2013-05-25T12:25:26-04:00 Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=rosy-greenlees Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rosy Greenlees Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3237172 2013-05-08T09:28:57-04:00 2013-05-08T13:01:09-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/ The executive director of the Crafts Council on Design Days Dubai and how makers are tackling new technologies

On the surface, a high-end art fair held in Dubai and a digital conference in Bristol might not seem to have very much in common. But both act as important indicators of the Craft Council's direction, suggesting where contemporary making could go in the future, as well as where objects created in the UK might be sold.

Through research we've conducted in recent years, it has become clear that one of our primary goals should be developing new routes to market for makers. Historically we've done this in the UK with such events as the Chelsea Craft Fair, Origin and currently with COLLECT, soon to open at London's Saatchi Gallery, from 10-13 May. But in a global economy, it is vital that we explore the commercial possibilities for makers internationally.

After extensive studies, we have concluded that we should move beyond our former target markets in Northern Europe and the US to focus on the emerging markets in the Far and Middle East. As a result, and with vital support from UKTI and the British Council, we made an initial sortie to the second edition of Design Days Dubai, with four top-end galleries - Gallery Libby Sellers, Gallery S O, Vessel Gallery and Marsden Woo - chosen to represent a wide range of work that would resonate with collectors in UAE, and showing pieces from the likes of David Clarke, Liam Reeves, Simone ten Hompel and Simon Hasan. The fair ran from 18-21 March, featuring 29 exhibitors (including such UK names as Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, Based Upon, and Carpenters Workshop Gallery), making it a similar size to our own COLLECT.

However, the trip wasn't just concerned with short-term sales. It will take time to build an audience in these new commercial territories. We have to educate, explain the nuances, and also tell the tales behind British craft and design.

So alongside the galleries, we organised workshops by designer Max Lamb and a panel discussion, The Value of British Contemporary Craft, featuring director of art and design production company DZEK Brent Dzekciorius, Dr Jana Scholze, curator of contemporary furniture at the V&A, and Martin Smith, professor of ceramics and glass at the Royal College of Art. Away from the fair itself, glass artist Heather Gillespie also held workshops at the American University of Sharjah. Each was designed to imbue visitors with an added understanding of, and empathy with, our nation's makers.

Design Days is organised by the company behind Art Dubai, more or less coinciding with it. I came away from it with a real sense that the contemporary art world had gained an important foothold in the area. I believe it's a great opportunity - one that contemporary craft must seize.

Compared to the shiny new architecture and wide highways of Dubai, a cold spring day in Bristol may seem a less glamorous destination. But the Craft + Technology showcase, held on 28 March at Watershed, was no less important. In his latest book, The Invention of Craft, Glenn Adamson points out some limitations of digital craft objects, which in his words often look like 'insipid masses of fused powder or deposited resin, or else cartoon cut-out slabs of laser-cut metal or wood.'

It's a description that can't be applied to the three makers in the Watershed residencies, undertaken in partnership with the Crafts Council and funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The trio worked on very different but equally intriguing projects, proving that new technologies and hand-skill are far from incompatible. Chloe Meineck, at 23 the youngest, has worked with day centres and care homes to find how those suffering from dementia can access important memories. Using a Raspberry Pi computer, RFID tags, music and a delicate wooden container, Music Memory Box helps preserve people's pasts. Place an object with an embedded tag in it, and it triggers a specially selected song, helping dementia suffers to recall things long-forgotten. It's a touchingly poignant project.

Meanwhile Patrick Laing's Flying Skirt Light Shade is fitted with a malleable fabric, which spins when the light is turned on, creating a delightful shape around the bulb. He hopes in time to create a networked version that responds to the movement of passersby. Finally maker Heidi Hinder has considered the role of money in the digital age. As the Euro crisis has helped to illustrate, the relationship between currency and national identity is intricate - traditionally bank notes and coins celebrate a country's heroes and successes after all. In Money No Object Hinder proposes a system of charitable donation where objects such as brooches and gloves use RFID technology to enable physical and emotional gestures. Her Hug & Pay brooches or Handshake Agreement gloves rely on human interaction to seal a deal or donate money to a good cause.

What both the Dubai fair and the Watershed residencies have in common is that they extend the horizons of craft and its economic possibilities - one geographically, the other technologically. Both push the possibilities of making and raise the aspirations of the makers themselves. They prove also that contemporary craft is constantly changing, to meet and enjoy new challenges. And it's why they are perfect projects for the Crafts Council.

For images from Design Days Dubai click here
To watch films on the Craft + Technology residencies click here
This blog post also appears in the May/June 2013 issue of Crafts Magazine]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2780480 2013-02-28T07:35:27-05:00 2013-03-01T12:44:13-05:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
'We want our education system to equal the best in the world,' says the Department for Education in its response to the consultation on the controversial English Baccalaureate Certificates. It's a sentiment we can all agree, but how we get there has proven to be a thorny issue.

The English Baccalaureate has been one of those rare subjects uniting an entire spectrum of interested parties, from art dealers to designers, head teachers to the CBI. It was introduced in 2010 as a performance indicator, rather than a qualification, to measure the percentage of school students achieving grades A*-C in English, maths, two sciences, a foreign language and history or geography at GCSE level. Then last year the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, announced proposals to create a single body to deliver the qualifications in those 'core' subjects, and grant English baccalaureate Certificates starting from 2015. As the department's website made clear: 'Once introduced, only EBCs will count towards the EBacc measure.'

