> [!SUMMARY] Summary > Asian approaches to craft differ in the role of the self in making. For writers such as [[Mahatma Gandhi]], [[Bernard Leach]] and [[Yanagi Sōetsu]], the true craftsperson surrendered him or herself to the making process. This was a way of transcending the limiting nature of self-conscious with its distractions of pride and shame. By contrast, people such as [[Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay]] and [[Rabindranath Tagore|Tagore]] felt it to be important that the marking process reflect the sense of self. Craft traditions differ sharply on whether the self belongs in the making process. Gandhi, Bernard Leach and Yanagi Sōetsu argued for surrender: the true craftsperson sets self-consciousness aside, escaping the pride and shame that come with it, letting the work move through them rather than from them. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Tagore took the opposite view, treating the making process as a place where the self should be present and expressed. The question this raises for craft today is whether skill is a discipline of letting go or a vehicle for individual voice, and different Asian traditions have answered it in opposite directions. Craft may not need to choose between these positions. Most skilled making happens in two distinct phases, and each calls for a different relationship to the self. Design, deliberation and the choice of form are self-conscious acts, shaped by tradition, intention and individual voice. Execution is often the opposite: technique breaks down under too much conscious monitoring, so the maker has to let training take over and the self recede. Seen this way, Leach and Yanagi were describing the demands of execution, while Tagore and Chattopadhyay were describing the demands of design. The more useful question for craft may not be whether the self belongs in the process, but how far a given tradition separates conception from execution, since some traditions collapse both into a single continuous act while others keep them firmly apart. [[Questions]]