A Place for Creative Work

I have recently returned from a one day conference in London organised by EUCLID, (UK, European and International information and services for arts and culture) entitled: A Place for Creative Work: International Responses.

"Finding the right space to work as an artist or creative practitioner is still a challenge for many. This conference brings together people from Europe and the Americas who are involved in delivering particularly innovative and successful responses to this challenge." says the opening paragraph of the conference literature. This is what it did, and it was an eye opening experience for me to hear some of the projects that are taking place around the world.

Generally there was a lot of discussion about investment in people, not just buildings, and the need to create a human infrastructure as well as the bricks and mortar. There was debate about the need to shift the current paradigm so that creative people are recognised as valuable assets, not a luxury or a drain, and that there needs to be a global creative revolution! As I was listening to this I thought about all the shopping malls that are springing up in towns and cities and the increasing similarity between each of them. I thought about the planning departments who make the decisions about what facilities we 'need' that in essence define our very culture. It seems that we need to shop....all the time...in the same shops....everywhere. So I thought, who decides that we dont need a creative community to occupy areas within a city centre? Creative communities can regenerate areas, they can be a commercial resource as well as a tourist attraction. Shawn Patrick McLearen from Artspace USA (a non-profit real estate developer) sited exactly HOW WHAT WHY and WHERE, (which included figures) for all of us to gawp at with envy. According to Keith Hackett (a freelance consultant), the EU Lisbon vision is to nurture regional distictivness. Surely art and craft has a central role to play in this vision?

Tim Jones the Director of Artscape in Canada, another non-profit enterprise, talked about building creative communities, developing creative districts and clusters and cultivating creative cities. He believed that the way forward is to be pro-active and deepen the understanding about creativity. He was the person who said we needed a paradigm shift in order to develop a culture of creativity and innovation. People he said can change the world for the better.

The director of the Media Guild in Amsterdam, Andrew Bullen talked about the Guilds aims, which are to "stimulate the innovation potential of [the Guild] and multi media creative industries by bringing together, coaching and enabling talented starters, young entrepreneurs and established professionals to develop and prototype their ideas'. like the other speakers the space they inhabited is in a central location and was rescued from demolition. And like the others, there was nothing second rate about these spaces, they are contemporary workspaces for "creatives".

I just want to discuss one of the final speakers briefly, David Panton from ACME in London. He explained Barratt (the house builders) wanted to build apartments in a prime spot that, I think, had been targeted for business use. Barratt approached ACME and between them devised a way for Barratt to build a sister block that would be used as studio spaces. Their plan was accepted.

So if like Gus Casely -Howard (this months Crafts Magazine) you are fed up with "...craft not being as glamorous as fashion, or as marketable as design, or as credible as visual art [when] we all know that the craft market has a greater potential than the fine arts market , that more people want to buy craft than painting, that a greater proportion of the public want to participate in craft", we are going to have to give some thought to space, how we get some(much more than we have at present), and how we develop creative communities.....aren't we?

Knitted Ferrari

craft research
Just thought I would add this posting of a Knitted Ferrari that appeared on BBC breakfast news the other day. Any comments?

Lauren Porter’s Knitted Ferrari
Sarah Myerscough Fine Art
(Monday 27th November to Friday 1st December)




In Laurens Porter’s full size knitted Ferrari we find the fusion of the seemingly incompatible. The most aspirational of all consumer products is presented in the medium most quintessentially ‘home-spun’. The masculine is brought together with the feminine, soft with hard, young with old and the fast with the slow - this particular Ferrari was 10 months in production. If you were to ask what the opposite of Ferrari might be – could the answer be knitting?

The beauty of this piece is not just in the simplicity with which these associations and stereotypes are challenged; the positivitey with which Lauren raises these questions is just as immediate. Stressing the importance she places on using humour and optimism to put across a deeper meaning, Lauren especially wants people who don’t normally go to art galleries to see her work.

The wide appeal of this piece can be seen in the breath of interest in it - exhibited in both the British International Motor Show in the Sunday Times VIP Super Car Section and at the Alexandra Palace for the Stitch and Knit expo. ‘I get men admiring the racing lines and old women admiring the stitching’ Lauren says, and likes the way that people walk away from it with a smile on there face.

