I am ashamed about my newfound love for Hobby Lobby.
This is for three reasons: snobbery, Gnosticism, and wrongly conceived feminism. First, my maternal ancestors aspired to be great ladies. Their minds dwelt on higher culture: Mozart, Shakespeare, and the King James Bible, not on knitting, canning, or crafts. Those things you hopefully hire others to do, that is, if your family has the means. This is the snobbery. But the disdain also betrays a gnostic lack of appreciation for the body and the physical. The mechanical, three-dimensional arts enrich homemaking. Mothering doesn’t require the crafting skill, but when it is there it deserves to be admired. Why aren’t I treasuring it?
My third reason is a sign of the times. As an educated woman with a fancy degree, I feel embarrassed that I have not written a book or started a midsized company by now. After ten years as a struggling artist, I married, homeschooled four children, became a classical teacher, helped my pastor-husband, counseled people at church, and cooked and cleaned and climbed mountains. I have become a generalist.
As I prepare my daughter’s bridal shower, I find myself to be the very sort of woman that Hobby Lobby is aimed at. I am about to fashion an enchanted forest of silver half-price Christmas trees combined with pink hearts from the Valentines aisle, all to herald the bride in her glory. Marriage is an icon, an image, a puppet show of the love of Christ for the Church. Here is my daughter. She represents the Church. Here is her fiancé. He represents Christ. See they kiss. The meaning of this little ceremony is this: God loves us, and He’s coming back for us. This is why there is a halo of gold leaf around the bride. This is why we stand up for her. If I, of all people, cannot celebrate creating this celebration, then something is very wrong.
Here I am in the bridal aisle of Hobby Lobby seeking to say something holy, to give the maternal blessing for the new bride. I am connecting with the deep desire of mothers for the flourishing of their daughters and granddaughters. Therefore, I am now the most feminist. So, I am going to stop being ashamed of a store that helps mothers in their constructive work.
Instead, I have written a celebratory ode:
This year I have learned wisdom from my friend, Stefany.
For birthdays, weddings, Christmas, and real estate projects,
Hobby Lobby is one source of her power.
Here is what they don’t have in Manhattan:
Hobby Lobby.
Here is what they have at Hobby Lobby:
cast iron brackets for the flip house, half price Mama Bear Apologetics,
oil paint, gold mesh birthday favor bags,
cold pink valentine heart garlands, bottle brush Christmas trees,
small polar bears covered with sparkles,
and everything bridal.
Here is what they don’t have at Hobby Lobby: tea towels that say
“It’s wine o’clock!” or “When you say ‘bitch’, you make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”
(Actual tea towels I have observed in a Manhattan home goods store).
Here is what they have at Hobby Lobby:
not bad silk flowers and not horrible Christmas music,
Here is what they don’t have at Hobby Lobby:
trans American Girl dolls promoting girl power.
Here’s what they have at Hobby Lobby: girl power.
This a well thought out and awesome conversion. The more the merrier in the Hobby Lobby club. Welcome (:
I really appreciate how you’re interrogating your own class assumptions here—the idea that your ancestors saw crafts as something to outsource rather than engage with is such a telling detail about inherited snobbery. But what gets me most is connecting that disdain to Gnosticism; it’s a sharp observation that dismissing hands-on, physical work actually reflects a kind of body-denying worldview. I’m curious where you land on this by the end—does Hobby Lobby represent a reclamation of that embodied creativity, or are you still wrestling with it?
Thank you AITEXTOOLS, yes. Very perceptive.
My love for my daughter and Hobby Lobby allowed me to frolic again in creativity. Since then, I have begun a new quest. The Incarnation shows how grace is beginning to restore nature. I have gone back to art school, this time a classical atelier. The students walk around saying, “They never taught me to draw in university. Everything was conceptual art.” I reply, “They never taught me this in university, and it was forty years ago.” A lot of us are stuck in a body-hating postmodernism. The image of God is so diminished in art today. By attending to the beautiful things God has made, especially human beings in his image, and crafting with care, we can reconsecrate.
I really appreciate how you’re interrogating your own class assumptions here—the idea that your ancestors saw crafts as something to outsource rather than engage with is such a telling detail about inherited snobbery. But what gets me most is connecting that disdain to Gnosticism; it’s a sharp observation that dismissing hands-on, physical work actually reflects a kind of body-denying worldview. I’m curious where you land on this by the end—does Hobby Lobby represent a reclamation of that embodied creativity, or are you still wrestling with it?
I totally get the snobbery angle—my own upbringing had that same “we don’t do crafts” energy, like anything hands-on was beneath us. But you’re right that it feeds into that gnostic disdain for the physical; I’ve had to unlearn that idea that working with my hands is somehow less valuable than just consuming “high culture.
Yes, Titan Reforged, well said! Because of the punishing economics of their job (I get it), it’s always been a temptation for artists to envy the elite world of the monied patrons and the few on whom they bestow their largess. But it’s healthy to plant a garden, construct a new deck, or nurse a baby, and feel the connection of your art to the physical world.
Thank you Titan and. Attext for the wonderful comments.
Here is what they do have at Hobby Lobby: Wonderful mothers like you.
I really appreciate your honesty about the snobbery angle—it’s so easy to dismiss crafts as “lesser” when we’ve been conditioned to value abstract intellectual pursuits over physical creation. The point about Gnosticism is particularly sharp; there’s something deeply human about working with our hands that gets lost when we only value what happens in our heads. It’s interesting how feminism can sometimes inadvertently devalue traditionally feminine skills in the rush to prove women can do “important” work.
The tension you describe between “higher culture” snobbery and the tactile satisfaction of crafts really resonates—it’s funny how we inherit these class-based prejudices about what counts as “worthy” creative work. Your point about Gnosticism is spot on: there’s something almost spiritual about working with your hands that the intellectual elite tends to dismiss. And honestly, if Hobby Lobby is bringing you joy, that’s its own kind of rebellion against those old hierarchies.
Hobby Lobby rebellion! That’s funny. You are right.