Will there still be crafts and hobbies in this new digital age? What will they be like? Are handicrafts dead. Do children still build with Popsicle sticks? Is tinkering dead?
These are good questions and I don’t have the answers but I have seen a few clues that I can share.
- Take a look at Google Maps Pro. With it you can embed an old map on a current map, attach a current or an old photo and make annotations. I’m working on a project that digs deep into a historic map of Pasadena. Is it a craft? For sure it is a hobby.
- My friend Steven Erler has created Auto-Visuals from his craft/hobby. He takes ordinary car photographs and pixel by pixel rebuilds them into stunning graphics that show the essence of the vehicles. See photo above. Creating and improving digital images can be a hobby and certainly is a craft.
- The Smithsonian Transcription Project is a wiki type project where volunteer transcribe written documents, like diaries, into digital format. It is more fun, challenging and much more interesting than computer games. It definitely can be a hobby and it requires some skill and a learning curve but is transcription a craft?
Today entertainment and games are carrying the day against traditional hobbies and crafts but there is hope for handicrafts as the examples above show.