American craft is a handmade work produced by independent studio artists who work with traditional artisanal materials and processes. Some examples are wood (carpentry and furniture manufacturing), glass (blown glass and lamp work), clay (ceramics), textiles and metal (metallurgy). When they finished their training, they were well equipped to establish themselves in commerce and earn a living with the skill that could be traded directly within the community, often for goods and services. These products are produced within a specific community of practice and, while they mostly differ from products produced in the art and design communities, the boundaries often overlap, resulting in hybrid objects.
A craft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal or handmade crafts, is any work of a wide variety of types in which useful and decorative objects are manufactured entirely by hand or using only related simple, non-automated tools, such as scissors, carving utensils, or hooks.
