Update from Rosy Greelees
EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION…
There has been much comment and activity about the proposed English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) in the past few months and we have continued to put considerable effort into ensuring that the Crafts Council’s position – that art and design including craft should be a “sixth pillar” of the Ebacc – has been widely and publicly represented to policy makers.
Over the past year, our activity has included:
• Working closely with Department for Education (DfE), the Cultural Learning Alliance and the Associate Parliamentary Design Innovation Group to advocate for art, craft and design subjects to be included as a sixth pillar in the Ebacc and to inform the forthcoming consultation on the curriculum.
• Submission of evidence to the Commons Select Education Committee inquiry into the Ebacc (March 2011) and to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry into support for the creative industries (October 2012).
• Submission of evidence to the DfE Reform of Key Stage 4 consultation (December 2012).
• Westminster Education Forum conference panel discussion as invited speaker (7 November 2012); invited again as speaker on 6 March 2013.
• Letter on behalf of the Crafts Council, CraftNet and Visual Arts UK published in The Independent (12 December 2012)
• Updates via our regular monthly policy briefs
We have also signed up to support the Bacc for the Future campaign and finally, we fed into the House of Lords debate on the Ebacc on 14 January.
This debate is clearly going to carry on and we will continue to argue for art, craft and design education to be incorporated in the Ebacc as a sixth core subject area alongside English, Mathematics, the Sciences, History, Geography and Languages, and to advocate for the inclusion of practical and cultural subjects in the National Curriculum and for the reintroduction of craft as an independent statutory subject at Key Stage 3.
OUT AND ABOUT
After a prolonged stint of travel in the autumn, it was good to be back in England for several significant events including the launch of the Craft Skills Awards (where I continue to represent the Crafts Council on the advisory panel); the Peter Dormer lecture, given this year by Grayson Perry; The New Craftsmen, a pop-up store in Mayfair focussed on British craft; the Walpole Awards for Excellence and, last but not least, the Conservative Arts and Creative Industries Network Christmas drinks where Ed Vaizey spoke of his high regard for craft and I had the opportunity to meet Secretary of State, Maria Miller.
If you haven’t already nominated someone for the Craft Skills Awards I very much encourage you to do so.
Our own events included a very successful afternoon co-hosted with CraftNet West Midlands which saw 60 participants gather for a panel discussion at which makers Deirdre Nelson, Billy Lloyd and Anna Collette Hunt joined Nick Booth, founder of podnosh, Craftspace’s Deirdre Figueiredo and me to discuss the sector’s use of social media. Alongside the discussion, we launched the briefing note ‘How makers and craft organisations are using social media effectively’ which includes four case studies profiling makers and craft organisations’ use of social network. Participants were also able to visit the two exhibitions Transplantations and Made to Maker at Bilston Craft Gallery and to network over a light lunch. My thanks to all the speakers and to Bilston for hosting the event!
Closer to Christmas, we welcomed our patrons and Ruby Circle members to a very special afternoon at the Crafts Council where trustees and members of our Collections team treated guests to a personal viewing of new acquisitions for the Crafts Council Collection. It was a wonderful opportunity for much closer engagement than is normally possible with museum-quality objects and we look forward to repeating the opportunity at regular intervals.
It was a pleasure to attend the private view for the new furniture galleries at the V&A and our Director of Programmes, Claire West represented us at the launch of Central St Martin’s Textile Futures Research Centre’s new publication Material Futures and at the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Digital Transformations Moot.
OTHER NEWS
It was with great sadness that we received the news that Amanda Fielding had passed away just before Christmas. Amanda was the curator of the Crafts Council Collection for nearly twenty years and went on to become a Research Fellow at the V&A. Those who worked with her during her time at the Crafts Council and came into contact with her whilst she was at the V&A recall her warmth, considerable craft knowledge and great contribution to promoting contemporary craft. She will be greatly missed.
Also, sadly jeweller, Barbara Christie, died in the New Year. Barbara had over thirty years of teaching as a Visiting Lecturer and in Adult Education and as a designer jeweller in her own right. An exhibition of her work, previously at Ruthin Gallery, is now on show at Contemporary Applied Arts.
FINALLY
A belated Happy New Year to you all and congratulations to everyone included in this years New Year Honours list including Sheila Margaret for services to the Jewellery Industry, Stephen Webster for services to Training and Skills in the Jewellery Industry and Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine of Tatty Devine for services to the Fashion Industry.
As you will have seen from the main bulletin, we are looking forward to the regional launch of Added Value? at the Civic in Barnsley later in January, Block Party’s visit to artsdepot in Finchley following its run in Leicester which saw over 50,000 people visit the New Walk Gallery; a series of taster days for professional makers considering applying for our Hothouse programme and, further ahead, COLLECT 2013…
And continuing our exploration of new routes for makers in the international market, we will be taking four leading British commercial galleries and a mission of makers, galleries and educators to the design fair – Design Days Dubai – from 18-21 March 2013.
It’s going to be another busy year…