A controversial cross between a Testa Rossa and a 355, this version includes windscreen wipers, wing mirrors, low profile tires and, of course, the famous badge (here hand embroidered). Having already drawn a great deal of attention to itself, having been featured in the Times, the Sun and on BBC 1 already this year, the red knitted Ferrari will now be on sale at Sarah Myerscough Fine Art.

craft research

There is an interesting discussion going on in the forum of the Craft Scotland website. http://www.craftscotland.org under "Craft in Crisis" posted by Tina. This was a recent comment by 'Duncan' "I think Liz and her question about who the credit goes to (the work or the maker) is a moot point. The work and the maker are related - but surely the work is the most important thing - many great works have been produced by not very nice people (!), but that does not make the work less important.Also, knowing what craft is and this encouraging people to come and see/buy craft is not a strong link. Perry won the Turner Prize (although avoided using the craft word) and Chihuly does 'glass sculpture'. These people avoided the craft word, and reaped the benefits, it could be argued. Potentially, had they used the craft word, they would not be where they are now. I still think this hangup on names is becoming irrelevent. On fewer people going to craft shows - correct. But fewer people go to installation shows in visual art, fewer go to photography shows by less well-know photographers than painting/photography shows by better-known artists, but that does't faze photographers - as they have high profile blockbusting photographers to carry the torch for the profession.Maybe galleries don't sell/show craft as much because it is on the whole 3D - takes up more space and is harder to show and ship than 2D works (this alos applies to the buyer). And again, the auction resale market and lack of museum shows and permanent collection reinforces this negative circle (well established by reports written by the Arts Council for England for example). What do gallery owners think about this?Yes, people should study craft like fine art. How would this get started - is this something Creative and Cultural Skills are working on? Anyone working in universities reading this who has ideas about how it would start?Duncan.

Let's start here in answer to your point. I don't know if Creative and Cultural Skills are working on this. I do know that a lot of funding is going to people who are researching craft, craft practice, what craft is and how it should be 'read' and taught. Dr Sandra Wilson has just finished her PhD looking at Craft and linking it to Goetha's theory of holism and William Morris. Very interesting reading! I am part of the 'Past Present and Future Craft Practice' project looking at the interrelationship between skill, intent and culture. My part of that is looking at the aesthetic embodied in craft by researching methodological approaches in historical and contemporary craft practices. I guess that's a start. part of my research is to develop a model for reading craft so that it can be taught )I am also a teacher and this is very close to my heart)We are having a big New Craft-Future Voives conference next year in July which hopefully will provide a voice for craftpeople and those interrested in craft. http://www.newcraftfuturevoices.com/ Take a look I agree with you that craftpeople and artists are crossing the bounderies and using each others disciplines to create their work.(Perry & Chihuly ) I also agree with you that people are afraid to use the word Craft. Isn't that exactly the point we are trying to make? That the term craft and craftsperson is no longer afforded credibility, value, or dignity? This is exactly why AHRC and other bodies are giving funding for research in this area.
No, you don't have to be a nice person to make beautiful or important 'work'. LOL! By this I take it you mean crafted objects and not art/craft. craft/art or design? Or are you blurring the three, combining them, diluting them in fact? Anything diluted is weaker than the origional. I believe craft - the craftperson, process, methodologies, methods, and product has in itself a stronger identity, than when it seeks to try to be accepted by the marketplace by diluting it's ethos and identity.
Perhapse you have a comment you would like to post in response?

Live webcast from Valencia

It's another cloudless warm day in Valencia, and we about to leave our hotel for Universidad Politecnica de Valencia for the second and final day of the Crafts in the EU conference. Above we see Chris McIntyre, Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Hertfordshire, striding across the palm tree lined campus.

Today we have two main themes - new relation models and the role of new technologies - which should prove interesting. But don't just take my word for it. As I reported in my post below, there is a live webcast from the conference. Apparently you may need to give it a minute or so for the video streaming to start. Check out the conference programme, and join us today in Valencia!

Hola!

A quarry worker, a maker of hand-made luxury ice cream, a tailor, and a plumber who made ceremonial swords - these were just four of the people who took the floor in the first plenary session of Crafts in the EU - New Challenges for a New Century.

