engage 33 the international journal of visual art and gallery education

Critical Craft engage 33

Winter 2013 Editor Inviting contributions Karen Raney Contributions are regularly invited on a range of themes, visit www.engage.org/publications Editorial Advisory Board for details. Patricia Allerston / Jillian Barker / Juliette Buss / Sarah Campbell / Yasmin Canvin / Eileen Daly Write to the editor at: / Penny Jones / Teresa Cisneros Ledda / Pam engage, Rich Mix, Meecham / Veronica Sekules / Jane Sillis / 35–47 Bethnal Green Road, Miranda Stearn / Michael Tooby London E1 6LA T: +44 (0) 20 7729 5858 International Advisory Board F: +44 (0) 20 7739 3688 Claude Fourteau / Stina Hogkvist / Gavin Jantjes / E: [email protected] Maeve Mulrennan / Declan McGonagle / Ken Robinson Cover image: Fresh Made Trade project, a collaboration Proofreading between Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Ailbhe Mac Eoin Academy, Spring 2013. Photography by Joel Chester Fildes Image on facing page: Teachers discuss and record each others’ textile creations. Michael Brennand-Wood workshop at the Pitt Rivers Museum, March 2013 Contents

4 Editor’s Introduction 72 Helen Adams, Penny Jones Critical Craft & Rachel Payne Skills in the Making: 8 Frances McDonald Craft-based Teacher Training and What’s in a Name: Continuing Professional Development The Marginalisation of Craft in Contemporary Society 87 Christine Checinska Crafting Difference 18 Joe Hogan Valuing the Good Rather than the New 101 Maria-Anna Tseliou Radical Craft Interventions in 23 Fiona Hackney Museums and Galleries: CAREful or CAREless?: Contrasting Dominate Paradigms Collaborative Making and Social Engagement through Craft 108 Review Collaboration through Craft 38 Andrew Stooke Neither Craft nor Art: 112 Review Lives Spent Making Art and Innovation 48 James Herring 116 Contributors’ Details Playing with Real Stuff: Science Museums, Children’s Museums and Art Museums 57 Deirdre Buckley and Deirdre Figueiredo Benefits of Craft: Building Human and Social Capital 4 Editor’s Introduction 5 Critical Craft Karen Raney

The idea of craft is enjoying a moment of visibility a sociologist, is interested in the values, skills, and scrutiny of which this volume is a part. attitudes, benefits and kinds of knowledge Tellingly, the recent spate of conferences, books involved in making something well for its own and exhibitions on the subject has gone hand in sake. Tolerating ambiguity, dialogic exchange, hand with distancing manoeuvres where, as using resistance, and empathic address are Frances McDonald puts it, ‘the establishment, skills needed to build pots, sonnets or sonatas. educators and even practitioners have been They are also, Sennett argues, skills needed for queuing up to disassociate themselves from craft.’ social co-operation. This connection between Grayson Perry, who calls himself ‘the poster boy craftsmanship and social exchange may have of craft,’ said in his 2013 Reith Lectures: ‘All art is a particular resonance in educational contexts, conceptual. If it’s not conceptual, it’s craft.’ In one and is taken up in the book Craft and stroke he restored a polarity that his work, and his Collaboration, reviewed below. exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, Adamson, on the other hand, considers craft had gone some way to dismantle. Celebration, to be an approach or attitude that acts as a denigration, provocation, ambivalence, reversal, conceptual limit, a horizon that can never be paradox: the lively consequence of shining a light reached, but is necessary for modern art to locate on a notion such as craft, with its long history, itself. Hence he attends to the polarities in which many meanings, and its lowly position in the the idea of craft participates: optical vs. sensual, art-design-craft matrix. mental vs. manual skill, professional vs. amateur, The writing of Richard Sennett and Glenn industrial vs. pastoral. The power of craft is not Adamson represent two different angles seen in terms of skills employed, or benefits from which craft can be understood. Sennett, accruing to individuals, but in terms of craft’s 4 5

power ‘to upset the well-laid table of art.’ 1 fluency, technical skill, understanding of material, Provocatively, he suggests that ‘craft’s inferiority and workmanship is bound up with innovation might be the most productive thing about it.’ 2 (Richard Sennett has interesting things to say about the creative potential in different kinds of repair). Sennett and Adamson are touch-points for many The gradual, layered process of learning by doing articles in this volume which position themselves rather than by talking is undervalued in an art variously in relation to the two sorts of concerns. world preoccupied with ideas. Hogan calls for At times the contributors step back to examine the more uncertainty and humility, and a rethinking idea of craft and how it operates in the field of of unhelpful oppositions between’ traditional’ contemporary art. At times they attend to the and ‘innovative,’ and ‘professional’ and ‘amateur.’ concrete realities and outcomes of craftsmanship and ‘making,’ however that is understood. The Two of the articles explicitly address the question critical and educational potential of craft operates of the amateur. Fiona Hackney writes about the across both poles. CARE project, a partnership between Craftspace, Voluntary Arts England (VAE), Bealtaine Festival, Frances McDonald alludes to the history of craft’s Ireland, and Falmouth University. CARE works subordination to both design and art. Craftspeople with hobby craft groups to explore collaboration have different takes on the problem of definition through making, enabled by digital technology. and status, and contemporary craftwork shuttles This article employs Alison Gilchrist’s idea of between ancient processes, manufacture and ‘untidy making’ and considers hobbies a form of industrial design. The marginalisation of craft, productive or serious leisure. Craft has the potential in this writer’s view, comes largely from within to bring individuals and communities together and its own circle. Rather than trying to emulate bridge differences of culture, age and identity. contemporary art, craft needs to develop its Moreover, uninhibited by professional dictates, own theoretical discourse, faithful to its tradition the ‘new amateur’ might be able to re-imagine and history. his or her practice in distinctive and activist ways. Irish basket-maker Joe Hogan challenges one of the Andrew Stooke looks at a particular category of ways in which craft tries to emulate contemporary amateur, the Outsider artist. It is no accident that art: the emphasis on innovation. The Arts Council, an interest in Outsider art has emerged alongside for example, asserts that contemporary craft must the surge of interest in craft. Outsiders are normally not seek to reproduce or restore. In Hogan’s view, presented as exemplars of raw or innate creativity this is unnecessarily restrictive. Useful learning – nature rather than culture – and their lives and happens during these processes, and in any case biographies supply the narrative that justifies 6 engage 32 Editor’s Introduction 7