The reason for the upheaval is that, as far as the Department for Education is concerned, too many schools have been offering vocational qualifications that 'do not carry real weight for entry to higher education or for getting a job'. In the meantime, take-up for modern languages, history and geography has declined, particularly in low-income areas. The idea then was, in the DfE's, words: 'To encourage more students to take these core subjects and to bring about greater fairness of opportunity.'

An Ipsos MORI survey on the EBacc's effects has suggested it is having some success in encouraging more pupils to study languages, which to my mind can only be a good thing. However, that same report also highlighted the flaws that disturbed so many figures connected to the arts world and beyond. 'Teachers in several schools noted that, despite not actively encouraging pupils to take the EBacc combination, they had seen greater rates of take-up of EBacc subjects at the expense of non-EBacc subjects,' it points out. In fact, there has been a 123 percent increase in the proportion of students studying EBacc subjects by those due to take exams in 2014.

And here lies the rub: as soon as arts and technical subjects are no longer seen as being of core importance, there's a real prospect that schools will quietly drop them altogether. As Baroness Morris of Yardley, herself a former Secretary of State for Education, said in a Lords debate on the subject last year: 'However the Government might try to argue that they are not putting the arts subjects at a disadvantage, the lessons of almost a quarter of a century of a national curriculum and assessment system tell otherwise. We have learnt over that time that what is measured is what is valued, and what schools are held accountable for is where they will put their efforts.'

It wasn't just the Tracey Emins and Grayson Perrys of the world, or former politicians, who were expressing concern at what seemed to be a failure to recognise the importance of the creative industries in our economy and therefore education either. In its recent report First Steps: A New Approach for our Schools, the CBI questioned the value of the English Baccalaureate, arguing that the (then) five A*-C grade GCSE target is 'little more than a scoring standard for government to measure schools'. Importantly too it said that a 'new gold standard vocational equivalent to A-levels has long been necessary to ensure that high quality non-academic routes get the recognition and differentiation they deserve.'

But the tectonic plates of government policy suddenly shifted last month, when the Secretary of State announced in Parliament that 'one of the proposals I put forward was a bridge too far'. So now GCSEs are to stay in place but will be reformed. League tables are to change too, with an average point measure introduced that will reflect pupils' achievements across eight (rather than five) subjects - English, maths, three subjects from the English Baccalaureate (which now includes computer science) and, significantly, three additional subjects, from either the arts, academic or vocational spheres.

As the whole saga untangles, we are delighted that art and design will be retained in the National Curriculum, and that its importance both to the economy and as a tool to broaden pupils' grasp of the world around them has been recognised. However, we are concerned that Michael Gove has now said that there will be a focus on 'drawing and painting skills'. While they are certainly important, it's vital that pupils are encouraged to develop their ability to make. It is this knowledge that nurtures our architects, designers, engineers and, of course, makers. To this end we are currently having conversations over the National Curriculum and will obviously attempt to help shape and respond to plans as they emerge.

This blog post also appears in the March/April 2013 issue of Crafts Magazine. To read more on the Crafts Council's activity around the EBacc click here]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2471601 2013-01-14T10:01:07-05:00 2013-01-14T11:03:41-05:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
Entitled Kaivalam - literally translated 'hand/prosper' - the conference featured talks from a range of speakers, including South Korean curator Byung Soo Eun, French embroiderer Jean-François Lesage and Brazilian design writer Dr Adélia Borges. In many respects it also reflected the globe's economic tide. The reason we were all in Chennai is because India has held the World Crafts Council presidency for the past four years, but was to hand it over to China at the Assembly.

This rise of new powers was stressed in a talk given by Frances Potter of the New Basket Workshop, and Shimul Vyas, head of the lifestyle accessories department at Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design (NID), about a fascinating India-Africa partnership that saw students, professors and volunteers from NID go out to Zimbabwe to teach Indian basket-making techniques. Potter explained how she'd assumed she'd need help from a Western nation, before she realised the benefits of forging a relationship with India.

While there were striking differences between many of the countries in their perception of craft, in several ways the issues we are all confronting are very similar. As Kevin Murray, Australian academic, writer and editor, pointed out in his perceptive summation, the crafts world needs to know itself better. We can't just rely on good intentions to put forward our case to government and business. We need a statistical bedrock to prove the importance and popularity of craft.

It was also fascinating to note how the discussion I touched on in my last column - relating to craft, luxury and community - has resonance elsewhere. There seems little doubt that the sector must seek out new opportunities: the Rwandan basket-makers securing a deal to supply Walmart, for example. On the other hand, it should never forget its ability to bring people together - as demonstrated by the Self-employed Women's Association, which empowers ­women refugees through embroidery.