Today the Craft Research blog is reporting from Valencia, Spain at the end of the first day of this pan-European conference on the future of craft in Europe. I am speaking tomorrow afternoon, towards the end of this two day event organised by Fundacion Espanola para la Innovacion de la Artesania. The organisers are to be congratulated on pulling together speakers from eleven different EU countries, all covering a range of engaging issues. But most particularly they are to be commended in succeeding on what so often alludes us in the UK - attracting practitioners from the full range of craft practices: art-craft makers through to artesans.

This seemingly eclectic mix reflects the different cultural and economic conception of "the crafts" in the south of Europe, compared with the north - itself reflecting different economic structures. It makes for some spirited exchanges, and brings home the rich cultural diversity of Europe.

Spain is at a turning point in the development of higher education and - in particular - provision for art, design and craft. This conference is helping to inform that debate, and to place it in the context of perspectives and experiences from across the EU.

The morning started on a postitive note, with a government spokesperson arguing that while craft is not properly considered in Spain, there is an urgent need to recover the craft industry's reputation, to revalue skills and embrace new business strategies. All well and good. But then the following speaker claimed that "craftsmanship needs to be understood in terms of heritage".

There is a tension in the conference (a healthy tension) between a heritage/tourist development conception of craft, and a more future-focussed consumer-savvy view. In part this cuts as a north-south divide - but that would be to overly simplify some complex issues. There are some views expressed worth taking issue with, while others make postivie points with exceptional eloquence. The conference chair - Professor Jesus-Angel Prieto - in introducing the morning's main themes said "hands generate thought - they are a form of thought".

My personal highlight of the day was Rory O'Connor of marketing consultancy True Potential in Ireland. He presented a market analysis of craft in Ireland and the market oppportunities facing practitioners. There was a clarity in the analysis and sense of future direction that was refreshing. "Craft makers," said Rory "don't provide the stories; they don't make the offer". Pointing out that the craft sector effectively competes both with low cost producers in the far east and large multinationals, he set out the challenges - but, importantly, suggested economic ways forward for the sector.

This is a conference on policy and strategies for the crafts, and as such it is very welcome and timely. Comments from some of the speakers - and indeed from many on the floor - suggest that for significant sectors of the 'craft industry' there is no sustainable future unless radical action is taken to provide new business models, marketing strategies, and professional development. However, evidence from Germany, Finland, the UK and Spain itself is suggesting strategies that may have wider application across the EU. So, let us see how the discussions go tomorrow.

Now apparently there is a live webcast of the conference somewhere. My task this evening is to track down the URL for it. Watch this psace.

craft research

Tina, on the Craft Scotland forum says "The word craft is misused, misunderstood and misplaced. It is used in ways that diminish its credibility. It is vitally important we reclaim the word craft so it is understood and people will buy it, galleries will want to exhibit it and the media will want to write about it. How can we stop the word craft being misused and misunderstood?" http://www.craftscotland.org/HaveYourSay.htm Some interesting replies have been given in response. Have a look. Perhapse we could look at it here too.

passing comment

A craftsperson said, "The most attractive thing about craft is the sharing of knowledge" That passing comment got me thinking.
What really makes craft attractive? Where is the beauty in Craft? Is it in the sharing of knowledge? Is it in the finished artifact that reflects the craftsperson's personal vision? But wouldn't this then mean that the beauty of craft is in the entire process, person and product combined? What do you think?

Another Houston Blog

An addition to our list of Blogs reporting on the 'Shaping the Future of Craft' conference. David Richardson leads Furniture Society - After Hours : thoughts and ideas related to studio furniture, craft, and art.

craft research

craft research
A remark by one of the delegates at the houston conference intrigued me. She was referring to Norman Kennedy a weaver/spinner origionally from Aberdeen, now living in the USA, http://www.nea.gov/honors/heritage/Heritage03/Kennedy.html and said, 'Of course he is a National Treasure now.' I wasn't aware that America, like Japan, had living 'National Treasures'. Isn't it wonderful that a Scottish Craftsperson is an American National Treasure!

