Why Craft Matters: Making as a Way of Being Present

Making something slowly, by hand, feels different now than it used to. In the studio, time stretches. I find myself repeating small gestures, adjusting, undoing, trying again. Craft asks for attention in a way that’s hard to fake — you can’t rush through it without the work showing it.

For me, craft isn’t separate from contemporary art practice; it’s where everything begins. When I work with natural and preserved plant materials, I’m constantly dealing with texture, fragility, density, and structure. The materials don’t behave like pixels on a screen, they bend, resist, settle and shift depending on touch, humidity, gravity and patience. Over time, the process feels less like directing and more like listening — a back-and-forth between my hands and the material.

The Maker is Changed by the Making

We often talk about what artists make, but less about what making does to the artist. Repetitive, hands-on processes alter our perception of time. Hours pass in quiet concentration, the body learns through touch: how much pressure a stem can take, how fibres settle, how a surface holds light.

This kind of work cultivates patience, sensitivity to variations and an acceptance that control is always shared with the material. Craft teaches listening, adjustment, it asks you to slow down enough to notice.

Over time, this way of working shapes more than the object we make, it shapes the person. What we repeatedly do with our hands influences how we observe, how we care and how we value slowness in a culture that rewards speed.

We Are Shaped by the Things We Make

I often think about the idea that what we make, makes us. When we’re surrounded by things designed to be replaced quickly, it’s easy to carry that same mindset into how we treat time, attention, even relationships.

Handmade objects feel different because they hold signs of decisions and presence. Even when a surface looks minimal or refined, there are hours of touch behind it. Slight irregularities, subtle changes in density or texture — these are not flaws, but signs that a human body was involved.

In my own work, the surface it’s built through repetitive actions — placing, cleaning, compressing, observing. The result can’t be separated from the time and labour that formed it.

Craft as Continuity, Not Nostalgia

I don’t experience craft as something nostalgic or backwards-looking. In the studio, it feels very current and very alive. Working through repetition and touch connects me to a way of learning that doesn’t happen through instructions, but through doing — through small corrections and a lot of attention.

This physical engagement feels important. When I work by hand, the process stays visible to me. I’m aware of the limits of the material, of how far it can bend, how it settles, how it needs to be supported. That awareness brings care into the work.

I think viewers and collectors sense this, there’s a different kind of presence in an object that has clearly been worked through slowly.

Living with Handmade Work

I’m interested in what happens when these kinds of works leave the studio and enter someone’s home. A mass-produced object usually performs a function. A handmade piece changes the atmosphere of a space.

In my sculptural artworks made with preserved moss, amaranth and plant fibres, the surface changes throughout the day as light changes. The texture catches the eye, the surface absorbs sound and light differently and over time, it turns the room from a backdrop into something more experiential, more grounded.

Craft in a Digital Age

The more time we spend in digital spaces, the more appreciative I become of the tactile charm of natural materials. They resist, they surprise you, they don’t always do what you expect.

I think this is part of why people are drawn to material-forward contemporary art right now. These works can’t be fully understood through an image. You have to encounter them in the space. Your body has to be there. You notice scale, depth, texture — things that disappear on a screen.

For me, working this way isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about keeping a balance. The physical world still has weight, irregularity and unpredictability, and I want that to remain present in the work.

A Personal Reflection

Writing an artist journal helps me see how closely making and identity are tied together. My practice often circles around landscape, nature, and stillness, but it’s through the slow, repetitive act of working with plant materials that these ideas really take shape. The studio becomes a place where thinking and touching happen at the same time.

The works that come out of that space carry the process in them. They are records of time spent, gestures repeated and attention sustained.

If you’re interested in contemporary sculpture that brings material depth, tactile presence, and a sense of stillness into interior space, I invite you to explore my current works or contact me with any question. My practice focuses on sculptural wall pieces created with preserved plant materials, where craft, nature and contemporary art meet.

Living with handmade work is not only an aesthetic choice — it’s a way of bringing process, material awareness and emotional resonance into everyday life.