While there was undoubted solidarity between many of the attending nations, some of the most intriguing moments could be found in the conference's sheer diversity. Muji's art director Kenya Hara, for instance, spoke eloquently about the importance of 'emptiness' in Japanese culture, describing it as an invitation to the Gods. However, Kuwaiti scholar Dr Ghada illustrated how in Islamic culture the purpose of decoration is to keep the devil away. To those of us used to European arguments on ornamentation, as put forward by the likes of William Morris and Adolf Loos, this was eye-opening stuff.

Interestingly too, while there were a few quibbles about the use of technology and tools, that old chestnut What is craft? failed to raise its head. It seems that the argument might have finally had its day, amid the common acceptance that the word can encompass a spectrum of work and activity. What Kaivalam really proved, however, is that craft is re-energising and reinventing itself worldwide. Yes, there are issues we all still need to resolve, but there is always strength in numbers.

Hong Kong

And bearing in mind where the presidency of the WCC will reside in the near future, it was fascinating to visit Hong Kong during the GREAT Week of Creativity, organised by UKTI at the start of November. While there were conferences, exhibitions, awards and installations, from the likes of the London Design Festival, Mulberry and the Walpole Group, what struck me is how this is a market on the cusp of change.

There was a very real sense that while China's high-end consumers remain obsessed with luxury brands, some are beginning to search out objects that express a sense of individuality. What is clear is that Hong Kong wants to learn from the UK's creative sector, and it remains a gateway to China. It may take years to mature but a market for British craft may well develop in time.

This blog post also appears in the January/February 2013 issue of Crafts Magazine]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2056180 2012-11-01T08:31:49-04:00 2013-01-01T05:12:01-05:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/ London Design Festival since it launched in 2003. Initially viewed as a bit of an arriviste - muscling in on the scene created by the likes of 100% Design and designersblock - it has successfully cast itself as the umbrella brand for an eclectic range of installations, talks and events taking place in the capital during September. And this model has been copied by cities around the globe.

At the Crafts Council we like to think we played our part in making the LDF's tenth anniversary go with a swing. Our day-long conference Assemble 2012, held at RIBA, took an intelligent and fascinating look at the affinity between making and science. While at designjunction our new show Added Value? examined the relationship between craft, branding and luxury, posing questions (rather than seeking answers) about the different perceptions of worth and consumers' growing interest in provenance. Finally, at that same venue's cinema, Crafts magazine joined forces with the International Film Festival on Glass and Clay, organised by Ateliers d'Art de France, to show a clutch of films originally viewed in Montpellier.

Having seen as much of the festival as possible, and after consulting colleagues, it seems that one of the key differences between the LDF now and in 2003 is that it has become imbued with a sense of craft. Making's presence was felt in all the major shows, from the luxurious environs of Decorex in Chelsea, to the more situationalist approach of designersblock on the Southbank. Look hard enough and it was even there in the trade atmosphere of 100% Design at Earls Court 2: the On Our Doorsteps stand, for example, was a perceptive installation by the University of Brighton showcasing projects by designers working as local activitists, either by making new products from materials scavenged off nearby streets or creating schemes to galvanise communities.

It was also fascinating to see the ways craft can be used to create items for those with money to spend, or be adapted for make-do-and-mend. Ever so often the two ends of this spectrum collide. In Pimlico, for instance, Linley launched a pair of new desks - designed by Rolf Sachs and Alex Hull respectively - as part of its Collaborations installation. The former featured no nails or screws, with panels of timber layered on top of each other. The latter combined a glass and carbon fibre frame with an exquisite leather covering. Both cost in excess of £20,000. But in the East End, DreamBagsJaguarShoes showed work from East London Furniture using found objects, waste and recycled material to create new chairs, tables and lighting as well as adding timber panels to the walls and bar. Combining these very separate sensibilities was a show at Gallery FUMI in Hoxton Square called Prostheses and Innesti. These furniture pieces were originally constructed by anonymous workers on building sites connected to architect Marcio Kogan, before what the gallery calls 'gentle interventions' by his practice StudioMK27 reinterpreted them - adding a piece of Murano glass here, or a carbon-fibre table-top there.

Now there is a debate to be had about the value of these pieces: what is it saying to turn roughly hewn, functional furniture into expensive art? But this does all prove that, a decade since the LDF began, design and craft are back in the same orbit. A mutually beneficial relationship is being revived which must be good for the UK economy in the long term.

Britain means business
And while I'm on this subject, the Crafts Council was proud to take part in the UK Trade and Investment organised British Business Embassy. At Lancaster House during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, 4,000 business leaders and global figures attended summits from the creative industries, finance and sport. The event was an opportunity to dress Lancaster House with the best of British craft, design and fine art. Our exhibits included work by paper artist Su Blackwell, silversmith David Clarke, jewellery designer Wendy Ramshaw, ceramists James and Tilla Waters and glass artist Louis Thompson, shown in three different spaces. At the creative industries summit it was great to hear Jonathan Ive of Apple talk about the importance of craft to his own creative practice. To my mind it highlighted the current strength of the crafts sector and how seriously it is being taken by government and business alike.

This blog post is also in the November/December 2012 issue of Crafts magazine.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1839944 2012-08-29T12:25:07-04:00 2012-10-29T05:12:04-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
In this wonderful, wide-ranging talk he praised the writing of David Pye, pointed an accusing finger at Ruskin, Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement (a brave thing to do one imagines bearing in mind is locale, the V&A), lauded the qualities of plastic and, perhaps most importantly of all, made a vivid case for the importance of craft in mass production.

