A birthday greeting

Joanna Foster CBE, Chair, Crafts Council

Joanna Foster CBE, Chair, Crafts Council and Executive Director Rosy Greenlees look forward to another 40 years of making.

It was on 28 July 1970 that Conservative minister Lord Eccles announced the creation of a Crafts Advisory Committee to ‘advise the Paymaster General on the needs of the artist craftsman and to promote… a nationwide interest and improvement in their products.’ So, after it was launched on 6 October 1971, how did CAC go about doing this? According to Tanya Harrod’s excellent history of the Crafts Council (published in 1994 as Factfile No.3), it started ‘awarding grants directly to trainees and the training workshops as well as to fledgling makers setting up workshops, thus identifying a generation of youthful protégés.’ There were also bursaries for established makers and grants to special projects. By 1974 the CAC had given more than £300,000 to makers and organisations all over Britain. It did exhibitions too, and from those early shows grew a collection that by March 1980 contained 451 objects.

Spool forward to the present day, and while the political and economic landscape may have shifted considerably, the aim of the Crafts Council (as it was renamed in 1979) remains broadly similar. Above all, we exist to help makers and curators to be ambitious and to take risks; to build a strong economy and infrastructure for contemporary craft; to increase the audience; and to champion the best of British work.

At the same time we are encouraging a new generation of makers and collectors.

We believe passionately that children must be able to learn with and through their hands at school and have access to excellent teaching to develop these new skills. As Sir Christopher Frayling said at the launch of our 40th anniversary celebrations at the House of Commons recently: ‘When the Crafts Council was founded, schools taught Craft, Design and Technology. When the C was dropped from D and T, something important may have been lost.’ He’s absolutely right, and it’s part of our job to persuade government to put that ‘something’ back. So how do we go about this now, and for the next 40 years?

First of all, we have a fantastic resource in the Crafts Council Collection, some 1,400 objects, which make a series of fascinating snapshots of the most innovative craft. We intend to make full use of digital technology to enable easier exploration of the Collection online – for curators to learn more about the objects they can borrow; for students wanting to undertake in-depth research; and for craft-lovers who want to deepen their knowledge.

We will continue our support to makers over their careers, working in partnership with organisations across the country, through our portfolio of programmes under the Crafts Council Collective banner.

More than ever, the government demands evidence of effectiveness – and we will build on our current work conducting carefully targeted research to provide proof of craft’s value to the economy, society and culture.

As you read this, we are finalising a comprehensive survey providing new information on the economic impact of the sector, building on previous reports in 1994 and 2004. Next, we plan to undertake new work to demonstrate the importance of craft in relation to other subjects in higher education and industry – to prove that skills and knowledge shouldn’t be compartmentalised.

The Crafts Council has been responsible for seminal education work over the years. We currently have two national programmes: Firing Up, (supported by the Esmée Fairbairn and Paul Hamlyn Foundations) is reinvigorating ceramics teaching in schools, while Craft Club (with our partners the UK Hand Knitting Association and National Federation of Women’s Institutes) brings generations together to pass on craft skills. Both continue the vital work of promoting the benefits of making to the nation’s young people. Once again, we will build on these new foundations.

And of course we will continue to produce high-quality events and exhibitions.

We now produce a varied programme of touring exhibitions for small and mid-scale museums, galleries and venues around the nation. A good example of this is Block Party, curated by the brilliant artist Lucy Orta. Elsewhere, A White, A Blue, A Yellow, Red Poetry by Jeremy Reed recently opened in Northern Ireland, while our Celebrating 40 years of Excellence is due to launch later in the year.

And alongside these, we continue our programme of partnerships with significant UK institutions. For our 40th birthday we have two major shows: Lost in Lace with Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, and Power of Making with the V&A. The former, curated by Lesley Millar MBE, highlights the relationship between textiles and space, while the latter, which has been curated by Daniel Charny, investigates how and why we make things – and what we are driven to create.

It’s a deeply significant subject now, as it has been for the past 40 years and will be, we venture, for the next 40.