"Japan’s living national treasuresScholars have long recognized the intangibility of culture. In the 18th and 19th centuries philologists, folklorists and others tried to document the world’s oral traditions. Yet the term “intangible cultural heritage” is relatively recent. In 1950, Japan initiated a living national treasures programme to recognize the great skills of masters of the traditional arts.Similar programmes began in Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States and France. Intangible heritage is seen as an asset or resource to be protected, appreciated, utilized and managed–an idea traceable back to the Meiji period". http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_09/uk/culture.htm
Does the UK honour people like this? Especially in the area of 'great skill in the traditional arts'? One would presume that craftspeople would be among these honoured people???

Well Hallelujah!

I can't believe it! After posting comments yet to be 'approved' by blog owners, and attempting to get my comments actually ON the blog ... maybe this time it might actually work! Someone design a user friendly thing without such an ugly name! Anyway, rant over, lets see if this actually DOES publish my comment or whether mechanized monsters are actually out to get me, and it's not all in the mind!

Houston calling Dundee, Houston calling Dundee! Come in Dundee.Looking at the future of crafts. Well, it's not the future as we know it, that's for sure! It was very interresting to listen to the different accents and drawls, the nuances of differing local cultures between those in New York, San Fransisco, and far off exotic places (for us) The ideas were just as different. The leaders in the craft world accross the Pond, are administrative - gallery owners, curators, collectors, sellors and historians of 'art', very few 'makers' and most of them had little to do with their practice now that they were involved in the business and political side of it all. Educators appeared to be the ones most likely to be involved in practice. Where was the craft? Well, in the galleries were examples of well known 'artists' of craft or was it craftsters, or artists using craft as a medium, or craftspersons (dirty word) doing craft art? Terminology was bantered to and fro between intellectualized rhetoric which was a mirror - so it seemed - of the craft world. Crafts appears to be devided into the 'hobbyists' the 'DIYists' and 'homecrafters' none of which had their work underpinned by intellectual rigour. Jump the great divide and you find yourself among those who do not want to be craftspersons, but are all referred to as 'artists'. It appears that if you do any form of art; be it electronic based, craft based, paint based, installation based or anything else that demonstrated intellectual rigiour, you are an artist - no longer a craftsperson. Is this the way forward? To revert to the age old terminology, ie art being all encompassing and therefore artist being the executor of the personal vision through whatever medium he/she wishes at the time? Could that be retrogressive or progressive? There were no answere. Many questions, some timid ones from practitioners and students right at the end - but no answer.The networking, contacts, laughter, penetrationg discussions, and comments over meals were probably the most important aspect of the conference. There was much to think about! Many email contacts to be maintained, and sleep to be caught up on.Houston signing out Nanu, nanu!

Shaping the Future of Craft - Day Two (am)

This second day in Houston started with an examination of critical writing in craft and began with a tour de force from Glen Adamson
(V &A) and Edward S Cooke (Yale) in a 'master and apprentice' two hander covering craft history from the 1950's. The pair examined four periods; 1950's, 1960's, 1980 - 2000 and the present in an inner and outer dialectical approach. In this historical overview it was clear that craft has lacked any political or broader social awareness in much of the work that has been produced which in part is being remedyied in some contemporary work for example a recent exhibit which displayed fine silverware juxtaposed with slave shackles under the title metalwork! The focus in the now and in the future was on crafts engagement with the discourse.

The main suggestion was that craft should be grounded in the discourse. What do we think about this? I personally feel that what is unique about craft is that it has been grounded in its materials and holistic/organic way of seeing the world. If we expand this to include the discourse how does this affect craft as we know it? Most craft practitioners to date have been content to effectively ignore the discourse and concentrate on their relationship with their materials. Do the benefits of being engaged with the discourse outweigh the disadvantages?

We were encouraged to consider the stakes both economically and politically; think about the divergences with art and think about deeper integration. Simon Starlings Turner winning Shed Boat Shed was presented as an example of craft processes being used to trace embeddedness in the economy. If one word were to be used to sum up a vision of the future of craft it would be hybridisation. Craft techniques or processes being mixed with aspects of other disciplines to create something new. One speaker suggested that young artists are no longer married to their materials. What do we feel about this?