In Banham's mind traditional crafts weren't in danger of dying out at all, they were merely being transplanted and put to different use in industry. Echoes of the village blacksmith - "who stands under the spreading chestnut tree doing all those groovy things with his muscles" (his words not mine) - could, for instance, be seen at the end of the Mini production line in Longbridge where a worker held a tool resembling a large clothes peg. As Banham explains his job was to take a look at each car as it came off the line, open the door and if it didn't shut properly 'apply the large clothes peg and a foot to the door, and lever it until it would close properly'.

While he was happy to admit that the task lacked some of the creativity associated with craft making, he pointed out that "this man was performing a function relying heavily on coordination of hand and eye, knowledge of material, and accumulated years of what can only be called craft skill. Door-springers of that type do not exactly grow on trees and it takes a long time to produce such an expert."

It was just one example he used to prove his point that 'the craftsman, as is normally understood, has far from disappeared. He has found a number of very important niches within the structure of manufacturing industry. We do not get his products directly, but nevertheless we do get his products.'

He may have been embedded in the machine age but the point Banham was making nearly four decades ago still holds true today. Yes, craft is still very much concerned with the beautifully produced ceramics, glass, textiles and furniture of the studio movement but as Power of Making - the exhibition we organised in partnership with the V&A last year - suggested, it is also important that we recognise skilled making comes in other forms and can be found in areas as diverse as fine art, fashion, industry, medicine or the latest technology. Craft is required to make space suits and six-necked guitars alike (or, as this issue ably proves, shotguns and engineering components).

It's in this spirit that we've put together an intriguing line-up for our major one-day conference Assemble. Held at RIBA on 20 September during the London Design Festival, speakers include such cutting-edge makers as Rhian Solomon, whose sKINship project investigates the relationship between plastic surgery and pattern-cutting, combined with academics and scientists like Marie O'Mahony, Professor of Advanced Textiles, OCAD University, Toronto and Professor Roger L. Kneebone, Professor of Surgical Education, Imperial College, London. It promises to be a day where relationships are forged, ideas swapped and a new role for makers emerges.

In the years since Banham stood up at the V&A, British industry has changed dramatically - the last Mini rolled off the line in Longbridge in October 2000, and the factory, a shadow of its former self, is currently owned by a Chinese company. Like it or not, it is almost certain that mass manufacture will continue to be transferred to other parts of the globe - China today, perhaps countries like Vietnam in the future. Which is why we should concentrate our energies on specialist, cutting-edge making requiring a skilled and very possibly artisanal workforce. In this new age of synthetic biology and solar sintering, craft will be required to adapt once again. My feeling is this could be a golden opportunity.

For more information on Assemble, visit www.assemble.org.uk. And if you want to read the whole of Reyner Banham's lecture it is reprinted in Vol.I Issue I of the 'Journal of Modern Craft', originally published in March 2008.

This blog post also appears in the September/October 2012 issue of Crafts Magazine]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1651466 2012-07-08T19:00:00-04:00 2012-09-07T05:12:12-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
It's one of the Crafts Council's key pledges and it's why we're so proud (justifiably, I think) of our Firing Up scheme. Currently celebrating its second anniversary thanks to support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the aim of the project is to re-awaken school kilns all over England, introducing a new generation of children to the possibilities (both creative and practical) of clay, and encouraging them to take these skills further forward in their education and subsequently the wider economy. (As an aside, if you want to know how important material experimentation is to the commercial practice of a designer or architect, I heartily recommend Heatherwick Studio: designing the extraordinary currently on at the V&A.)

Led by a well-connected steering group with members from the National Society for Education in Art & Design (NSEAD), University of the Arts, London, and the independent arts organisation Clayground Collective, the programme is designed to develop regional 'clusters' - attaching a group of local schools to the ceramics department of a Higher Education Institute (HEI). In year one we focused on Plymouth College of Art and Design, the University of the Arts, London, and Liverpool Hope University. Bringing something like this to life is not merely a question of dusting off the school kiln in the corner of the art room and flicking the on switch. Knowledge has been drained out of the system over so many years that skills have to be re-learned.

So the first step is to rebuild the confidence of the teachers themselves, with 'twilight' training sessions at the Higher Education Institutes led by the course leader or a local maker. Importantly each school provides at least three members of staff, meaning that if someone leaves the wisdom isn't lost completely. Second, we create shared learning between teachers, makers and the HEI's with a series of Continual Professional Development (CPD) days, where teachers, makers and members of the HEI's ceramics department all get together at a nearby gallery or museum.

Third, we give children direct experience of professional makers because it is that role model that can help fire enthusiasm and passion. Clayground Collective provides a creative template for the schools to follow, where makers go into schools to do four days worth of workshops with a specific group of children throughout the year.

Next, the school has to have the physical means to teach ceramics, so a new kiln is fitted or existing equipment repaired, in a process we call 'Kiln Rehab', and the Crafts Council also brings in its Handling Collection of ceramics so children across the school can get a sense of what can be achieved with clay.