inclusion of their work in a contemporary art a partnership between Skills in the Making and the context. Stooke argues that the mechanism Pitt Rivers Museum. Research findings have been through which the Outsider is brought into the organised around concepts such as mimicry, field of art can illuminate broader questions of frustration, collaboration, safety, language, craft’s vexed relationship to art. and restriction. There is evidence that the programme has had results, both in terms of James Herring considers spaces for making in the teachers’ experiences, and the transfer of what is larger context of science and children’s museums, learned to the classroom. With fewer opportunities tracing their origin through the makers movement for art, craft and design teacher development, and and DIY. In science museums, ‘tinkering’ and a reduction of university-based art teacher training, ‘tinkerability’ are the buzzwords used to describe collaboration with museums and galleries is a messy, ad hoc, bottom-up approach. In the US essential to ensure the continuation of making context, the provision for making spaces is well in the art curriculum and beyond. co-ordinated, well researched and well funded in science museums and certain children’s museums. How does gallery education use craft as a critical Herring is of the view that although American art tool? How can craft contribute to understanding museums have the experience and ability to lead concepts, contexts and meanings of art and visual in this area, they could learn from other museum culture? Christine Checinska draws examples from contexts and develop more co-operative and the Whitworth Art Gallery’s 2012 Cotton: Global ambitious strategies. Threads and We Face Forward at the Horniman Museum in London, to argue that textile What kind of skills and attitudes does craft metaphors are woven into the history of global develop? How is craft used with different audience diasporas. The closeness of textiles to skin, their groups? Deirdre Buckley and Deirdre Figueiredo presence in everyday life, their use in ritual and discuss craft activities as a way of building human as a sign of social hierarchy, make textile crafts a and social capital. Through interviews with powerful tool for opening up questions of racial, participants and makers in Craftspace projects, gendered and cultural identity. they consider the use of craft with people with disabilities, to explore place-making and to address Maria-Anna Tseliou considers radical craft sensitive subjects. interventions in museums and galleries. Using Fred Wilson’s work on race in the US and Matt Smith’s Penny Jones, Helen Adams and Rachel Payne on sexuality in the UK, she argues that craft write about a craft-based teacher training and interventions in permanent collections have the continuing professional development programme, potential to unsettle normative museum narratives. 6 7

Due to the subtle ways objects can be placed in collections, craft intervention is a safer and possibly more effective curatorial method for initiating discussion on contentious themes, particularly in conservative contexts. The everyday nature of crafted objects and materials puts the emphasis on commonality and ordinariness, representing sexual or racial otherness in subtle ways. Such interventions might have the potential to reach a wider audience. In 1968 David Pye famously wrote: ‘Craftsmanship is a word to start an argument with.’ 3 Craft is a particular set of disciplines and activities, and craft is an idea that can be operative in any activity. Craft is capable of being deeply conservative and radically activist. To ask why we argue about craft is to open up a whole box of questions about human ingenuity, the history of art and its institutions, education and learning, social hierarchy, class and gender. The argument is, in effect, the point. Notes 1. Adamson, G. (2007) Thinking Through Craft. London: Berg Publishing and Victoria and Albert Museum Publications, p. 65 2. Adamson, Ibid. p. 4 3. Pye, D. (1968) The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 8 What’s in a Name 9 The marginalisation of craft in contemporary society Frances McDonald Freelance professional, project manager, curator and writer

During recent discussions with makers regarding the Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, submission of work for a forthcoming exhibition, it seems as if the establishment, educators and concerns were raised about the use of the word even practitioners have been queuing up to ‘craft’ in promotion and publicity material. This was disassociate themselves from craft. In 2002 the not surprising, considering the widely held notion American Craft Museum, formerly the Museum that craft has always had a marginal status in of Contemporary Crafts, changed its name to the contemporary society. In outlining the conventional Museum of Arts and Design. On the American historiography of craft in the nineteenth century, Craft Council’s website today we are told that Glenn Adamson, in The Invention of Craft, cites this reflected ‘the new position of craft and its the belief of William Morris and his followers that integration with the other disciplines.’ 4 ‘handwork could only be marginal within a capitalist International fairs such as Sofa, the Annual economy.’ 1 Through the lens of modernism, Henrik Sculptural Objects and Functional Art and Design Most suggests, ‘craft has generally ranked on the Fair, and COLLECT, the international Art Fair for bottom rung of the ladder of form, relegated to the Contemporary Objects, which feature objects by subservient existence in the shadow of celebrated the world’s leading makers, shy away from using design.’ 2 In an education context, James H. Sanders the word ‘craft’ to promote themselves and their has described how ‘craft and its aesthetic events. Furthermore, the galleries that exhibit at experience, grounded in human need, are largely these fairs provide us with a bewildering array of trivialised in primary and secondary education as terms to describe the work they represent. It seems lesser art.’ 3 What is surprising, however, is the that crafts, according to The New York Times in realisation that craft’s marginalisation, and resulting 2001, ‘have been masquerading for art lovers low self-esteem, appears to emanate largely from under labels like functional…studio art and within its own circle. contemporary decorative arts’ for many years.5 8 9

