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Browsing by Subject "crafts"

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  • Laitinen, Anna (2010)
    When Finland occupied East Karelian territories in Soviet Union during The Continuation War (1941 1944) Finnish people had also to take care of the inhabitants of the occupied East Karelia. For example there was a lack of clothes and shoes during the wartime. In order to facilitate clothing situation and to provide more opportunities to work for women, Finnish people founded some workshops in East Karelia. Workshops also helped to collect East Karelian craft products. One of the workshops was founded in the city of Olonets in October 1941 and it was in operation until June 1944. This workshop is the subject of this thesis. The aim of this thesis is to find out with the microhistorical approach what kind of functions the workshop of Olonets had during The Continuation War and who worked in the workshop. In this thesis I also examine women's crafts in the Olonets workshop and their meaning during the wartime. I collected the material of this thesis from different places. In February 2010 I interviewed Talvikki Lausala, the leader of the Olonets workshop, who worked in the Olonets from May 1942 to June 1944. From the Virkki Käsityömuseo I looked for objects which have been made in the workshop of Olonets. Tyyne-Kerttu Virkki collected crafts from the East Karelia when she was working in the area and in the workshop from 1941 to 1944. Archive material I found from the Finnish National archive and from the archive of the Tyyne-Kerttu Virkki -Foundation. East Karelian women and girls who were not able to do anything else came to work in the Olonets workshop. If women could not go to work outside of home, they had an option to do the same crafts at home. There were three Finnish women, Tyyne-Kerttu Virkki, Talvikki Lausala and Sofi Nyrkkö, who worked and led in the workshop of Olonets. In addition to the workshop, there was a dress maker's atelier in which clothes were made to order and soldiers uniforms were repaired, a small museum and a shop to sell products of the workshop. Craft products were also exported to Finland. Courses were organized in which Finnish women taught East Karelian crafts.
  • Virtanen, Janette (2016)
    This study focuses on stress experienced by students and the effect of crafts in dealing with stress. The aim of the study is to find out what kind of stress students experience and what are the main reasons for the development of stress. The study focuses also on how making crafts in spare time has changed during studying crafts. For the study a group of Helsinki University crafts science students were interviewed. The emphasis is on students' personal, both positive and negative, experiences of stress. At the same time stress is ap-proached widely, trying to avoid dealing with the issue from only one perspective. Even though the well-being of students have been researched a lot, there are not that many studies done from the perspective of students studying to be crafts teachers. Crafts done on spare time is considered calming and stress-relieving, but what happens when the hobby turns into an occupation? Selecting the topic was affected by an interest in crafts' effect to well-being and personal experiences from the heaviness of studying at a university and the stress caused by it. Studying the stress of students is important, be-cause it enables collection of data and practical suggestions for improving teaching. The material was collected through group interviews, which were preceded by a back-ground information form. Nine crafts science students participated into the interview, and all of them told they had experienced stress. Even though the experiences were individual, the research results showed some common stress factors, such as money and time man-agement problems. Making crafts in spare time had decreased, but for almost everyone the quality had improved during studies. The results give a better perspective on student stress and the challenges related to studying and life management. The results could also be useful in developing crafts science and planning courses. The study could be expanded to apply to all crafts teacher students as well as to compare the results with all students. Further studies could find out how to improve the awareness of students about stress and its good and bad sides.
  • Vuokko, Anni (2018)
    Aim: The aim of this study was to reveal a multi-perspective meanings of craft, bring out feelings which craft making evokes for craft hobbyists and clarify if the craft making increases their well-being. There are very few researches available related to the meanings of craft and craft's impacts to the well-being. The aim of this study was to make the craft hobbyists voice heard and generally emphasize and bring out the importance of creative activity and hobbies. In addition, the aim was to find out in which kind of situations handicrafts have played a significant role in respondents' lives. Based on these thoughts the following two main questions were set for the study: 1) What kind of meanings the students of adult's basic arts education give to the crafts and craft making? 2) How do the handicrafts affect to the well-being of the students of adult's basic arts education? Method: The qualitative data was collected by using an open question from the students of adult's basic arts education in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area during spring 2017. Before sending out the open question via e-mail I presented the topics of my study both in the Basic and Postgraduate Studies group. The recipients of the open question were asked to write a free-form script with the title "I, Craft and well-being". Totally 12 responses were received to the writing request and each of them was at least one page long. I analysed the material separately according to the meaning and wellbeing experience. In the analysis of the meanings I utilized Anna Kouhia's (2012) reference frame of multi-perspectival meanings of crafts and other available theory related to the subject. After that, by utilizing preceding theories, I formed my own reference frame which supported further analysis of the material. As a result, I created my own reference frame of the meanings of the craft. When analysing the well-being I utilized Seligman's theoretical model of happiness (PERMA). Results and conclusions: Based on my study it can be noted that there are several meanings behind craft making. Meanings are very multiple, usually overlapping and sometimes they are even in conflicts with each other. For many people crafts are way to relax which produce happiness day after day and increase well-being. The meanings of crafts are linked tightly to the experiences of well-being. Especially social aspects were emphasized in both categories. In general, the presence of craft in different life situations is dependent on people personalities. Some people use crafts as an important way to relax in difficult life situations whereas other people in the same situation are willing to get rid of all extra issues. Even if sometimes the crafts might be relegated to the background in life, all respondents who participated to the study returned always back to the crafts which illustrates the meaning of crafts as the bringer of well-being as from the point of view of the meanings presented in the study.