RosettaStone: CRAFT A primary, secondary, and annotated source reader for functional craft. By: Randi O'Brien

This is an annotated evaluation of the following:
How Strange the Change from Major to Minor: Hierarchies and Medieval Art By: T.A. Heslop
T.A. Heslop. “How Strange the Change from Major to Minor: Hierarchies and Medieval Art” in The Culture of Craft: Status and Future, ed. Peter Dormer, 53-66 (New York: Manchester University Press, 1997)

T.A. Heslop's article is a documentation on the changing the hierarchies of artistic endeavors of the twelfth century. The hierarchies Heslop categorizes are founded in the separation of the forge and furnace versus painting and sculpture. Heslop defines the socio-political connotations of craft in the eleventh century, sketches out the developments, and further equates the status of crafting mediums (metal-smiting, glass, and furniture) to divine complicity.

Heslop pinpoints the attraction of material as the essential and key factor to the authority craft claimed in the eleventh century. Glass and metal ornamentation was an attempt for medieval patrons to mimic biblical representations of the art practiced in Bezaleel, the early paradise lands found in Havilah, and the garneshed walls of New Jerusalem. Both the technical and ornamental practice was equated to the divine characteristics of biblical peoples and land. Heslop describes the sift in the authority of divine craft to a focus on the representation of human form. During this shift of attraction to imagery Heslop describes craft as “attempting to play the games of painting and sculpture” and essential loosing the” power to amaze the senses by a dazzling display of color and virtuosity”.

Personal Evaluation
Heslop article is an exciting document of the relationship of crafting mediums and practice to divine conceptual agendas. Heslop is clearly biases towards the function of craft and the stimulation of senses through craft. He asks exciting and critical questions of the loss of the audience’s capacity to critically engage craft due to their lack of knowledge and inexperience with difficulty of making. He additionally questions the audience’s ability to look with informed imagination and sense the quality of things through their maker and themselves. Heslop questioning is biased yet articulated with honest evaluation and concern for the “minor” connotations of craft.