Finally, the pupils put on an exhibition as a celebration, usually at the college they have been working with - which allows their parents to have a good look around the facilities and gets the young people over the threshold. The by-product of all this is that the schools and Higher Education Institutes begin to forge a new relationship that we hope in time will become genuinely symbiotic - the schools benefit from the HEIs' know-how, while their pupils are inspired to further their studies at their local university. Everybody wins.

In Phase One of this three-phase scheme we reached 2,000 pupils through 24 schools. During Phase Two, we spread our net to four more universities - Staffordshire (launched by Tristram Hunt MP in his constituency of Stoke-on-Trent during the British Ceramics Biennial), Bath Spa, Manchester Metropolitan and Sunderland - with equally impressive results. The benefits to pupils and schools have been manifold. As Guy Haring, head of art at Torquay Community College rather poetically put it: "For me to be able to offer such a rich and valuable experience to young and creative minds has been so rewarding. The tactile qualities inherent in this plastic medium seem to exist somewhere deep in our psyche. Pupils appear to quite literally connect with the earth and start to make sense of their physical world.' On a more practical level, another teacher noted that 'there were a couple of challenging pupils who worked really well as they were well motivated and really engaged with the experience."

The third and final phase starts soon as our three-year agreement with our funders comes to a conclusion, but we think we've put a structure in place through these 11 clusters that can be taken forward in the future; offering them the chance to encourage other schools to join in the programme, and a model for others to use. At a time of dwindling resources in the education sector it's vital for the future of the crafts in this country that the scheme leaves a lasting legacy.

This blog post is also in the July/August 2012 issue of Crafts magazine.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1634452 2012-06-28T12:20:45-04:00 2012-08-28T05:12:04-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
Despite what would become a widely held perception of craft following the Industrial Revolution - as being nostalgic, rural and outdated - craft still has this power. To make with our hands is a strong inherent human impulse that has lasted millennia. However it is viewing craft not just as a means of production but as a way of thinking that will ensure it continues to be relevant and significant in the 21st century.

Connecting and Empowering

'People talk about the absurdity of teaching crochet before dressmaking. Oh the worse absurdity of teaching needlework or any theory else till you have warmed the heart and unfrozen tongues.' [1]

This extract from a letter from Octavia Hill to Mary Harris in 1857 speaks succinctly about the ability of craft to connect people, and the value holds true today. Melanie Tomlinson is a metalworker who runs workshops with women newly arrived in Birmingham from conflict zones around the world, to promote social interaction and inclusion. Tomlinson says, 'Over time, they open up - it doesn't happen straight away but it just comes through in the work. Putting something out there and sharing it - making it real and permanent - has an almost spiritual element.' Likewise the Craft Café was set up in Glasgow's Castlemilk housing estate to combat social isolation, in this case with the elderly. The project, set up by Impact Arts, has proved so effective that local GP practices routinely refer older patients to the café, demonstrating how craft can transcend barriers and connect with hard-to-reach communities and individuals.

Octavia Hill recognised that craft provided such personal sense of efficacy, enabling individuals to find a place in the world. Turner Prize winning potter Grayson Perry takes this further, stating, 'One of the great things about learning craft is that it is almost a physical manifestation of "I can change the world".'[2]

A report from the Ruskin Mill Educational Trust written by Dr. Aric Sigman, Practically Minded, showed that hands-on play and hands-on learning allowed young people 'to experience how the world works in practice, to gain an understanding of materials and processes and to make informed judgments about abstract concepts'.[3] Learning with the hands in 3D develops what are called 'haptic skills'. These are skills relating to or based on the sense of touch, which in turn aid cognitive development. The development of such haptic skills not only fosters a range of transferable skills but it can engender important cross-curricular learning benefits. It also contributes to well-being that, with sustained engagement, can last a lifetime.

This sense of personal agency was reflected in Professor Matthew Crawford's book The Case for Working with Your Hands (2010) and Richard Sennett's book The Craftsman (2008) and explored in the recent Crafts Council and V&A partnership exhibition Power of Making[4]. Crawford's book, an unexpected hit with political analysts and economists, explored our reliance on financial services and infantilisation at the hands of manufacturers. Meanwhile, Sennett reflected on the characteristics of craft makers as having 'the capacities to become better at, and more involved in, what they do - the abilities to localise, question and open up problems that can result, eventually, in good work'.[5]

Alone, the argument for well-being and sense of personal agency is compelling enough a case for craft-making; the argument for craft-making as a way of thinking, as made here by Sennett, is where - is where the case for craft is at its most powerful.

Making Value

The 2010 Crafts Council report Making Value revealed the extent of the contribution of the 17,000 contemporary craft makers in the UK to industry, education, community and innovation.[6] Most makers operate a portfolio practice - over three-quarters work in other industry sectors; over half in community contexts; and just over a third work in education settings; nearly a third work across at least two of these three areas. These makers are highly motivated in applying their practice to make a difference and we can see them at work in a range of settings. From fashion to film, hospitals to heritage, manufacturing to mental health projects and retailing to residential courses, makers bring their specialist skills and knowledge of materials into a wealth of contexts.