In a debate at the Victoria and Albert Museum in a reticence to use the word ‘craft’ in relation to 2012, Sir Christopher Frayling commented that their work was apparent. This was largely due to ‘craft courses at undergraduate level are an perceived negative connotations among the public, endangered species’ 6 n1 while, in an article in The perpetuated mainly through lack of understanding Times in 2006, Grayson Perry, 2003 Turner Prize and clarity, but also through the mainstream media winner, commented that while he loved and who, as one maker suggests, continue to imply admired craftsmanship, craft had become a that an ‘adversarial relationship exists between concept that he did ‘not always want to be fine art and craft which is detrimental to the image identified with’.7 of craft as a confident art form in its own right.’ 9 This is in addition, of course, to the media’s According to Paul Greenhalgh ‘craft has always propensity to engage in word plays on the word been a messy word’ and for centuries was used in ‘craft’ in headline writing. Thus readers are treated ‘contexts that had nothing to do with creative to phrases such as ‘Crafty business’, over an artistic practice of any kind.’ 8 When makers were interesting article on Arts and Crafts inspired recently invited to share their views on the subject, houses and garden in England and ‘The crafty 10 engage 33 What’s in a Name 11

way to see Ireland’, over an informative article on workshops and studios throughout Ireland.10 Craft certainly needs The continued inclusion of craft in the interior and theoretical discourse, home sections of newspapers and magazines, as opposed to the arts and culture section, was also but one that it develops mentioned. However it can be argued that the itself, and that is faithful media are simply reporting what they have been to its own tradition and given and, apart from our inability to control headline writers, it is our ineffectiveness to clearly history. To assert its state the case for craft that has resulted in the relevance and value in scarcity of informed reporting. contemporary society, In 1939, Fortune magazine ran an article on it seems that craft needs ceramics entitled ‘The art with an inferiority to understand, and to complex’.11 n2 In 2007 Gagosian Gallery in New York held a major exhibition of work by Marc Newson trust, its multi-layered self. and when interviewed about the event Larry Gagosian was asked ‘is design the new art?’ He responded that design did not need art to give it Craft’s need to acquire a theoretical structure has importance. In recounting this story in an essay resulted in its desire to emulate fine art and a belief entitled ‘How Envy Killed the Crafts’ Garth Clark that, in doing this, it will flourish. But writers and comments ‘if only craft had the same confidence.’ 12 critics have, in fact, argued that the opposite is It appears that the issue of craft’s ‘inferiority’ has true. In urging ceramicists to ‘know themselves’ been around for a long time. Nowadays, one of the and ‘to understand ceramics strengths and values’, main reasons most often cited is the perceived lack Janet Koplos has suggested that ‘lusting after of theoretical discourse which, when applied to art, equality with art has, in fact, been destructive has provided the framework to transform it from to crafts.’ 14 Garth Clark took this a step further, object to concept. It is suggested that it is the arguing that craftspeople’s ambition to be absence of this framework in craft, which helps accepted as artists was worse than quixotic; it has explain its low prestige and, consequently, its led to their downfall and, ‘compared to art and inability to overturn what fine art critic Donald design, craft is so marginalised that it is practically Kuspit sees as a ‘fixed hierarchy of the arts, a irrelevant.’ 15 However, critic Glenn Brown’s hierarchy in which fine art sits at the top.’ 13 assertion that ‘the failure to develop a body of 10 11

theory that is faithful to the craft tradition, yet its value? After all, material is integral to craft and effectively asserts the contemporary relevance the field is both categorized and identified by it. of craft practice, has left craft consciousness A quick review of recent essays in craft vulnerable to pejorative stereotyping’ may provide publications, websites and other media, reveals a greater understanding of the problem.16 Craft a focus on material and process when writing on certainly needs theoretical discourse, but one that it craft, but there is also description, biography and, develops itself, and that is faithful to its own tradition in most cases, theoretical discourse. For ceramist and history. To assert its relevance and value in Sara Flynn, for instance, the theoretical is expressed contemporary society, it seems that craft needs through the medium, and while the emphasis of to understand, and to trust, its multi-layered self. her work lies in resolving questions about form, she also has a profound interest in the notion of space: There is no doubt that, in discussions on craft, how it exists all around us and how it is contained focus on material and process and the challenges and held within her vessels.18 In discussing his of bringing an object into existence prevail. In work, Jack Doherty reflects on the fluidity of the The Principles of Art, R. G. Collingwood suggests material and the physicality of making. However, that the chief characteristics of craft include a he also characterises his pots as ‘figurative pieces; distinction between means and end; that is, each with its own character, particular emotional between planning, execution and raw material range and response’.19 and finished product.17 n3 However, does a focus on material and technique undermine craft and lessen 12 engage 33 What’s in a Name 13

Some commentators also take the view that forms…The work of the saddler and the musical increased professionalism in the sector has resulted instrument maker has no need to reincarnate as in the marginalisation, or worse, of traditional crafts expressive art; it is still in demand for its original which have not embraced a contemporary aesthetic. use. Other crafts have struggled. Where is the In an essay for an exhibition entitled Modern twenty-first century incarnation of the cast iron Languages, which explores the relationship pot or the cooper’s barrel?’ 20 between indigenous Irish craft and contemporary Indeed some crafts have fared better than international creative practices, writer and craft others. But is it also an inability to embrace new historian Eleanor Flegg discusses how activities once technology and collaborate, while continuing to undertaken within a simple rural lifestyle have now use age-old techniques, skills and materials that become part of contemporary art practice. has resulted in the marginalisation and ultimate ‘Basketry, for example, has been transformed decline of some traditional crafts? In Birmingham, almost effortlessly and without losing its traditional Westley Richards & Co. has been making bespoke 12 13

sporting guns since 1812. In the nineteenth that ‘both are crucially important…but they serve century, the company expanded into press tools for different purposes’.23 n4 In 2008 an exhibition at the manufacturing, which brought about a partnership V&A, entitled Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular between craft and engineering. In 1998, the Craft, brought together the work of eight engineering department began trading as a contemporary artists who, while embracing both separate entity and moved into a new factory traditional and new technologies, place craft at the complex where it continues to make parts for center of their practice.24 n5 This multidisciplinary engineering. It is an image, suggests Marilyn Zapf, approach reflects the reality for many of today’s that ‘powerfully demonstrates the interwoven internationally successful makers who continue nature of crafts and industry.’ Zapf writes that to use a craft vocabulary but clearly speak many while the two companies’ products and clientele languages. Some, like Joseph Walsh, whose work is are now as different as their working environments, included in the Mint Museum’s contemporary craft ‘closer inspection shows that the craftsmen at each collection, simply wish to avoid any categorisation work in remarkable similar ways. Both sets of and just want the freedom to create. artisans deploy the highest levels of hand skills to Others, like Simon Hasan, work in the territory craft the seamless functioning of their products’ 21 between ancient crafts processes and industrial Craft skills, which include knowledge of design. Combining techniques and materials from material and technique, are the basis of many these two ‘contradictory worlds’ n6, Hasan’s manufacturing techniques. But there are many collections of leather vases and furniture have instances today where craft is collaborating not received attention for their innovative use of the only with technology and industry, but also with medieval armour-making technique, Cuir Bouilli. art and design. The recent exhibition Modern In The Nature of Art and Workmanship David Pye Makers, at Chatsworth House, aims to challenge explores the meaning of skill, its relationship to perceptions about the role of contemporary crafts design and manufacture and proposes a new in a historic setting. The work ‘in its seriousness, theory of making based on the concept of good content, and skill in the making, can be claimed workmanship. Pye suggests that ‘the word craft is simultaneously by the fine art, design and craft a thought preventor’.25 For those who continue to worlds’.22 In 2011 the V&A and the Crafts Council successfully embody craft sensibilities in their studio celebrated the role of making in The Power of practice, this appears not to be the case. Making. In discussing the exhibition, guest curator Today, international fairs such as Sofa and COLLECT Daniel Charny explores both traditional forms of may not use the word ‘craft’ in the title but anyone making and those that are innovative concluding attending these events can clearly see that this is 14 engage 33 What’s in a Name 15