Much of the Q & A concentrated on the pedagogical implications of what had been heard and whether we should be aiming to build the person or build a society and what role the market should play in shaping craft education. It was further suggested that there is in fact a huge discourse surrounding the crafts but we prefer not to acknowledge it.

Speakers in subsequent sessions had a hard job following this act. A further session on critical writing followed with erudite contributions from Tanya Harrod, Maria Porges and Susan Yelavich. Tanya highlighted examples of craft as a form of critque where the work itself is taking more of a archeological than historicist turn. She cited an example of hand made ceramics in Stoke that effectively comments on Wedgewood who have relcoated their operations out of the UK on economic grounds. Her overarching message was that the economy will have an impact on the quality of the critical discourse. Another key theme emerging from the other speakers in this session was the increased reflexivity apparent in more recent work produced where craft has become interested in itself and student work has become much more self conscious. Ultimately contributors in this session felt that what was needed was a greater sense of our connection to the wider world and an awareness of the issues in the world.

Houston blogs

In addition to Sandra (see below), there are others blogging from Houston:
Amy Shaw and Jae Kim are there and possibly blogging.
The ever-insightful Dennis Stevens is also blogging.
If I find more, I'll post them. To those there - enjoy.

Shaping the Future of Craft

craft research

American Craft Council Conference
Houston Texas

Pre-conference Tour
A whistle stop tour of over eleven different museums and galleries in Houston enables you to develop a clear view of the state of contemporary craft particularly its curation and status. It was striking how differently craft was treated in each of these spaces.


First stop was the Hiram Butler Gallery and Darryl Lauster's "A Seat at the Table Exhibition (Left)". This in part paid homage to craft makers of the past by dipping early 20th century cuttlery and crockery in paint with iconic images e.g. statue of liberty etc. Here craft was appropriated as part of a language.

The Rice Gallery part of Rice University provides gallery space for contemporary artists to create innstallations on site. The current exhibition "Rip Curl Canyon" by designers Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball evokes "a mythical location in the American West where land and water collide" (Below). This is a
fantastic installation where visitors are unusually for an art gallery encouraged to climb on and under and become part of the experience. Is this art or is this craft? Certainly on one level and particularly to a viewer it really doesnt matter. The question however is of relevance in economic and pedagogical terms. In this space less commercial work which is perhaps more challenging can be produced. One curator did abruptly suggest that the question was just pornography!

The Museum of Fine Art had a different approach to this question. In a rare move all the curators had worked together to jointly curate an exhibition on memory and here we were able to see craft objects, for example jewellery by Wendy Ramshaw sitting alongside painting and new media - all with equal status. This was refreshing and an approach that other museums should be encouraged to adopt.

Opening keynote speaker Sculptor Martin Puryear suggested that craft suffers from a semantic indeterminacy however it survives because of the deeper longing that we have to live with objects that provide a nourishing intimacy. He preferred the term artisan to craft. As appears to be custom at craft conferences these days Martin announced that he himself was not a craftsperson and was a little bewildered as to why he had been asked to speak! He effectively laid down the gauntlet however by reminding us that when critics suggested painting was dead - it was a call to pick up brushes and produce work of the highest quality. Certainly as some have suggested recently that "Craft is Dead" then perhaps similarly we should respond by producing some outstanding examples of craft that more clearly articulate what is so special and unique about the discipline.

Neocraft - call for papers

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University is hosting the NeoCraft conference, 23 - 25 November, 2007, as part of the Canadian Crafts Federation’s Craft Year 2007. The NeoCraft conference has been designed with the objective of further developing critical thinking, theory and history in relation to the crafts. It is the intention of NeoCraft to not only acknowledge the vital role the crafts play in our culture and economy, but to challenge the position of craft by creating a forum for lively exchange and debate.

There are five conference themes:

Crafts and Political Economy
Cultural Redundancy or the Genre Under Threat
Craft, the Senses, and New Technologies
Global Craft
Invention of Tradition: Craft and Utopian Ideals
Papers are sought for each of these strands. Abstracts of no more than 250 words, and a short (3 page) curriculum vitae are due by OCTOBER 6, 2006.

