Craft Scotland's 'C' Word Campaign

With Emma Walker at the helm, Craft Scotland have a refreshing new marketing strategy and are taking the sector straight to the heart of public life. This is no more evident than their new C word campaign which is set to promote Scotland’s craft industries as innovative and desirable. Hip Hip Hooray to that!

With the launch of a dedicated website supporting the campaign, a cinema commercial - launching in Manchester, London and Minneapolis USA - and a series of interviews with the Times newspaper, Scottish Craft has a genuine future focus and more than just a twist of va va voom!

To find out more about this campaign the Times newspaper have interviewed Emma and are profiling a range of makers engaged in Scottish Craft, with the furniture maker Joachim King, opening this new conversation. You can also follow Craft Scotland on Twitter

Quilts: hidden histories, untold stories

Sue Prichard's blogging (in support of the forthcoming exhibition 'Quilts: hidden histories, untold stories' at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) is one of the most consistently enjoyable reads on the web in terms of craft. With an eloquent turn of phrase and a boundless passion for her subject, Sue delivers entertaining, intelligent and refreshingly modern conversation on the craft of quilt making.


Quilts 1750-2010: hidden histories, untold stories
V&A, London
March - July 2010

Chicks on Speed

In preparation for our Craft Festival next year (with its emphasis on future practice), Frances Stevenson, Laura Simpson and I had a great afternoon in conversation with Alex and Melissa from 'Chicks on Speed'.

Taken from last.fm ...
Chicks on Speed are a female electroclash band, born when Alex and Melissa met at the Munich Art Academy in 1997. Chicks on Speed’s core members are Melissa Logan (Upstate NY, USA) and Alex Murray-Leslie (Bowral, Australia), who collaborate with amongst others Anat Ben-David (Tel Aviv, Israel), Kathi Glas (Berlin, Germany) and A.L. Steiner (NY, USA).

Around Chicks on Speed there is grouped a large and ever-changing collective of musicians, producers, fashion and graphic artists, designers, film and video makers, and so on. Though usually considered part of such musical genres as electroclash, actually Chicks on Speed started as a multidisciplinary art group, who applied punk-inspired DIY ethic to performance art, collage graphics and home-made fashion (they have created their own stage costumes with cheap and recycled material such as plastic bags and gaffa tape, for example).



For a look at their work, go have a look at the Viva La Craft exhibition which was held in Melbourne Australia, March-April 2009. Brilliant!

And in person, come and see it in Dundee, Scotland next summer!

Future Craft

One of the key things we do as part our research is engage in conversation with people from a range of disciplines, in an attempt to develop knowledge and understanding of craft in terms of first principles.

We'd like to extend this conversation that we've been having with you via our BLOG, and as such invite you to join the debate about Future Craft. This is part of our preparation for a futures dialogue which we are organising with Dr Glenn Adamson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, next summer (10-11 June, 2010).

11 Ways (and counting) to Consider 'Future Craft'

• As a process that unites a range of creative endeavours
• As human intervention within real world scenarios
• As a vehicle for and of cultural, political and social commentary
• As a form of radical innovation
• As a research path concerned with intellectual experimentation
• A discipline that mindfully respects and disrespects tradition
• A methodology that unites the past, present and future perspectives of creative practice
• A philosophy articulating the creation of knowledge through making
• As a space in between established fields of enquiry
• As aesthetic commentary
• As a way to irritate and/or inspire people
  

Plus Some Ways to Consider Contemporary Craftsmanship

• Skill honed to the 'master' level
• A word denoting meticulous attention to detail
• 10 000 hours of dedicated practice
• An act of human labour
• A practical process

Our futures dialogue with the V&A London, comes in the form of a 2-day symposium entitled, 'Prototype: craft in the future tense.'

We'll be in touch soon with more info for debate and discussion, but for now, pls follow the link.