Have you ever done basket weaving? Probably not. What about cave painting? I doubt it. Those are two of the ‘lost arts’ today. Sure- if you look hard enough you could probably find a basket weaving class somewhere but it isn’t nearly as common today as it was a long time ago.

A great question is “What will the lost arts be in the future?” Here is my list of what will become lost as machines and more practical devices and ideas replace them:

• Cursive writing: visit a modern day classroom today and rifle through some of the student’s work. Most likely you will find almost all children writing in print, or some crossover between cursive and print. I have learned both cursive and print, and use just that: a crossover between the two. I think the future will not have the form of cursive that we have today, but an easy, fluent kind of writing that is a little of both.
• Sewing: sewing machines are one thing, but the original needle-and-thread sewing is dying out. Can you remember you’ve gotten out your needle and thread to sew up a hole in a piece of clothing or reattach a button? I can’t. Sewing may not die out until a long time into the future, but it’s already becoming less in less common in homes.
• Knitting: a long time ago, knitting was practical for people who lived in the middle of nowhere because it provided a simple way to make clothing. Nowadays, you can go and pick up a wool hat at Wal Mart instead of spending weeks making one by knitting. So, in a sense, it’s already pretty much a lost art, although I do know some people who still enjoy knitting.
• Instruments: Now if this becomes a lost art, it won’t happen anytime soon. But eventually, the power to create music simply by means of computer mixing may someday overpower the time it takes to learn an instrument. I have my doubts about this one, but it could be a possibility. Look at the harp- how many harp players do you know, exactly? Probably not many. If not all instruments, odd ones like the bagpipe and the harp will be the ones to go.
• Cooking: like instruments, cooking will take a long time to die off, but I still believe that it will eventually be replaced by instant meals. Cooking in the home (especially cooking things from scratch) will fade, although cooking food (like in restaurants) will never truly be replaced.

And there you have it! My list of what I believe may become lost arts in either the Nearby Future or the very far future.