Crafting Tradition


Book Description

Since the mid-1980s, whimsical, brightly colored wood carvings from the Mexican state of Oaxaca have found their way into gift shops and private homes across the United States and Europe, as Western consumers seek to connect with the authenticity and tradition represented by indigenous folk arts. Ironically, however, the Oaxacan wood carvings are not a traditional folk art. Invented in the mid-twentieth century by non-Indian Mexican artisans for the tourist market, their appeal flows as much from intercultural miscommunication as from their intrinsic artistic merit. In this beautifully illustrated book, Michael Chibnik offers the first in-depth look at the international trade in Oaxacan wood carvings, including their history, production, marketing, and cultural representations. Drawing on interviews he conducted in the carving communities and among wholesalers, retailers, and consumers, he follows the entire production and consumption cycle, from the harvesting of copal wood to the final purchase of the finished piece. Along the way, he describes how and why this "invented tradition" has been promoted as a "Zapotec Indian" craft and explores its similarities with other local crafts with longer histories. He also fully discusses the effects on local communities of participating in the global market, concluding that the trade in Oaxacan wood carvings is an almost paradigmatic case study of globalization.




Crafting Wiccan Traditions


Book Description

Would you like to embark on a transformative journey unlike any other? In this comprehensive guide, award-winning author Raven Grimassi shows you how to craft a Wiccan tradition that is imbued with your unique signature. Based upon your core beliefs, you can design a spiritual system that best reflects your personal needs. Choose a patron deity, work with egregores, create a Book of Shadows, conduct rituals to honor gods and goddesses—the possibilities are endless. Perfect for the solitary or group practitioner, this book will help you craft a coherent and empowering traditional structure that is based on strong Wiccan foundations, yet entirely your own. Call forth the power of Wiccan mythos as you explore the sacred circle, ritual and magical correspondences to nature, initiation rites, the eight Sabbats, and the Wheel of the Year. Pioneer your own spiritual tradition—and take the first step on your personalized path to the divine.




Crafting Tradition


Book Description




Stickley Style


Book Description

An Archetype Press book.




Crafting an Indigenous Nation


Book Description

In this in-depth interdisciplinary study, Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote reveals how Kiowa people drew on the tribe's rich history of expressive culture to assert its identity at a time of profound challenge. Examining traditional forms such as beadwork, metalwork, painting, and dance, Tone-Pah-Hote argues that their creation and exchange were as significant to the expression of Indigenous identity and sovereignty as formal political engagement and policymaking. These cultural forms, she argues, were sites of contestation as well as affirmation, as Kiowa people used them to confront external pressures, express national identity, and wrestle with changing gender roles and representations. Combatting a tendency to view Indigenous cultural production primarily in terms of resistance to settler-colonialism, Tone-Pah-Hote expands existing work on Kiowa culture by focusing on acts of creation and material objects that mattered as much for the nation's internal and familial relationships as for relations with those outside the tribe. In the end, she finds that during a time of political struggle and cultural dislocation at the turn of the twentieth century, the community's performative and expressive acts had much to do with the persistence, survival, and adaptation of the Kiowa nation.




Crafting Qualitative Research: Working in the Postpositivist Traditions


Book Description

Courses in management research have traditionally focused on quantitative techniques, and no available text adequately covers the many different perspectives within the qualitative model or shows which qualitative techniques work best in different settings. "Crafting Qualitative Research" fills this need. In clear and readable prose, this comprehensive text offers a detailed guide to the rich diversity of qualitative research traditions, with examples and applications specifically designed for the field of management. Each of the book's four main sections includes a descriptive "tree" diagram that lays out the historical origins of that section's traditions. Each chapter is devoted to a specific methodology and includes historical origins and development; techniques and applications; current controversies and emerging issues; and a summary box highlighting that method's utility. With its detailed and easy-to-understand coverage, this will be the text of choice for any instructor who wants to include the qualitative approach in a research methods course, as well as a useful resource for anyone doing research in the post-positivist traditions.




A Theory of Craft


Book Description

What is craft? How is it different from fine art or design? In A Theory of Craft, Howard Risatti examines these issues by comparing handmade ceramics, glass, metalwork, weaving, and furniture to painting, sculpture, photography, and machine-made design from Bauhaus to the Memphis Group. He describes craft's unique qualities as functionality combined with an ability to express human values that transcend temporal, spatial, and social boundaries. Modern design today has taken over from craft the making of functional objects of daily use by employing machines to do work once done by hand. Understanding the aesthetic and social implications of this transformation forces us to see craft as well as design and fine art in a new perspective, Risatti argues. Without a way of understanding and valuing craft on its own terms, the field languishes aesthetically, being judged by fine art criteria that automatically deny art status to craft objects. Craft must articulate a role for itself in contemporary society, says Risatti; otherwise it will be absorbed by fine art or design and its singular approach to understanding the world will be lost. A Theory of Craft is a signal contribution to establishing a craft theory that recognizes, defines, and celebrates the unique blend of function and human aesthetic values embodied in the craft object.




Heritage


Book Description

Expressive works by selected members of the 'People of Goda' of the Clan of Tubal Cain that illustrate the impetus and the mood of the moment. This relates how we feel about the legacy we have received and the task that lies ahead for its interpretation and continuance aspected through the Veils of the Mothers' in Truth , Love & Beauty. Relayed in prose and verse, words and images divert the reader into the place of 'Work' of labour devotion and duty - of Heritage.




Japanese Studio Crafts


Book Description

A beautiful presentation of outstanding works of craft being created in Japan today.




Karma


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER “Full of valuable insights to guide you.”—WILL SMITH “Thoughtful and life-affirming . . . a must-read.”—TONY ROBBINS “This book will put you back in charge of your own life.”—TOM BRADY A new perspective on the overused and misunderstood concept of “karma” that offers the key to happiness and enlightenment, from the world-renowned spiritual master Sadhguru. What is karma? Most people understand karma as a balance sheet of good and bad deeds, virtues and sins. The mechanism that decrees that we cannot evade the consequences of our own actions. In reality, karma has nothing to do with reward and punishment. Karma simply means action: your action, your responsibility. It isn’t some external system of crime and punishment, but an internal cycle generated by you. Accumulation of karma is determined only by your intention and the way you respond to what is happening to you. Over time, it’s possible to become ensnared by your own unconscious patterns of behavior. In Karma, Sadhguru seeks to put you back in the driver’s seat, turning you from a terror-struck passenger to a confident driver navigating the course of your own destiny. By living consciously and fully inhabiting each moment, you can free yourself from the cycle. Karma is an exploration and a manual, restoring our understanding of karma to its original potential for freedom and empowerment instead of a source of entanglement. Through Sadhguru’s teachings, you will learn how to live intelligently and joyfully in a challenging world.