work which, for the most part, is rooted in the craft As we continue to explore the process of craft aesthetic. Institutions such as the Museum of in contemporary culture and the engagement of Art and Design may not have the word ‘craft’ the maker with material and making, perhaps it’s over the door but they continue to bring the time for those within craft itself to stop focusing work of contemporary makers to the wider on the use, or misuse, of the word. Time to stop public. The exhibition Against the Grain: Wood obsessing about boundaries and distinctions, in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design, part of labels and interpretations. Perhaps it’s time to just the museum’s ongoing ‘Materials & Process’ unapologetically state the case for craft. Because, series, explores some of the most cutting-edge as curator Brian Kennedy has pointed out, ‘while conceptual and technical trends in woodworking we engage unduly in the negative, we are failing today, while individuals such as Janice Blackburn, to embrace the positive.’ 27 We are also unable to who has curated numerous shows for Sotheby’s, really understand craft and define its potential and continues to be a passionate advocate for craft and its domain. Until then it will remain at the margin, refuses to believe that it is marginalised. According unable to establish or articulate a role for itself in to Grant Gibson in a 2011 interview with contemporary society. Blackburn: ‘She thinks it [craft] can be absolutely I’ll leave the final word on the matter to Irish wood central to metropolitan culture, and she’s gone and turner Roger Bennett, who exhibited in the 2005 told people about it.’ 26 exhibition Forty Shades of Green, curated by Brian Kennedy. In his catalogue statement Bennett writes: 14 15

‘the word craft evokes such a mass of knots and 5. Hode, W. ‘At Home with Janice Blackburn; tangled grain that it should be avoided as much Wood and Wire recast in Gold’, interview, The New as possible. On the one hand we want the York Times, 29 November 2001 craftsperson to be the embodiment of pre- 6. Frayling, C. (2012), Art, Craft and Design: cross- industrial values, cheerfully preserving the purity overs and boundaries in the 21st Century. A Queen of traditional techniques and practices; on the Elizabeth Scholarship Debate, Sackler Centre, other, we look for individuality and daring Victoria and Albert Museum, 21 September 2012 originality. We argue endlessly about status, about the differences between craft and fine 7. Perry, G. ([2006] 2010), ‘Let the Artisans Craft art and the gaps between the manual and the our Future’, in: G. Adamson, (ed.), The Craft mechanical; and we squabble about the worthiness Reader. Oxford: Berg. pp. 552-553 of the functional as opposed to the preciousness of 8. Greenhalgh, P. (2002), The Persistence of Craft. the non-functional. London: A&C Black Ltd., p. 1 I would love to be able to put the word on my lathe 9. Nuala O’Donovan, email interview, 6 September and try to reduce it to shapely core values; good 2013 design, skill, beauty…But it would probably split before I could finish’.28 10. Pavord, A., ‘Crafty Business: The Arts and Crafts movement married house and garden in a References beautiful union’, The Independent, 30 March 2013 1. Adamson, G. (2013), The Invention of Craft. Thompson, S., ‘The crafty way to see Ireland’, London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. xv The Irish Times, 8 August 2013 2. Most, H. (2005), ‘On Craft as a Boundary 11. Clark, G. ([2008]2010), ‘How Envy Killed the Wrecking Ball’, in L. Jönsson (ed.), Craft in Crafts’, in: G. Adamson, (ed.). The Craft Reader. Dialogue: Six Views on a Practice in Change. Oxford: Berg. p. 445 Stockholm: IASPIS, pp. 11-28 12. Ibid., p. 451 3. Sanders, J.H. (2000), ‘Moving beyond the Binary’, in Fariello, M.A. & Owen, P., (eds), Objects 13. Risatti, H. (2007), A Theory of Craft: Function and Meaning: New Perspectives on Art and Craft. and Aesthetic Expression. Chapel Hill: The Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., pp. 88-103 University of North Carolina Press, p. 4 4. Our History. American Craft Council, 23 January 14. Koplos, J. (1993), ‘What is this thing called 2012 http://www.craftcouncil.org/history craft?’ in American Ceramics, Vol. II, No.1, p. 12 16 engage 33 What’s in a Name 17

