Knitting -- Art or Craft?

An article from the Guardian came up on my facebook feed today about a photographer who uses models posed in knitwear for his installations.  The knitwear is patterned as camouflage for whatever the background is.  At the same time knitting was featured on Emmerdale last night and the knitter asked how old she was -- 70?  Another shop owner was called a granny because she had picked up the needles.  So is it grannyish if women knit but art when men get involved? 

So is knitting (and crochet) a craft, an art or a science.  There's certainly enough maths involved in creating patterns to make it something of an arcane science, but at the same time some of the creations that I regularly see through my work pushes me towards thinking that it is an art.  I suppose it fits in as a craft because most of us are artisan knitters rather than designers -- we are very good at recreating a piece of work that someone else has designed.  So  what does that make the designer -- artist or artisan?  

To most of us it doesn't really matter because we knit or crochet for pleasure but by considering it grannyish as per Emmerdale we belittle both the skill and our grannies.   There's also the bone of contention that it shouldn't be deemed derogatory to be called a granny but that's an entirely different blog.  There is an immense amount of skill behind any piece of knitted or crocheted fabric and grannies have spent a long time perfecting their skill.   By deriding knitting it also devalues the end product  as many knitters have realised when they've been asked to knit a garment for less than the cost of the wool.  Quoting a price for a garment, which even begins to reflect the amount of time it takes to complete it, leads to disbelief and dismay.

So what do you all think -- art or craft?

If you click on the camouflage picture, it will take you to the original article so you can see some amazing knitting.
Clicking on the octopus jumper picture will take you to our gallery which will show some of the amazing and not at all grannyish work produced by our customers, myself and Ruth.

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