Updates from Rosy Greenlees
10 January 2012
Our 40th anniversary year has come to an end and we are delighted that we have been able to take the opportunity to engage so many people with contemporary craft.
Over 400,000 people saw our five Crafts Council exhibitions in 2011, a further 27,000 people attended Origin and COLLECT and over 7,000 children and young people participated in our nationwide initiatives Firing Up and Craft Club.
Power of Making, our joint exhibition with the V&A was the undoubted highlight of a busy year attracting over 300,000 visitors. The critics were over-whelmingly positive and, as we intended, it sparked debate on the topic of skills and craft’s relationship to industry, manufacturing and growth. As we enter 2012, our online exhibition, 40:40 Forty Objects for 40 Years, launched in December, continues to attract growing interest and comment and builds on the online exhibitions we have been producing over the last couple of years.
If one theme of the year was the popularity of craft, another – also reflected in the Power of Making, in our schools’ project Firing Up and in the launch of our new briefing paper Crafting Capital – was the relevance of craft skills and knowledge to innovation in sectors from biotechnology to engineering and materials science to digital technology.
Craft, Science and Technology
A pioneering workshop in partnership with Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studios brought 40 makers and 25 technologists together for one afternoon in November to explore the complementary aspects of their practice and how readily craft, science and technology interact. Contacts were made, ideas exchanged and there was much to feed back at the subsequent launch of our new briefing note Crafting Capital: New technologies, new economies at the House of Commons on 29 November.
Chaired by Barry Sheerman MP, Chair of the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group, the launch placed makers and scientists already engaged in extraordinary work together before a packed audience of policy-makers and professionals eager to discuss craft’s relevance to science and technology – and to manufacturing and growth. As I said on the day, it was a salutary demonstration that people with complementary expertise working together can challenge conventional thinking and create unexpected new directions and of how the unique nature of makers’ distinctive knowledge and skills can unlock innovation in many fields.
We will continue our focus on this important area in 2012.
You can find out more about the workshop here, read about the Crafting Capital launch here and download Crafting Capital itself here. There is also more information in our December Policy Brief here.
There are very clear links between this aspect of our work and Power of Making, and, bearing in mind the success of that exhibition, it was perhaps unsurprising that the conference, held at the V&A on 9 December, sold out and had to expand into an additional room to enable some 160 delegates to attend. With Jurgen Bey and Michael Marriott’s challenging and provocative presentations, and from the ultra cutting-edge of Marloes ten Bohmer shoe-making to a fascinating introduction to traditional gun making and the crafting of prosethetic eyes, the day reflected the central role of craft and making skills today.
Still on the theme of craft skills – this time reinforcing our campaign to ensure that they are introduced early and taught well – we have celebrated the launch of three more Year Two Firing Up clusters in Sunderland and Manchester in addition to the launch earlier in the autumn at Stoke on Trent and a further launch at Bath in January. And we took Craft Club into the British Museum at an event accompanying Grayson Perry’s fascinating exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. Firing Up will introduce 11,000 children at 55 schools to ceramics over three years, working with makers and Higher Education Institutes across the country to give over 150 teachers the skills to continue to teach craft skills in future.
On the same subject, I was pleased to see the specific reference to the importance of craft skills alongside design and technology in the Department for Education’s summary of evidence submitted to its review of the national curriculum in England and to attend the launch of the Design Commission’s report Restarting Britain in December and Art, Design and Bad Science at the RSA, launching their recent publication on the teaching of design and technology in schools and colleagues. See the December Policy Brief for more.
Out and About
In addition to the events above, it was a pleasure to sit on the selection panel for the Contemporary Art Society’s Annual Award for Museums at the Hepworth in November and to see the award given to Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery for their proposed commission with Christina Mackie at CAS’s annual reception later in the month.
Recent visits have included a day in Farnham at the Crafts Study Centre to see the Fred Baier show, visit Farnham Maltings and meet with the new Vice Chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts, Simon Ofield-Kerr, following his supportive comments on craft at Lost in Lace, our partnership exhibition with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in association with UCA.
I attended the Prince Philip Designers Prize, sadly the last the Prince will be supporting, but it was fascinating to hear of his real passion for useful design and great to see Quentin Blake win this year; the RCA’s work-in-progress exhibition of Ceramics and Glass and the annual Peter Dormer lecture, given this year by Dr Jorunn Veiteberg; the opening of ‘Terence Conran: the way we live now’, marking Sir Terence’s 80th birthday at the Design Museum; visited Grayson Perry’s Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum and great to see the Olympic and Paralympic Medals designed by makers David Watkins and Lin Cheung.
It was also a pleasure to visit Cockpit Arts annual Christmas Open Studios, Flow Gallery’s Covered designer bookbinders’ exhibition and Marsden Woo for Carol McNicoll, Jacqueline Poncelet and Sam Scott’s Ideal Home
I had meetings with the Mayor’s office, Design Council, Hidden Art, Turning Point, Creative England, Council for Higher Education in Art & Design, Learning and Skills Improvement Service and UK Trade & Investment and colleagues enjoyed meeting two visiting delegations from South Africa and Latvia, both interested in understanding more about how contemporary craft contributes in the UK.
Looking forward, there are a number of key exhibitions around the country this year including York Art Gallery’s showcase for Gordon Baldwin, opening in February and the final exhibition in the Shape of Things series at New Walk Gallery in Leicester from February.
New Years Honours
On behalf of the trustees and staff, my heartiest congratulations to Jacqueline Mina for her much-deserved OBE in the New Years Honours List. The Crafts Council has two pieces of Jacqueline’s in its Collection, a pair of pendent earrings from 1976 and a necklet from 1977 and Jacqueline is currently one of our Acquisition Advisors.
And finally
Our very best wishes to Tina Searle who stepped down as Chief Executive of Craft Central In November. We wish both Tina and Craft Central all the best for the future.
