such restrictions.
We hope people have real, proper cider in their houses - Caledonian Cider, Tom Oliver’s cider, Bushel+Peck - but if they do it’ll be because they know it to be useful rather than believe it to be beautiful. Craft, not art. But perhaps one thing we can agree on is William Morris’ advocacy for things made traditionally, with skill and care, for the handmade rather than the mass-produced. A supporter, surely, of real cider made by the likes of Caledonian Cider, Tom Oliver … and Bushel+Peck.