15. Clark (2008), op. cit., p. 449 26. Gibson, G. (2011), ‘Janice Blackburn: The Early Adopter Crafts, The Magazine for Contemporary 16. Risatti (2007), op. cit., p. 3 Crafts’, May/June 2011, No. 230, pp. 48 – 51 17. Collingwood, R.G. (1938), Principles Of Art. 27. Brian Kennedy, email interview, 5 September Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 17 2013 18. McDonald, F. (2012), ‘Turning Points’ in the Irish 28. Bennett, R. (2005), in Forty Shades of Green. Arts Review, Winter/December 2012 – February Clonmel: Coracle Press, p. 39 2013, pp. 140 – 141 Notes 19. Homepage, Doherty Porcelain http://www. dohertyporcelain.com/ n1. Sir Christopher Frayling was speaking at a debate organised by the Queen Elizabeth 20. Flegg, E. (2011), Modern Languages. Kilkenny: Scholarship Trust entitled Art Craft and Design: National Craft Gallery, p. 8 cross-overs and boundaries in the 21st Century. His 21. Zapf, M. (2012), ‘Shooting Stars’ in Crafts; The comments were in response to a presentation by Magazine for Contemporary Crafts, September/ bookbinder Tracy Rowledge who spoke on the lack October 2012, No. 238, p. 84 – 86 of full-time courses in pure booking binding in the UK. 22. Anon., ‘Chatsworth House plays host to Modern Makers Design Exhibition’, http:// n2. In an essay in The Craft Reader titled ‘How Envy insideproperty.com/2013/09/chatsworth- Killed the Crafts’ Garth Clark discusses crafts house-plays-host-to-modern-makers-design- ‘unhappy, contentious relationship with the fine exhibition/ arts’ referring to a 1939 survey of ceramics in Fortune magazine with the title ‘The art with 23. Charney, D. (2011), Power of Making, V&A. an inferior complex’. 6 September 2011 – 2 January 2012 http://www. vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/powerofmaking/ n3. Without claiming that these features together exhaust the notion of craft, Collingwood suggests 24. Out of the Ordinary; Spectacular Craft, V&A. ‘that where most of them are absent from a certain 13 November 2007 – 17 February 2008 http:// activity that activity is not a craft’. www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1637_ outoftheordinary n4. In a text from an online article ‘About Making’, written to accompany the exhibition, Charny 25. Pye, D. (2007), The Nature and Art of describes traditional making as having been Workmanship. London: A&C Black Ltd., p. 24 16 17

accumulated over generations, passed down from 4. Joseph Walsh, Enignum Motion, 2010, Olive person to person and learned through repetition Ash. Photo Andrew Bradley. Image courtesy Joseph while innovative making was described as being Walsh Studio ‘less rehearsed…more exploratory with the 5. Simon Hasan, Twist Pendant Lamp, 2012, boiled potential to open up dramatic new directions’. leather, brass, electrical fittings. Image courtesy n5. On their website the V&A describe the Simon Hasan exhibition as bringing ‘together the work of eight 6. Westley Richards and Co. Image courtesy contemporary artists who place craft at the heart Westley Richards and Co. of their practice...Collectively these artists use a diverse range of traditional and new technologies... Working with exceptional skill and attention to detail, they use ordinary materials – paper, thread, dust and nails – to make works that are both intricate and large in scale…Together, these eight artists suggest new directions for the handmade in the 21st century. They have found ways to transform the ordinary into artworks that are truly extraordinary.’ n6. Simon Hasan’s website describes his work as being ‘imbued with a richness and texture borne from the combined use of techniques and materials from these two contradictory worlds.’ http:// www.simonhasan.com Images 1. Jack Doherty, Group of Vessels, 2013, porcelain. Photo Rebecca Peters. Image courtesy Jack Doherty 2. Sara Flynn, Gesture Vessels, 2013, porcelain. Photo Stefan Syrowatka. Image courtesy Sara Flynn 3. Jack Doherty, Guardian Vessel, 2013, porcelain. Photo Rebecca Peters. Image courtesy Jack Doherty 18 Valuing the Good Rather 19 than the New Joe Hogan Basketmaker

‘Contemporary craft is work that is cutting edge of this happening? Although the quotation above and ensures the highest standard of workmanship. acknowledges the need for contemporary craft Contemporary craft must not seek to reproduce or to show the highest standard of workmanship, restore, but rather must be innovative in its use of I believe that such a danger does exist. I would cite materials and aesthetic vision. Contemporary craft the movement away from apprenticeships towards not only reflects the signature of the individual art and design courses, the valuing of theoretical maker, but also demonstrates investigation of the knowledge over practical knowledge, and the need processes and critical enquiry’. to ‘explain’ work as opposed to allowing it to speak Arts Council England1 for itself, as examples of this undervaluing of fluency and technical skill. I have felt for some time that there is an undue emphasis on innovation in the craft world. I live and Most of us accept, to some extent, the necessity of work in Ireland and while this emphasis exists here doing in acquiring any skill. I want to stress that this it is not as marked as it is in Britain and the U.S.A. takes a great deal of time and effort, a sustained where phrases like ‘breaking the boundaries’ and period of making where one begins to acquire not ‘cutting edge’ have become so commonplace that just the techniques but also a feel for the material they are becoming the new orthodoxy. – how to prepare it so that it can be in sympathy with what you want to do, and how to handle it so Innovation is undeniably important in developing that what is made honours the material, that is, one’s voice as a craftsperson or artist. But I do not uses it well. If one is fortunate enough to have the regard it as being of such paramount importance benefit of an apprenticeship – even in the form of that other qualities such as fluency, technical skill occasional visits to a workshop or studio – one and an understanding of material, can be takes part in a gradual type of learning which discounted or dispensed with. Is there a danger 18 19

seems to me to be crucial in the acquiring of craft making and of developing an idea as it is to be able skills. It is a staged process of experimentation and to make the object itself. If this reflects at least one absorption. There is no point in knowing vast strand of the ethos as regards craft, it seems to me amounts about the technical properties of clay or to encourage a warped sense of what is valuable. glazes at an early stage, but later on, small slivers of Of course it is important to develop ideas, but this information can be hugely useful. In learning-by- process is not entirely rational and may not be doing, one develops slowly, through repetition, amenable to being written about and explained. and not all of what is learnt could be put into A wonderful explanation is of little use if the object words. This form of knowing the philosopher made is not itself imbued with quality or capable of Michael Polanyi2 called ‘tacit knowledge’- a sense being developed into something of worth. Skill is we have of form, scale, appropriateness of material not something that can be handed to you; it must which is acquired by practice. Anything which be developed and earned. I would argue for the cannot be easily described is easily ignored, necessity of acquiring a thorough grounding in particularly in a learning environment which values skill, to achieving a basic fluency in one’s craft theoretical knowledge and linguistic ability. discipline, before trying to express individuality. In modern art and design courses, linguistic ability The Arts Council England assertion above that seems to be increasingly important. I have heard contemporary craft must not seek to reproduce or participants of such courses say that it is almost as restore seems, to my mind, unnecessarily restrictive important to be able to describe the process of because it seems to assume that no useful learning 20 engage 33 Valuing the Good Rather than the New 21