Please send your abstract and CV, or any queries, via e-mail to Sandra Alfoldy at salfol@yahoo.com or salfoldy@nscad.ca

An international panel of referees will jury all paper proposals, and successful applicants will be notified by April 1, 2007. Proposals from graduate students and proposals in either official language are encouraged.

New Craft - Future Voice - DEADLINE EXTENSION

Abstracts continue to come in for the conference (see below) which augers very well for a successful event last July. Given that the deadline for abstracts is so close to the start of the academic year, some colleagues have asked if the dedaline can be extended. Therefore, we have set a new deadline for the receipt of abstracts - 6TH OCTOBER 2006.

3RD CALL - NEW CRAFT: FUTURE VOICES

The third call for papers for the conference New Craft - Future Voices has now been issued. Full details of the call have been posted on this blog. With some abstracts already submitted, the conference is shaping up to be an exciting event. A number of keynote speakers have already been confirmed:

• Marie O'Mahony is an independent consultant and lecturer specializing in textiles and technology. She has worked for companies and institutions advising on projects, preparing reports and organising workshops, symposiums and exhibitions. Clients include The Netherlands Design Institute, Interval Research Corporation, Ove Arup and Partners, Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Interstoff at Messe Frankfurt and Zaha M Hadid. She has curated several international exhibitions including The Soft Machine - Design in the Cyborg Age, Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam (1998 - 99). O'Mahony is author of Cyborg: Man-Machine and co-author of Techno Textiles and Sports Tech, and co-curator of the touring exhibition The Fabric of Fashion.

• Bruce Metcalf, a highly noted jeweller, has received crafts fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Over 27 solo exhibitions of his work have been mounted and his work has been included in major exhibitions at the American Craft Museum, New York; Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, Het Kruithaus, s'Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Akron Art Museum, Ohio; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Renwick Galleryof the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia; and the Galeria Universiteria Artistos, Mexico City. Mr. Metcalf also contributes art criticism to American Craft, Metalsmith, Studio Potter, Crafts Australia, and Design (a Korean arts magazine). He is currently a senior lecturer at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

• Paul Greenhalgh is a world-renowned scholar and former Head of Research at London’s Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum. Most recently, he served as President of NSCAD University (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design). As current Director and President of the Corcoran, he will oversee the oldest private art museum and oldest art college in Washington DC. He has researched and written seven arts and culture books over the past 17 years, including the most recent, The Modern Ideal: The Rise and Collapse of Idealism in Visual Arts from the Enlightenment to Post Modernism, published in October 2005.

• Jorunn Veiteberg is Professor of Craft Theory at Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen (Bergen National College of Arts) and editor of the Norwegian arts and craft magazine Kunsthåndverk.

The conference has also attracted a prominent international review panel to review abstracts, papers and exhibition proposals.

In favour of craft-based education

A recent piece by Matthew B Crawford, writing in The New Atlantis provides a spirited case for craft-based education. He argues for the importance of making in education and culture:

"Perhaps the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world. Neither as workers nor as consumers are we much called upon to exercise such competence, most of us anyway, and merely to recommend its cultivation is to risk the scorn of those who take themselves to be the most hard-headed: the hard-headed economist will point out the opportunity costs of making what can be bought, and the hard-headed educator will say that it is irresponsible to educate the young for the trades, which are somehow identified as the jobs of the past. But we might pause to consider just how hard-headed these presumptions are, and whether they don’t, on the contrary, issue from a peculiar sort of idealism, one that insistently steers young people toward the most ghostly kinds of work."

In Shop Class as Soulcraft he provides a well argued case for 'shop class' (to use a US term) citing Braverman (whose Labor and Monopoly Capital, pictured above, remains a critical text in this field) and Marx is an essay which makes key points about both the degradation of blue-collar and white-collar work. Many of the arguments reflect those coming from the 'new' craft activitists / DIYers, but rooted in an analysis of work in a more Marxist sense.

Challenging Craft

In a previous post I appeared to suggest that we have been waiting years for a good conference on craft to take place. In fact, we've only been waiting since September 2004, when Challenging Craft was held at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. Initiated by Gordon Burnett, Challenging Craft was a highly stimulating and diverse event with a full programme of refereed papers alongside key note contributions from Gijs Bakker, Mah Rana, Grace Cochrane, Kenji Toki, Jayne Wallace, Jane Harris and Paul Atkinson.

