It's wonderful to see the world of fiber arts explode the way it has over the last decade, but conversations I've had with people recently have made me fume.

There are still many who see knitting, crocheting, needle point, etc. as domestic tasks. Something to be done as a chore, as tradition, but never as a form of real art.

While I understand that art is very subjective, I don't see why it can't be accepted among the orbit of other arty things. I don't understand the resistance to seeing an intricately knitted pair of socks as (at the very least) functional art.

Why?

Why can we call a dress made of bright colored condoms art (it was made, with a host of other dresses, to bring attention to the AIDS epidemic), but if you create something through a "domestic art" technique, something with a clear message, something truly beautiful and vibrant, it won't be given the same amount of respect as a shapeless sculpture made of used coffee filters (I passed such a sculpture in Pasadena and had an art-student friend tell me how great it was).

Knitting and other such fiber art forms can be a subject of art, but never the respective means to create art.

Why?

How can this not be creative? Or this not complex? How can this, this, or this not be anything but art! It's beautiful, powerful, there's meaning to it all and I am moved. Is that not what art basically is? It's meant to move the masses and relive the artist of creative stress and replace it with accomplishment. Not caring so much that people approve or not, but that a message has been sent. And what does it matter, what importance is there to the means of which we get the creative "note"?