FOXBORO -- If objects of art can be equated to words in a language, then artists are expanding their vocabulary with the addition of crafts. `` The boundary between art and crafts has become fuzzy,'' says Marlene Housner, a Foxboro artist known for her exhibits of abstract, large-scale paintings and works on paper. `` It cross es the fine line between art, craft, fashion, what an artist can do as an extension of their vocabulary.''

Housner has expanded her artistic language into both dec orative and functional items, mostly by creating luxurious, mixed texture clothing that can be worn or displayed or both.

`` A cup is no longer a cup. It becomes sculpture,'' she added. `` Many of my pieces are sold as wall pieces, but they are also worn by you or your home. Craft is more approach able and friendly. You can touch and acquire it. It has made my art more friendly for me. As a painter, you tend to be isolated to do mostly origi nal work. Here, the work grows as the audience grows.''

Housner is one of six craft artists from the South Shore who will be exhibiting their one-of-a-kind works at Craft Boston, held at Boston's World Trade Center May 21-23. Her tapestries will hang alongside the varied work of 175 noted crafts artists from around the world.

Now in its third year, Craft Boston is the premiere New England exhibition and sale of contemporary craft. The show features limited edition pieces in baskets, ceramics, decora tive fiber, wearables, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, paper and wood -- a vocabulary of everyday objects as art. Housner says she taps into another vocabulary which includes the antique and the traditional merged with the new, the unusual and the cere monial.

`` I take a revisionist approach to clothing construc tion, adding and subtracting elements until arriving at the rightful and sublime,'' she said.

Housner draws on her expe riences as a teacher, a studio painter and a costume design er to cut and mix fabrics such as lustrous velvets, chenilles, tapestries, exotic silks and intricate jacquards, French trim, tassels, iridescent rib bons and cords. She overlaps them into a collage composi tion of surfaces and textures which are also wearable, reversible forms.

`` My work is inspired by Asian and American South west styles of dress,'' said Housner. `` I approach each piece as I would a canvas.''

Changed mission

Craft as art has become such a trend that the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton officially changed its mission and its name in mid-April.

The new Fuller Craft Muse um is now one of a handful of contemporary craft museums in the country, housing what museum executive director and chief curator Gretchen Keyworth called the `` most important art discipline that is happening today.''

`` People seem to have a need to categorize things,'' she said. `` This is all art. A lot of the interesting art being done today is object-driven.''

To that end, the museum is offering the `` Perfect Collec tion'' through July 3, showing the works by master artists from local private collections rarely seen in public, includ ing studio furniture, ceramics, glass and other everyday objects.

SEE CRAFTS, PAGE E3 E `` Decorative art has been around a long time. The trend today in crafts is based in function,'' said Keyworth. `` You segway that to art objects, based more in conception and idea. The idea drives the piece, rather than the function. Look at a teapot on display. It's more about the idea of a teapot, rather than a functional teapot.''

Keyworth said she sees a definite trend for art patrons to have greater accessibility to the ``tactile nature of crafts.''

`` It was important to do this during the arts and crafts period in the late 1800s and the early 1900s,'' added Keyworth. `` It faded for a bit, but it began again with the GI Bill, when GIs decided to go back to school to get in touch with themselves. They ended up in a ceramic department or a wood department or a pipe department. So many of us have been in this field s ince 1945.''

Keyworth said that craft as art is now getting to `` the tipping point,'' meaning that `` everybody starts to know what it's all about.''

By summer, her museum will offer visitors white gloves at the entrance so they can touch selected works. A `` Discovery Gallery,'' to open this fall, will feature clay, wood and fiber to let patrons experiment like pros.

`` It's a very emotional, tactile, accessible art discipline,'' said Keyworth. `` It's part of human nature. People want to pick it up, people want to touch it, people want to hold it. You want to put your arms around it. CraftBoston is an opportunity for people to touch everything, like t he art that Marlene Housner does. They can try it on. They can see themselves with it on in a mirror.''

Beth Ann Gerstein, organizer of CraftBoston, said her show k eeps growing, from an original 145 artists to 175 this year. Twenty percent of them are curated, while the othe r 80 percent are selected through an open jury process.

Cra ftBoston is patterned after a similar exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum. `` Some who come are craft show junkies, but the n there are people who just love beautiful things for their home or something beautiful that is wearable, like a broach to wear to work. Once they see how these objects fit into their lives, they want to see more.''

Gerstein said shows of this type are sprouting up everywhere -- from country craft shows under tents to ``high-end'' shows like CraftBoston.

For those who don't think that e veryday objects or crafts qualify as true art, she quoted a former curator at the Smithsonian: `` He said, `Look, we are all part of the art community. All sort of cousins in the same family. It's just what choices we work in.' More craft art is crossing over to functional works. Marlene's art can be worn, but half of the clients just use it as decorations on the walls,'' said Gerstein.

`` People have a personal connection to an object that's stronger than a painting,'' added Keyworth. `` A painting is very removed. You stand back from it. You observe it. With these pieces, they are used. They are in people's homes. They are part of everyday living.''

Housner put the phenomena in terms that reflected every person, artist or not.

`` Everybody in life is involved in some way in some kind of craf t,'' said Housner. `` You lay out the pieces, whether it's art, or gardening or even cookin g. This is the bridge between the high and the low of art.''

Some material from the Associated Press was used in this story.

James A. Merolla may be reached at 508-236-0428 or email him at jmerolla(at)(at)thesunchronicle.com.