A further Crafts Council report, Crafting Capital, explored how makers collaborate with scientists, engineers and technologists and how these collaborations are driving innovation.[7] In the words of Andrew Witty, Chief Executive Officer, GlaxoSmithKline, 'As science has evolved it's becoming much more multi-disciplinary and actually the discoveries all occur on the interface of disciplines.[8]' Craft contributes to this process in three ways;

It encourages a different style of thinking - the creative generation of ideas and risk-taking; flexible thinking complements a more linear scientific approach.
It includes a human element - makers are able to make the connection between abstract, scientific and technological developments with the needs of the real world in mind.
It represents skills - makers have high level skills in visualising, recognising and modelling patterns and systems in ways that can advance scientific thinking.

Collaboration accelerates innovation: by working together, people with different but complementary expertise can challenge conventional thinking.

The future

So what of the future for craft? The exhibition Power of Making received over 300,000 visitors making it the most popular free exhibition the museum has ever staged. This goes a little way in demonstrating that craft is part of the zeitgeist.

In his essay for the catalogue to the exhibition, Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, former Chairman of Arts Council England and Rector of the Royal College of Art, quoted Walter Gropius from the first Bauhaus manifesto in 1919: 'let's turn to the crafts'.[9] It has long been believed that Gropius said "let's return to the crafts", but in fact it was a mistranslation. Craft was not viewed as a historic destination but a valid means of expression. Professor Frayling makes the link between the current 'maker movement' use of tinker schools, tech-shop environments, incubators for making prototypes and rapid-prototyping centres to Gropius's famous aspiration to re-position crafts as 'research work for industrial production, speculative experiments in laboratory-workshops where the preparatory work of evolving and perfecting new type-forms will be done.'[10]

The 'maker movement' is growing rapidly, especially in the USA. It is being propelled by new tools and electronic components but perhaps more crucially by a willingness to share digital blueprints. This open-source approach being adopted by active and passionate online communities is driving innovation. It forms the basis of what Bruce Nussbaum, Professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons, the New School of Design, calls 'indie capitalism'.[11] Nussbaum believes that the future of capitalism is home-grown, small-scale and independent and crucially based on a community of makers. An emerging 'indie' capitalism is local not global and is socially, not transactionally, based. It is a maker system of economics based on creating new value, not trading old value. Ultimately brands are out and communities surrounding the creation of a product or service are in.

This resonates with Octavia Hill's holistic approach to social reform. Octavia knew the importance of the domestic scale within a community, she worked on a 'hyper-local' level herself and she served a community by nurturing a spirit of individual empowerment and collective responsibility. She would have approved of an open-source culture that worked towards advancement where individuals do not lose out to corporations.

Like many of Octavia Hill's values, making is far from an anachronism in a modern world. Its strength lies in its ability to change and adapt, allowing it to create real impact. The constructive and collaborative nature of what making things entails has fed into the fabric of our society for centuries and evidence suggests that it will continue to do so.

This essay is part of a collection of essays published by Demos; The Enduring Relevance of Octavia Hill
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[1] ES Maurice (ed), Octavia Hill: Early ideals, from letters, London: Allen & Unwin, 1928, p. 43.

[2] See Crafts Council , 'What our craft champions have to say', Grayson Perry, http://www.craftmatters.org.uk/champions

[3] A Sigman, Practically Minded: 'The benefits and mechanisms associated with a craft-based curriculum, Ruskin Mill Educational Trust, 2008, http://tinyurl.com/bvobfex

[4] See M Crawford, The Case for Working with Your Hands, London: Penguin, 2010; Richard Sennett, The Craftsman, London: Allen Lane, 2008; and D Charny (ed), The Power of Making, London: V&A Publishing and Crafts Council, exh cat, 2011.

[5] Sennett, The Craftsman

[6] M Schwarz nad K Yair, Making Value: Craft and the economic and social contribution of makers, London: Crafts Council, 2010, http://bit.ly/qcV4w3

[7] Crafts Council, Crafting Capital: New technologies, new economies, London: Crafts Council. nd, http://bit.ly/MVGaiT

[8] The Andrew Witty quote was taken from BBC2 series Made in Britain, June 2011.

[9] C Frayling, C, 'We must all turn to the crafts', in Charny, The Power of Making, p. 29

[10] Ibid.

[11] Co. Design, '4 reasons why the future of capitalism is homegrown, small scale, and independent', nd, http://bit.ly/wPxa7N]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1505350 2012-05-10T05:22:41-04:00 2012-07-10T05:12:16-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
It was a comment that sowed the seeds for an extraordinary collection, of 10,000 pieces and over 100,000 documents and manuscripts relating to Josiah Wedgwood, his family, and the company he created - which went on to be placed on UNESCO's list of the top 20 items representing the outstanding heritage of the UK. Though in actual fact the collection wasn't officially established until 1906 - despite members of the Wedgwood clan reserving particular wares before that time. It was then packed away at the outbreak of World War Two, and not shown again to the public until 1952. A new visitor centre was introduced in 1975, including an art gallery, museum galleries, a cinema and a demonstration hall - and then in 2008 the present, and (it has to be said) rather wonderful £10.5 million Wedgwood Museum was opened, winning the prestigious Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries the following year.

