Sensing creativity: the role of materials in shoe design

Identity and well‐being in the skilled crafts and trades

“…There is also a visible component insofar as the creator often gets feedback and sees whether their customers like and enjoy the outcome of their craft. Such a strong relationship to the product leads to identification with it and with the craft, something that is enhanced and reinforced also through the tangibility of the craft process itself: tangibility of the craft process comes from the sensory nature of the craft process (for instance seeing, touching and smelling the ingredients when brewing beer, baking bread and cakes, crafting a shoe, blowing glass; Braithwaite, 2017; Chan, 2014; O'Connor, 2005; Thurnell‐Read, 2014), and is described as the opposite of the disembodied nature of other work, such as office jobs. Through this sensory nature of the craft process, there is an affective appeal of the process of crafting itself, which is sometimes even described as a “performance” (this performative element can include actual performances, for instance, when brewers give tours through their brewery, Thurnell‐Read, 2014, p. 19).…”