Tradition builds the future out of the past. Craft shapes nature into culture. Traditional crafts record the twisted flow of time and the continual alteration of the physical world.

Traditional crafts depend entirely upon individuals who answer a personal call to creativity while serving society through the reconstruction of the environment. At work in a web of connection, the creator of craft is surrounded by problems. The young potter who has lost direct contact with the old practitioners of his trade and must push on unguided by deep knowledge, the woodworker whose local market has died and who must learn to respond to whimsical new clients, the old basketmaker who has outlived his co-workers, cannot find an apprentice, and must struggle on alone, the weaver who cannot find the tools or materials to continue her craft—each faces one of the host of problems posed in a world no longer dependent on the hand and heart of the artisan.