I mention all this history because the collection is currently threatened with being broken up and sold to fill a £134 million hole in the Waterford Wedgwood Potteries pension fund. Ironically, legislation introduced with the best of intentions, to protect innocent investors, could now (it sadly seems) be the tool used to destroy this vital part of the nation's heritage.

Speaking to Reuters, the museum's director Gaye Blake Roberts said she was 'determined to do absolutely anything' to save the collection. Tristram Hunt, historian and MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, meanwhile stated starkly in the Telegraph that 'for Stoke, the dispersal of the Wedgwood collection would be an act of cultural vandalism. Its demise would be to strike at the very meaning of the Potteries.' At a time when the city is working hard to retain its history and revitalise its industry, the future of the collection remains very much in the balance. Attorney General Dominic Grieve recently confirmed that it can be sold to meet pension liabilities. Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey visited the museum at the end of March and the matter has been raised in Parliament. A large group of academics, many working in business schools, wrote a letter to the Guardian in the middle of the month arguing the case for saving the collection.

Here at the Crafts Council it remains our fervent hope that a solution can be found to keep the entire collection intact and on permanent public display. After all, this isn't just a wonderful collection of ceramics. Josiah Wedgwood successfully combined craft, science, innovation and business. In every sense of the word he was (to use contemporary parlance) a 'game-changer' - and proved that craft is capable of spilling over into other sectors, and that the combination of creativity and material expertise can bring huge value to industry. The collection provides a portrait of one of the nation's most important figures, and it's simply too valuable for us to lose. To show your support, sign up to the Save Wedgwood Twitter campaign, @SaveWedgwood or visit www.savewedgwood.org

On to rather brighter matters - the Crafts Council's COLLECT 2012 is about to open at London's Saatchi Gallery from 11 to 14 May. As well as first-rate work from leading makers displayed by some of the world's greatest galleries, it also promises to contain a plethora of features including the Project Space allows independent makers the chance to create experimental installations, and the launch of a new Crafts Council touring exhibition Raw Craft. COLLECT opens on 11 May and, frankly, I can hardly wait.

This blog post is also in the May/June 2012 issue of Crafts Magazine]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1338610 2012-03-12T07:55:43-04:00 2012-05-12T05:12:01-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/
So how is craft coping with the new world order? Craft in an Age of Change is a report commissioned from the independent research company BOP Consulting, by the Crafts Council, Creative Scotland, the Arts Council of Wales and Craft Northern Ireland. Published in February, it examines the place of making in the creative economy and looks at the working patterns of makers and other craft professionals including retailers, curators and writers. The results are fascinating although, as is often the way, the report asks as many questions as it answers, presenting a picture that contains both light and shade.

Importantly, the survey suggests that, in many respects, the sector's structure is relatively stable, with makers and retailers cautiously optimistic about their prospects when it was conducted. I don't want to quote a stack of statistics, but some of the figures it highlights are compelling. The contemporary crafts sector generates income of £457m. To put that into some kind of perspective, the total revenues for London West End theatres were £512m in 2010, while spending on music downloads came in at £316m for the same period - arguably because of the issue of illegal downloads, but a fact nonetheless. Yet, much as these statistics suggest a sense of robustness, it doesn't mean that craft is an easy, financially lucrative, business. Far from it. A maker's average gross income from all sources is £23,485.

What the survey also reveals is the shifting nature of craft in terms of the characteristics of makers, and how they sell their work, indicating potential areas for growth. Sales through the majority of 'real world' channels have fallen recently while online sales are rising (albeit from a low base) so this would appear to be one area worth further exploration.

The report also reveals tensions that makers will need to resolve in the future. The most obvious is how craft deals with technology in more complex areas than sales. 57% of makers are currently using digital technology in their practice or production. This will surely only grow in the coming years and the parameters of the word 'craft' will continue to be re-calibrated in response to these changes.

Another theme is globalisation. At the moment very few makers or retailers export their products, but might they be more inclined to adopt an international strategy in light of developing markets in China, India and South America? And how does the potential of British craft to benefit from the new wealth and demand for high end goods in these countries square with one of the sector's major selling points - its sense of provenance and place?

It is beyond doubt that these are challenging but exciting times. But as the report itself concludes: 'Whatever changes may be coming, the history of the sector suggests that craft professionals will find ways to re-think and re-invent their practice to adapt to a changing world and allow craft to flourish.' I couldn't agree more.

This blog post is also in the March/April 2012 issue of Crafts Magazine ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1193445 2012-01-10T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-11T05:12:01-04:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/ Power of Making at the V&A (their second most popular exhibition in the last ten years) or the international fair COLLECT held at the Saatchi Gallery each year.

However - it plays a vital role in how craft is perceived across government.

The recent report Crafting Capital: New Technologies, New Economies (Crafts Council 2011) investigates ways that craft can collaborate with other disciplines - such as engineering, technology or medicine - to produce new products and services that add genuine value to the economy.

