Updates from Rosy Greenlees
COLLECT, WESTMINSTER AND THE “LAUNCH OF THE CRAFTS COUNCIL’S 40TH – EXCELLENT CRAFT IN HIGH-LEVEL PLACES
The time since my last update in April has been mainly given over to COLLECT, with other highlights including the launch of our 40th anniversary celebrations at the House of Commons where we introduced our plans to bring the Crafts Council Collection even further into focus at the centre of our work and our new membership scheme, the Ruby Circle, which will be crucial to making this happen.
Also at Westminster, I had some very helpful meetings to discuss contemporary craft skills and their importance to education and skills development. The Crafts Council has subsequently submitted formal evidence based on these conversations to the Minister for Skills and the Henley Review into Cultural Education.
And, in the digital world, we continued to investigate the connections between craft and code, with the publication of a new Crafts Council digital briefing note and a significant role in this year’s FutureEverything conference.
COLLECT 2011
COLLECT 2011 saw over 10,000 visitors from the UK and abroad make their way to the Saatchi Gallery in London to meet 37 gallerists and to see and buy the finest contemporary craft from around the world, often with the additional opportunity to meet the makers themselves.
The fourth year of Art Fund Collect saw short-listed curators making passionate arguments to the selection panel for their chosen objects. This year, eight stunning examples of contemporary craft will be added to collections in museums from Plymouth to Leeds, making this great work available to visitors across the country.
The Art Fund has now generously donated £275,000 to give people greater access to world-class contemporary craft and to give curators the opportunity to bid for objects that would normally be outside their budgets. We thank the Art Fund for its continuing interest in public access to contemporary craft and for the funds that enable museums to acquire the highest quality work.
Art Fund Collect 2011 winners.
We were also delighted to present a range of installations at COLLECT this year – On View, a showcase of cutting-edge textiles presented in partnership with Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery to launch the Lost in Lace exhibition opening in September; Collection, a display of iconic objects from the Crafts Council Collection as part of the launch of our 40th birthday celebrations; and On Screen, a film programme exploring the mediation between craft and moving image.
In the Project Space a number of makers were invited to develop new work and partnerships for the event. The space enabled them to create pieces on a larger scale than normal and led to some exciting new work. All attracted lively crowds and stimulated debate.
Second Floor at COLLECT 2011.
Another undoubted coup was the unveiling of West Dean Tapestry Studio’s Black Cat tapestry commissioned by Tracy Emin and based on one of her own paintings. The Black Cat will hang in Emin’s own studio, and this was a unique – and much appreciated – opportunity for this wonderful textile piece to be seen by the public.
40TH ANNIVERSARY
Straight after COLLECT, we launched our 40th anniversary plans at the House of Commons.
Guests including Peers, MPs, funders, policy-makers, journalists, CraftNet leaders and, of course, makers, celebrated craft and swapped anecdotes over tea.
Our Chair, Joanna Foster CBE, introduced our Anniversary and talked about the work of the Crafts Council; Crafts Champion Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, eloquent as always, evoked the history of the organisation and how the positioning of craft has changed over the last 40 years and John Hayes, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, spoke passionately on the importance of craft to society. And although Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, was unavoidably called to a debate in the House on the day, we thank him for agreeing so readily to sponsor the event thereby making it possible
I took the opportunity to introduce our plans for the future of the Crafts Council Collection and our aim to make it an even more outstanding and accessible national resource. Looking forward, we see the Collection placed even more firmly at the heart of our work. We aim to acquire more examples of work by leading makers, develop new approaches to touring and loans, build our online resources and establish digital links with regional collections making the Collection a national hub for information and research. We are proud of our current Collection – but we have ambitions for much more.
With this in mind, we also launched our new Ruby Circle fund raising scheme at Westminster. Read more about the Collection here If you value craft and you are in a position to do so, please consider joining the Ruby Circle or one of our other schemes. With your support we can invest further in our Collection and our maker development schemes. And please act as our Ambassador and recommend them to your friends.
More about our 40th anniversary here.
Read more about our Westminster day out here.
POWER OF MAKING
As part of our 40th, we have not just one, but two major partnership exhibitions running alongside each other in the autumn. Power of Making, our second Crafts Council/V&A exhibition will celebrate the role of making in all our lives through an eclectic selection of over 100 exquisitely crafted objects ranging from a life-size crochet bear to a ceramic eye patch, a fine metal flute to a six-necked guitar.
Curated by Daniel Charny, Power of Making opens at the V&A on 6 September.
LOST IN LACE
And hot on Power of Making’s heels comes Lost in Lace, developed and presented through our Fifty:Fifty partnership with Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (BMAG) and originally “seed-funded” with an award from our Spark Plug curatorial development scheme. Lost in Lace is curated by Lesley Millar, Professor of Textile Culture at the University for the Creative Arts and opens in the Gas Hall Birmingham Museum and Gallery on 29 October. It promises an array of extraordinary works, presenting the broadest definition of lace, in a truly extraordinary exhibition space.