The hotte de vendange by David Drew is a work of great technical ability but also a work which brought him on a deep exploration of materials. Drew was thoroughly familiar with willow when he moved to France. He had a solo exhibition at the Crafts Council Gallery in London in 1986 which was very influential, setting a standard to which other basketmakers could aspire. Ralph Turner, head of exhibitions at the time, acknowledged that ‘never before have we arranged a solo exhibition for so traditional a maker.’ 4 Although this comment could also be interpreted as a pejorative judgement about traditional crafts, it showed a more open happens in the process of reproducing or restoring. attitude towards tradition than currently prevails, I spent ten years exploring indigenous Irish basketry as the British Crafts Council would now feel its techniques. I had come to basketmaking at a responsibility is to ‘innovative’ makers rather than unique time when various regional styles of donkey ‘traditional’ ones. panniers and lobster-pots were quickly going out When making the hotte – a back pannier – of use and it seemed very important to record as Drew researched the technique of split oak, many of these techniques as possible.3 In the once traditional in France but which was process I found that I had to rediscover many rapidly disappearing. Although this basket is a techniques, often working from photographs or ‘reproduction,’ there is a high level of discovery from examples in museum collections. This work and innovation involved in its making. It is not really broadened my understanding of methods particularly typical of the artist’s overall work, of making and even extended my curiosity about which shows a great diversity of material and style. materials, as I used heather for the first time. In interview in 2008, David Drew stated that whilst The Irish donkey pannier (image 1) is made upside many categorised his work as traditional he down with the base being made last and this has considered it innovative as he had in fact changed since inspired me to make sculptural baskets, which traditional aspects in many ways.5 Jenny Crisp, combine the use of wood and willow. I do not another British basketmaker who is often think I could have figured out how to make these categorised as a traditional maker, has in fact baskets if I had not first spent time re-discovering invented a new wider border which she uses on Irish techniques. 20 21

almost all of her work. Thus labels such as ‘traditional’ and ‘innovative’ can mask truth Perhaps we need to rather than reveal it. restore ‘amateur’ to its It would be helpful to go beyond categories such as root meaning: doing ‘contemporary’ and ‘traditional’ and begin to look something for the love of more closely and deeply at the work in front of us. There certainly are craft workers who make the it. In a time when labour same design over and over, not charging it with intensive techniques are their own spirit or ideas. Most of the baskets I see disappearing, it is precisely from China are like this; makers seem to be trapped in producing large numbers of poorly designed those who make from a baskets. There is nothing noble in this for the love of their craft who will maker, and it raised important ethical questions help to keep it alive. about how well or poorly makers are paid and, beyond that, about whether they have an input In calling for less categorisation, I am also arguing into the design. Even in the privileged for less certainty and more humility. Craft circumstances in which most of us makers in the organisations could become inclusive enough to western world find ourselves, the creative vision celebrate disciplines such as lace making, which in and making process can easily be narrowed by the contemporary world ticks all the wrong boxes commercial pressures. And yet craft workers are as its practitioners are often elderly, female and everywhere, some in commercial set-ups, some amateur. On a recent visit to India, I had an working enthusiastically in the hours that they can opportunity to speak to craft workers. I gathered spare. Those working in a non-commercial way are that working as a craftsperson was still considered of course ‘amateurs’ but this does not necessarily a very honourable pursuit. Many makers were mean unskilled. Perhaps we need to restore certainly motivated by the need to earn a living, ‘amateur’ to its root meaning: doing something but they also spoke of the deep satisfaction they for the love of it. In a time when labour intensive got from the making process, which in many cases techniques are disappearing, it is precisely those carried on and enriched a long tradition. Those of who make from a love of their craft who will help us who work in Western industrialised countries to keep it alive. Such people are likely to be may speak more rarely about the satisfaction we patronised rather than represented by craft derive from the work, but I believe that a very organisations. strong motivation for most makers is the desire to 22 engage 33 Valuing the Good Rather than the New 23

bring out of ourselves and the material some idea Notes or possibility we see there. American potter Robert 1. Arts Council England, quoted in Taste Turner talks about his motivation as follows: Contemporary Craft 2014. Exhibition catalogue, ‘I am doing what we perhaps are all doing – Geneva searching, hunting…This search has a deep 2. Polayni, M. (1974) Personal Knowledge: Towards meaning and significance and the finding is in a Post Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of the process, not necessarily in the result of it.’ 6 Chicago Press This resonates deeply with me as it echoes what 3. Hogan, J. (2001), Basketmaking in Ireland. I aim for in my own practice – to be the conduit or Bray: Wordwell means by which the material is used in the best possible way. This seems to me to go beyond any 4. Boston, R. (1986), David Drew: Baskets. traditional / contemporary or art / craft divide into London: Crafts Council, p. 5 a more inclusive and open region where it is the 5. Butcher, M. and Hogan, J. (2008), European making that is celebrated rather than the ego of Baskets. Kilkenny: National Craft Gallery, p. 25 the maker. Too much emphasis on innovation can lead to an exaggerated focus on the unique 6. Miro, M. and Hepburn, T. (2003). Robert Turner: personality of the maker. In the art world, this has Shaping Silence: A Life in Clay. Tokyo, NewYork, led to the cult of the celebrity artist. Far better to London: Kodansha International, p.136 heed the words of the Tao Te Ching: 7. Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell, ‘Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill (1998). NewYork: Harper Row Keep sharpening your knife and it will become Images blunt 1. Joe Hogan, Donkey creel, 2007, natural willow. Chase after money and your heart will never Photo J. Hogan unclench 2. Joe Hogan, Ripe, 2010, natural willow and bog Care about people’s approval and you become pine. Photo J. Hogan their prisoner 3. Jenny Crisp, Fruit tray, 2004, natural willow. Do your work, then step back Photo J. Hogan The only path to serenity.’ 7 22 CAREful or CAREless? 23 Collaborative Making and Social Engagement through Craft Fiona Hackney Associate Professor Design Cultures & Community Engagement, Falmouth University