The obvious question is how? Well, the report summarises the benefits of working with makers in three ways. Firstly though we're keen to avoid generalisations, our examples make it clear that makers can bring a different intellectual perspective to a project, to complement the more linear approach of science. Second, makers, often used to selling their work directly to the end-user, can help engage the public in scientific or technological developments which may otherwise seem rather abstract - in other words they can humanise new ideas. And finally, with their high levels of manual dexterity, makers have tacit knowledge that can benefit scientific or technological processes. They have experience with, and often profound understanding of, materials: they know how far sheet glass can be slumped without warping or how frequently ceramic can be pierced by a laser cutter without cracking.

All of which shows something that neither the arts nor sciences exist in a vacuum, and that skills learned in one arena have the potential to benefit another.

Examples are numerous. Glass-maker Matt Durran has been working with the Royal Free Hospital developing the glass moulds that new organs can grow around. And one of the most fascinating aspects of the Bodging Milano project, has been the development of William Warren's Sunray chair, initially a one-off piece made in the woods without electricity but now a mass-manufactured product by Case Furniture.

Meanwhile, for several years textile maker Ptolemy Mann has been working with architects like Stanton Williams and Swanke Hayden Connell on such projects as Kings Mill Hospital. I was intrigued by architect Alan Stanton's short piece, written for Mann's Ruthin exhibition catalogue, in which he wrote: 'Ptolemy takes the craft of weaving and, with great intelligence, applies its processes to the design and expression of architecture... The quality of her intuitive choices and the range of her thinking from the small to the large are impressive.'

Our report proposes a number of measures to be undertaken if we are to encourage more such collaborations, including opportunities for makers to engage with other disciplines and greater links with Higher Education across different areas. One I would like to highlight is the need for cross-curricular learning in schools. At a time when the government is promoting the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) at the expense of school workshops, it's vital we demonstrate the importance of thinking with your hands for an up-and-coming generation of makers and indeed engineers, designers, surgeons and others.

Our policy makers need to understand that, yes, craft is about creating exquisite vessels and textiles - but it also has a wider role to play. As the co-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group Barry Sheerman MP said at the launch of the document, it may be that craft could provide an 'answer to the dreary economic prospects'.

This blog post is also in the January/February 2012 issue of Crafts Magazine]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1069418 2011-11-01T19:00:00-04:00 2012-01-01T05:12:01-05:00

Rosy Greenlees http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosy-greenlees/ Power of Making is heading towards becoming one of the V&A's most successful free exhibitions ever.

It was a wonderful way to kick-start the Crafts Council's 40th anniversary celebrations in September this year. It has been hugely gratifying to see hoards of visitors entering the exhibition on all the occasions I have been at the V&A since it opened. It has certainly captured the popular imagination but why has it made such a positive impression?

Obviously much of its success can be attributed to the skill of the curator, Daniel Charny, and to the attraction of the V&A as a venue. Importantly too, the show's timing has been perfect. When we first discussed the theme with the V&A a couple of years ago, it was clear that a shift was already taking place.

The government has been talking up the importance of making, most notably George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in his budget speech announced: "We want the words: 'Made in Britain' 'Created in Britain' 'Designed in Britain' 'Invented in Britain' to drive our nation forward. A Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers." The journalist and economics expert Evan Davies recently produced a book and BBC series - Made in Britain - investigating British manufacturing, and the BBC (in partnership with the V&A) is launching a year-long series of shows that promise to explore the history of craft called Handmade in Britain.

You only have to watch the crowds of visitors transfixed by the films in Power of Making to realise that people remain fascinated by how things are made. Yet, for a gamut of reasons that began with the industrial revolution and encompass globalisation as well as technological advances, our chance to have direct contact with makers and making has decreased considerably. As Daniel Charny correctly points out in his foreword to the show's catalogue: "The distance between the maker and the user is growing and, with it, knowledge, understanding and appreciation are diminishing."

The aim of the Power of Making then is to encourage visitors to think about the objects around them and, hopefully, to come away from the show with a firmer grasp of the importance craft has in so many walks of life - be it medical science, industry, food, fashion, art, music, or transport. Importantly the show is emphatically not interested in romanticising the handmade, harking back to a golden era of making. The techniques on display range from the traditional - a dry stone wall, a barrel - to the cutting edge technology of 3D printers.

If the response from critics is any barometer, the show is also going a long way to changing the understanding of the word 'craft'. Alastair Sooke, the Telegraph's deputy art critic, summed up a perception we have been fighting for years when he opened his review with the following: "'Craft' is such an off-putting word, with connotations of amateurism, and a reactionary attachment to time-honoured traditions." Happily by the end of the piece he admits that the show turned this perception on its head. "What these objects share is a certain hand-made, heartfelt, visibly human aesthetic - and if that personal touch vanishes, then we'll be cast adrift in a jerry-built limbo of branding, cheap manufacturing and mass-market consumerism," he concludes.

It also shows the benefits of our policy of partnering with other institutions to produce shows on a stage large enough to attract visitors who otherwise might not think craft was for them. Lost in Lace - a joint exhibition developed and delivered in partnership with Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery opened last week, and our regional touring exhibition Block Party opens at Smith's Row in Bury St Edmunds in January. We hope that with these exhibitions and our various other programmes we're removing the stigma that has (unfairly) been attached to the word 'craft' by too many people for too many years. It's time the nation woke up to the work of its brilliant makers.

This blog post is also in the November/December issue of Crafts Magazine]]>