Are We Entering a Second Arts & Crafts Movement?

During times of chaos, it's natural for me to look back at a period of time where we've been here before and look at ways people managed then. And art and craftsmanship always seems to be the answer. 

You have most likely witnessed the work of William Morris (1834-1896), a poet and most notably a textile designer, without realizing it. His textiles are still popular today, especially in home decor, from wallpaper to upholstery. 

His textiles brought nature and the natural world into the home with floral patterns and common motifs like birds. His work continues to inspire modern patterns for wallpaper, textiles, and digital designs.

Aside from being a craftsman, William Morris was also a British socialist and activist, and the pioneer of The Arts and Crafts Movement, along with writer and art expert John Ruskin (1815-1900). The rise of the Industrial Era caused great concern about low quality, mass produced goods as a threat to nature and craftsmanship. 

The movement led to over a hundred arts and crafts organizations from 1895 to 1905. Members of these organizations often believed that creative work should be done by hand. Morris himself did printing, calligraphy, and embroidery by hand. 

Along with several published collections of poetry, William Morris also published a collection of essays written by others that were part of the Arts and Crafts Movement during this time in England in the book, "Arts and Crafts Essays" (1893) by William Morris. It summarizes beautifully the principles and practices of the movement. 

One essay, the first one in the collection, is written by Frank T. Carlton. (I couldn't find much about him, so this attribution is uncertain.). He was a professor at University of Toledo and a  contributor to the publication Popular Science Monthly.  

In Carlton's essay, he writes:

"Enjoyment in life means enjoyment of leisure and of work. The unskilled laborer, I fear, enjoys neither — why? His work is monotonous and wearing, the surroundings of home and workshop are not inspiring, and he has received no training which will aid him in finding and utilising the few opportunities for rational enjoyment which come to him."

As I read his essay, it was eerie to sense the same feeling many creatives feel today. Just as the Arts and Crafts Movement reacted against the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, many people are turning to arts and craft as a response to automation, AI, and political instability. 

What's kept many creative knowledge workers engaged was focusing on the parts of work that require creative thinking, such as brainstorming, strategizing, critical thinking, designing, or writing. But now, even AI threatens to replace the creative knowledge worker in an effort to eliminate the human worker altogether. A tool that should handle tedious tasks — pulling reports, organizing files — is instead displacing creative work.

According to Gallup's 2025 State of the Global Workplace report, employee engagement has dropped to 21% — matching the lowest point recorded during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Gallup CEO John Clifton connects this crisis directly to the rise of AI, questioning whether leaders will use it to energize workers, or watch human capital fall even further behind. 

In other words, more than a century after Carlton described the industrial laborer whose work was "monotonous and wearing," nearly four out of five workers globally still feel disengaged from their work — and the automation threatening to replace them is only deepening that sense of meaninglessness.

In both moments of time, there was a desire to hold on to meaning, beauty, community, and craftsmanship through slow, skilled, human-centered making as a response to the prioritization of speed, profit, and scale over care and artistry.

The rise of AI has definitely fueled more anxiety than ever before for knowledge workers. It's not the idea of "work" that causes people to feel a sense of dread, but the lack of meaning from the work itself.

How many of us feel this way, sitting in grey cubicles under fluorescent lights, expected to produce quality work in uninspiring environments? To add another layer to the ever-growing dissatisfaction of corporate work, we are also living through one of the more unstable and chaotic periods in recent American history.

As we try to find emotional and mental strength to get through this period of politics, it's also hard to find a safe haven at work where we feel a sense of belonging, connection, and fulfillment from contributing in a thoughtful way, as the tsunami of AI is drowning us all and layoffs are a norm. 

I started feeling the wave of unfulfillment before the rise of AI when I bought my first sewing machine in 2020. Though Morris might have scoffed at the idea of the use of a sewing machine (he would have preferred sewing by hand), for me it was an attempt to hold on to my creative side, a part of me that continued to go unfulfilled at work and frankly, burnt out. 

Sewing has helped me reconnect with creative identity outside of work, and it's something I can do imperfectly with the goal of getting better after every project I work on. I create milestones for myself by learning a new sewing skill, giving me a sense of real progress. My goal is to master sewing, but I'm moving at my own pace and having fun along the way. It's been about the process more so than the destination.

And though I'm technically creating using a machine, I'm able to escape the digital world and AI slop, and focus on making something just for the sake of making. 

I know it can feel indulgent to take the time to create while everything feels grim, but this is exactly the time for artists and creators to make. We may be living through a second Arts and Crafts Movement — not in galleries or guilds, but in-person knitting circles, sewing rooms, ceramics studios, and kitchen tables. And I think Morris would agree as he once said:

“History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.”