We are delighted to be working with two such significant museums on two such important exhibitions for our “40th”, while continuing with the current tours of Lab Craft and Breath Taking, looking forward to the autumn launch of our next tour (more details soon) and hosting our online exhibitions Out of Print and One-Liner.
POLICY/GOVERNMENT
Shortly before COLLECT, Joanna Foster, Chair of Crafts Council and I had a very useful meeting with John Hayes, Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning. Following his longstanding interest in craft – in the broadest definition – through his keynote speech The craft so long to lerne at the RSA last year, it was good to have the opportunity to discuss the opportunities and challenges that the contemporary craft sector faces in response to new government policies.
As he subsequently noted at our 40th anniversary celebration, the Minister is very aware of the specific challenges of the sector in relation to apprenticeships and is continuing to consider how this might be addressed. We will continue our dialogue with him to encourage a system that can successfully deliver apprenticeships for craft. We are determined to make the most of the Minister’s interest!
I also met Darren Henley to discuss his new brief to make recommendations into the broader teaching of culture following his review of music education. The substance of our discussion is covered in our formal response to the Henley Review.
Read more about current developments in policy here.
DIGITAL DEVELOPMENTS: CRAFT MEETS CODE (CONTINUED)
We published our latest briefing note, covering some of the connections between craft and digital technology, to coincide with the 2011 FutureEverthing festival in Manchester which came hard on the heels of COLLECT. This year the Festival had craft as one of its overarching themes and, following our participation at the first ever Culture Hack Day in January, we were delighted to be invited to take part in a panel discussion featuring developers, cultural organisations and creative producers discussing new ways of approaching cultural data and encouraging innovative thinking.
Ceramicist Michael Eden surfed the craft/code boundary alongside us, prominent both at COLLECT, where his work Amalthea, 2011 was purchased through Art Fund COLLECT for Leeds Museums and Galleries and at FutureEverything where he participated in a panel discussion on Post Craft and discussed his making process at the Handmade day of talks and installations at Victoria Baths.
There was real food for thought throughout FutureEverything and we will continue to take forward actions and themes from the day
LIBERTY’S INSTALLATION
Meanwhile, on a different note, we worked with Liberty to commission a paper maker to create a series of installations to celebrate the launch of their new Stationery Room. Andy Singleton created three tableaux for the store called ‘They loved what they found’. We are delighted to hear that this project has led to further commissions for Andy.
We are also working with another iconic British retailer – Selfridge’s – to create a series of Christmas decoration designed by glass makers. More details on the makers and their designs will be announced soon.
HOOK 1 – PASS IT ON!
Moving from coding to crochet (while acknowledging that practitioners of both have more in common than many people think), brings me to the launch of the second phase of Craft Club. Following the success of Knit 1 – Pass It On, the emphasis broadens to include both needles and hooks with the launch of Hook 1 – Pass it On focussing on crochet.
With 330 Craft Clubs now running across the country, and both the UK Hand Knitting Association and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes increasing their support, we are also contributing to the Arts Council’s Arts Nation project, using the successful format established in schools to take Craft Clubs into community settings in the autumn. More news about this exciting development soon…
Meanwhile, Firing Up, our national programme to reinvigorate ceramics teaching in secondary schools, supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation is entering the first cohort’s final term, with training getting underway for teachers who will work with HEIs to lead the second cohort. Again, more news soon
CRAFT RALLIES TO WEST DEAN FESTIVAL
The fourth Craft Rally will take place on Saturday 27 August as part of the West Dean Festival and will explore the meaning of collaboration to create new work through making; writing; discussion; food and games. The day will include The Salon of Talking Flowers, a five course surrealist tea party and culminate with In It Together, a procession celebrating the place of craft and beauty in protest and the importance of finding a unified voice.
Craft Rallies are part of our Collective programme of professional development opportunities and have been a great success to date. But I have to say that this one does sound extra-special.
OUT AND ABOUT
… all of which has meant less time away from the office than usual besides those mentioned above. However, colleagues attended SOFA New York – vital to keep an understanding of the current market in the US and it was enjoyable, as ever, to accompany some of our Patrons on their regular visits to makers’ studios – an opportunity that they enjoy very much. My grateful thanks to the makers who make this happen.
With COLLECT and our 40th launch there has been less time to get out but nevertheless I had the opportunity to contribute to a panel discussion at the South Bank Centre as part of the Alchemy Festival. The discussion focussed on the different and often similar challenges facing craft in India and the UK.
I also gave a presentation to the Gathering – the annual meeting of the Furniture Designer Makers Association – which took place in a chapel in Broadway near Evesham, home to the Gordon Russell Museum.
And I attended CC Skills and the National Skills Academy’s future plans launch at Goldsmiths Hall and the Heritage Craft Association’s Forum which was a very lively debate about the skills needs of the sector.
Out of all of these events many of the same issues emerge – the need for support, issues of sustainability, the challenges of working as a sole practitioner and how to engage with industry without losing your raison d’etre.
It is right that as a sector we continue to debate these issues and develop our thinking in changing times.