In his recent book Together, the Rituals, Pleasures pleasure and involve high levels of ingenuity, and Politics of Cooperation, sociologist Richard competence and creativity. CARE stands for Sennett argues that the skills involved in material Community Asset-based Research and Enterprise, craftsmanship and in social cooperation are and a key impetus for the project was the belief analogous and linked.1 By isolating people, that hobby craft activities represent a significant, modern society is de-skilling them as well as under-utilised community asset and resource. breeding anxiety. The challenge, as he sees it, Often dismissed or devalued, the knowledge, is to forge new forms of meaningful collaboration. skills and expertise embedded in hobby craft This article proposes that craft has a unique activities could be developed and applied through, potential to bring individuals and communities for instance, volunteering, training, community together in dialogue through making, thereby activism, small businesses or social enterprise. bridging differences of culture, age and identity. The diverse ways in which community knowledge, Our focus is on the Arts and Humanities potential and agency can be maximised through Research Council (AHRC) funded CARE project, genuinely collaborative co-produced activities, and a partnership between Craftspace, Voluntary the role of creative practice in this, is an additional Arts England (VAE), Bealtaine Festival (Age and concern. Creative hobbies are an important area of Opportunity), Dublin and Falmouth University, activity because they embody individual, family and which works with hobby craft groups to explore community knowledge and modes of social collaboration through making, enabled by different engagement, as skills are exchanged and passed forms of digital technology.2 down the generations. Most importantly, perhaps, these activities have the capacity to absorb people Millions engage in creative hobbies each year, and draw them together because they can be both activities that are undertaken voluntarily for fulfilling and fun. 24 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 25

of age and creativity; the two organisations Creative hobbies are an work collaboratively on the ongoing Wandering important area of activity Methods craft project, which is supported by the Office of Public Works in Dublin. CARE additionally because they embody builds on and extends learning from Voluntary individual, family and Arts’ recently completed Hand on Crafts research community knowledge project (undertaken with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation) which explored intergenerational and modes of social skill-sharing through craft and digital practice. engagement, as skills are The Crafts Council is a CARE collaborator and will exchanged and passed help disseminate project outcomes to the wider down the generations crafts community.3 Project partners’ expertise and experience fed into the development of the pilot project with twelve CARE’s partners are central to the evolution, individual crafters and members of community dissemination and impact of the project. Deirdre groups in Cornwall and Birmingham. This was Figueiredo, Director of Craftspace, is Community structured around the various iterations involved in Co-Researcher for CARE and has extensive the process of creative making, responding, sharing experience working with craft and social and reflecting. A ‘call and response’ method for engagement. Craftspace have strong links sharing through ‘buddy’ exchanges, ‘making boxes’ with Bealtaine Festival who advise on issues and short films was developed. All participants 24 25

then gathered together for a Knowledge Sharing an integrated and evolving system of networks event to reflect on their experiences of the project, comprising diverse and dynamic connections. view and discuss the materials produced including, She proposes the value of an ‘edge of chaos’ films, craft items, sketchbooks, notebooks, model of community: an intermediate zone digital material (a blog and digital sketchbook). between rigidity and randomness in which forms This in turn led to the evolution of ‘Material of ‘untidy creativity’ operate. Gilchrist’s modelling Consequences’, a digital platform that is currently helped us think about the different constituents in process and aims to support, track and evaluate in hobby craft groups – the relatively rigid, settled further ‘making, responding and reflecting values and practices that characterise long journeys’ with groups in Cornwall, Birmingham, established groups, for instance, and the ‘untidy Dublin and Gothenburg. creativity’ that might result from introducing elements of randomness in the form of Taking Care: Theory and Method uncoordinated acts of making. Gilchrist additionally Before considering the outcomes of the pilot in reminds us that communities can function in more detail, it is useful to outline the project’s ideas positive and negative ways. So while informal and arguments that informed our thinking and networks function as a collective resource – helped us shape what we did. Questions of power a repository of common sense, experiential relations and agency must be central to any knowledge and shared wisdom, often mediated by project exploring the mechanics of collaboration. women – they can also be oppressive and exclusive, Alison Gilchrist’s notion of the ‘well-connected preventing the community acquiring new insights community’ as an integrating mechanism that or learning from experiences that challenge ‘tolerates difference, celebrates diversity, promotes assumptions. Paying attention to such issues of equality and acknowledges mutuality’, and recent power and equality as they are expressed in various work on the activist elements of historical and patterns of exchange through creative making contemporary hobby crafts, provide a framework reveals the extent to which, and how, this model for thinking about power relations, agency and the of collaboration might promote positive or negative particular types of communities that might result experiences, open up participants or shut them from the creative hobby crafts.4 down, challenge or reinforce assumptions and Gilchrist, who has been involved in community inequalities; the degree, that is, to which it produces development for over thirty years and along with CAREful or CAREless interactions and communities. the crafts curator and educationalist Katy Bevan5 What we understand as craft has changed beyond is a consultant on CARE, draws on complexity all recognition in recent years. Terms such as theory to argue for a model of ‘community’ as 26 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 27

crafting, craftivism (craft activism), manbroidery, through which to view home and hobby crafts and counterfeit crochet, net craft, ‘stitch ‘n’ bitch’, reconsider the agencies it affords in the context of guerrilla knitting, yarn bombing, Punk DIY, everyday life.8 The apparent cultural invisibility, the subcultural and indie craft, signal a new energy domestic, gendered and amateur constituents of and a will to re-engage with craft’s political home and hobby crafts provides a starting point heritage and the counter-cultural radicalism of the to explore ‘other’ forms of agency and activism. 1960s and 1970s.6 This re-emergence of craft is Hobby craft can be a mode of ‘quiet activism’ generally associated with a younger generation of that embodies and enables ‘the ability or capacity activist, technology-savvy makers.7 Craft as socially to act’. 9 engaged practice, however, also provides a lens 26 27

