Craft and Enterprise Response
Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director responds to recent editorials in Arts Professional (Issues 191 and 192), discussing the impact of the recession on the creative industries, the skills needs of the sector and the relationship between arts and industry.
Subscribers to Arts Professional can read the editorials online in issues 191 and 192, and non-subscribers can sign up for a free 4-issue trial of the magazine and gain access to the online archive for a limited period. Read Rosy’s response to these editorials below.
Craft is one area of the arts where creativity, entrepreneurship and enterprise have always been natural bed-fellows, so we know that we have nothing to fear from an increased dialogue between government departments focussed respectively on art and industry. We welcome the conversation with both, and look to their joint potential to make the craft sector more vigorous and more sustainable.
There are many excellent examples of craft interacting with other creative industries notably fashion, architecture and design. However, there is a decided lack of research providing robust evidence of the value of these interventions in a way which appeals to the Treasury – this is a difficulty we are working to address. Another difficulty is perhaps, language, since surely no-one could argue against the value of increasing the nation’s wealth, and this need not detract from the intrinsic worth of the creation of art.
“Skills development” is another phrase popular with government departments but less beloved as terminology. Practitioners may object to the words while fully supporting the underlying intention.
However, one effect of recession on the arts and the creative industries alike is the exacerbation of the under-investment already faced by sole traders and micro-enterprises. As risk increases, businesses with little spare time and money become more likely to conserve the time and assets they do have. The additional costs represented by apprenticeships – hard to cover even in good times –become almost impossible in a recession.
As Catherine Rose says, the call from the DCMS for creative businesses to be ‘unselfish’ in offering the support, placements and mentoring needed by the sector could, in this context, seem unrealistic. Moreover, we should not forget that artists are already generous in giving their time and experience to develop future generations. (Our own Crafts Council Development Award panel is just one example of this.)
However, “almost impossible” is not “impossible”. While the government calls for generosity, I ask in turn for flexibility in how these schemes are delivered and to whom. In a knowledge economy, an apprentice scheme for craft makers must take account of the fact that most entrants into the sector are graduates.
With the right parameters established, support agencies must play their role in enabling this type of sector mobilisation. Over the past twelve months, the Crafts Council and Creative & Cultural Skills have been working with partners and craft practices from across the UK, to produce a plan for sector skills development, written by the sector, for the sector. Our consultees were energetic, critical and engaged; and their comments have shaped the Craft Blueprint into a document reflecting real business issues and ideas.
The Blueprint, due to be launched on 10 June at the House of Commons, comprises a review of the challenges facing the craft sector, and a series of recommendations for skills development. Businesses and support agencies from across the sector, including the Crafts Council, have already committed to working with Creative & Cultural Skills to deliver these recommendations, but there is room for more action. Following the launch, we hope to see even more businesses getting involved: hosting apprenticeships, developing professional networks, and taking on leadership roles. When this happens, we will be able to state with confidence the role of sector support agencies in overcoming barriers to sector mobilisation and fulfilling the DCMS’s vision.
Rosy Greenlees
Executive Director
Crafts Council
8 May 2009