The refereed papers and the key note contributions are all still available on-line. The papers are themed under: approaching technology, hybridity, the academy, craft articulating culture and cultures of display. The website remains an extremely useful craft research resource.

Gordon Burnett was also a key driver in the Connectivity Project that co-incided with Challenging Craft. His own craft practice recently centred on Australian Cultural Issues Redefined by Digitally Crafted Domestic Objects, and is - unusually - very thoroughly documented in this website.

iCraft

While googling for information on how craft contributes to economic development in Africa and Palestine (which I'll doubtless post at some later date) I came across this interesting cultural phenomenon. The text and photos below are from this link.

Do you appreciate handmade arts and crafts? Are you the owner of a computer, a PDA, or, an iPod? Are you an Apple Computer fan? If so, SafariPod probably has a product that will make you smile... today, and everyday. You see, SafariPod is the real thing: a true handmade craftshouse. Not a single item here ever touches a machine of any type. Each art object here is not only useful and beautiful, it demonstrates theunique artistry of a specific Kenyan craftsman... the man who made it just for you with his bare hands.

SafariPod craftsmen make each object sold here to his own design. We determine the need for a specific type of product... say, an iPod stand. Then, we tell the artist what we need the object to do, and he then develops a design to his own taste and standard. Each of our artists have been sculpting native wildlife pieces for many years. Now, they are applying those years of thoughtful experience to creating technology accessories just for you. And, each of our objectsis made of renewable tropical woods, so as not to contribute to Kenya's horrific wood depletion problem. This makes your SafariPod object not only a wonderfully beautiful possession, but one that is also made to respect the environment.

Strange but true.

What this brings to mind is the analysis of objects developed by Jayne Wallace as part of her doctoral research into digital jewellery. She has very usefully differentiated between gadgets and non-gadgets:

Most if not all electronic, or digital appliances have a lifespan, governed not by a technological defect of the appliance, but by its function or usefulness becoming usurped by another, newer, faster, 'better' one. Such appliances are often referred to as gadgets. Gadgets do not feature highly or endure on our list of objects of personal significance. They are replaceable, therefore meaningless. Any meaning they may have once had for us is fleeting, replaceable, and transferable.

This she contrasts with crafted objects of high personal significance. SafariPods are seemingly objects that seek to bridge this divide and imbue gadgets with some sense of individualism and personal significance. But I'm sure Jayne could write about this far more intelligently than I.

Craft Conferences - Canada and the US

Academic conferences on craft are like buses - you wait years for one, then suddenly three turn up at once. Thanks to Dennis Stevens' excellent blog, we have news of two forthcoming conferences - one in Houston this October, and another at NSCAD, Nova Scotia in November 2007. This is evidence of a healthy and welcome rise of interest in exploring issues of research in craft. Together with our own New Craft - Future Voices conference next July, we must try to ensure that each of our conferences reinforces and supports the others, as each has a distinctive focus within the overall field of craft research.

Neo-Craft: An International Conference on the Crafts and Modernity has been designed with the objective of further developing critical thinking, theory and history in relation to the crafts. It is the intention of Neo-Craft to not only acknowledge the vital role the crafts play in our culture and economy, but to challenge the position of craft by creating a forum for lively exchange and debate.
Dates: November 23-25, 2007
Location: NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Seeking: Papers are sought pertaining to five conference themes:

• Crafts and Political Economy
• Cultural Redundancy or the Genre Under Threat
• Invention of Tradition: Craft and Utopian Ideals
• Craft and the Senses
• Global Craft

Deadline: October 6, 2006

Contact: Dr. Sandra Alfoldy, Email: salfoldy@nscad.ca

Shaping the Future of Craft is the American Craft Council's 2006 conference, to be held in Houston in October 2006. It aims to stimulate serious and timely debate on the state of craft in our culture. Various invited artists, curators, writers and educators will participate. The conference program will focus upon three successive topics:

• New Artists/New Work
• Contemporary Craft: Museums, Galleries, Alternative Spaces
• Scholarship/Critical Writing