In his 2011 lecture for the Royal Society of Arts, aspects of employment in that they are stimulating, entitled ‘Tools for Survival’, Christopher Frayling develop specialised skills, reward perseverance, called for a new language in the crafts. Rob Fraser integrate participants in networks and groups, and Andrew Thomson, responding to this call, and provide benchmarks to measure individual identified a contemporary figure, the ‘new artisan’ achievements. If only these qualities could be whose ‘knowledge, skills and creative capacities’ mapped across into the working world; for the will sustain ‘a high quality of life, a low cost of living new amateur with a raft of technical and social and a brighter future’.10 This project derives from resources to draw on, perhaps they can. the premise that we also need to recognise the Finally, hobby crafts provide an ideal means of new (super-connected) amateur who, informed working with older people, a key constituency when by a wealth of on and offline resources (local and increasing numbers face long periods of retirement global networks, citizen journalism, community with limited incomes, or have to deal with significant broadband, online forums, social media, YouTube, life changes in their middle years.14 Apprenticeships apps and the blogosphere) as well as their own life tend to focus on younger people, while all ages experiences and expertise, are quietly active as they participate in hobbies and possess hobby-based open up new channels of value and exchange by knowledge, networks and competencies. The engaging in alternative craft economies and therapeutic aspects of making have long been harnessing assets in often surprising, productive debated and recent evidence confirms the benefits ways.11 Since the 1880s, when hobbies gained to health and wellbeing of structures and process recognition as a distinct category, they have been that offer creative challenge and control.15 perceived as a mode of practice that operates Historically, handicrafts have been socially somewhere between work and leisure. Hobbies inclusive, crossing boundaries of class, yet occupy an ambiguous, contradictory and, we gender-differentiated with women undertaking would argue, unstable space (akin to Gilchrist’s the ‘softer’ textile-based crafts and men working intermediate zone) which, according to hobbies with machinery, wood and metal. Both inclusive historian Steven Gelber, condemned depersonalised and exclusive, this situation with some notable factory and office work by “compensating for exceptions still pertains today.16 For all these reasons its deficiency while simultaneously replicating CARE’s pilot study focused on intergenerational both the skills and values of the workplace” interchange between a small group of older women (what Gelber terms ‘disguised affirmation’).12 hobby crafters, or creative producers as we called Conceptualised as a form of ‘productive’ or them, and younger female respondents (textile ‘serious’ leisure13, hobbies function as an ‘ideal students and a member of staff). job’ with all the positive and none of the negative 28 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 29

Drawing on action and participatory research about the process. Everyone came together for a methods, and work on collective creative making, Knowledge Sharing event at the end of the pilot CARE developed a research framework that was phase. The Creative Practitioners were asked to tell intended to help participants reflexively explore their crafting stories using selected objects and by processes of shared learning through making, demonstrating how they work. The six participants exchange and skill-sharing, at a distance and used a range of craft mediums from embroidery face-to-face.17 As such, the research feeds into and sewing to lace-making and paper-folding. debates about alternative modes of education, Each had a distinctive story to tell, but common apprenticeships, and online learning communities.18 experiences and motivations emerged. The The methodology foregrounds ‘doing’ and is Cornwall participants, Linda, Jane, Barbara and organised around making, narrating, sharing, Pippa, were filmed by Bryony Stokes and in responding, connecting and reflecting activities Birmingham the films about Elsie and Myrtle which were captured on film or orally, what were made by Joseph Potts. I will discuss these became known as the ‘call and response’ method. separately, beginning with the Cornish group; a slightly different approach was taken in The Pilot Project & Pippa’s Story: Birmingham.19 Visual Rhetoric, Craft on Film For the purposes of the pilot, six intergenerational Linda, whose film is a riot of colour, talks about ‘buddy partnerships’ were established with the addictive – even compulsive – and therapeutic community participants, each consisting of one aspects of crochet, spinning and felting; ‘if you’re Creative Practitioner (CP) over 50 years of age, creative and you’re busy then it also helps you to be and a younger Creative Respondent (CR). Activities happy’, she observes For Linda, as for many if not took place in Birmingham and in Cornwall with all of the women, it is the ‘creative process’ that individuals from local community crafting groups. drives her; crochet set her on a path that led to art Each buddy pair engaged with one ‘call and college as a mature student and working as an response’ iteration through the exchange of abstract painter. Whereas Linda valued the speed ‘Making Boxes’ and ‘Making Stories’ (short films). and ease of crochet, others emphasised the time This process was conducted at a distance in and patience their craft involves. Jane, who Cornwall, while the Birmingham buddies met originally trained as a fine artist, took up face-to-face providing comparative material needlework more recently and is a member about different forms of engagement. The buddy of the embroidery group in Helston, Cornwall. partners were brought together and a ‘Buddy She combines her stitching and fine art skills to Exchange’ film recorded their thoughts and views produce mixed-media pieces – responses to 28 29

landscape – that are proving so successful that in being creative and making sewing pay. I will she is currently embarking on a ‘second career’ consider her film in more detail in order to explore as creative practitioner. In her film Jane stresses the the relationship between aesthetics and content, conviviality and comradeship of the Heston group suggesting that it demonstrates a visual rhetoric where there is, ‘no stitching and bitching. There’s that is particularly engaging and appropriate for stitching and chatting and laughing and joshing. communicating crafting activities and the pleasures But actually the focus for everybody is embroidery and challenges they involve. and it’s an exchange of ideas, and skill and Pippa’s film is organised around close-up shots of experience. It’s so good for the soul, a sentiment her hands working at the machine, middle-distance her colleagues endorsed. Barbara, another member shots which establish context – sitting in her of the Heston group who works in stitch and lace, workshop surrounded by bolts of cloth or standing relishes the process of hand making; outside her shop – and stills of the tools of the ‘the longer it takes the better I like it. I like the sewing trade: a hand-turned sewing machine, detail, which can be a blessing and a curse’. a pin cushion, a button box, bobbins. The attention She shows the first piece of lace she made and to colour, texture, decoration, pattern and detail demonstrates working with bobbins, commenting communicates the importance of ‘small things’. on both the beauty of the imperfections and the The intercutting of ‘making’ footage with close-up potential of the process; ‘the only limitation is your stills of objects – the movement between hand, imagination.’ face and object – establishes a slow, deliberate Pippa, the final member of the Cornwall CPs rhythm , which echoes the rhythm of the interviewed, discusses the difficulties involved sewing machine, and conveys a sense of calm, 30 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 31

concentration and absorption. A colourful collage and ends with a still of her standing outside her of image, sound and narrative, the film conveys a shop front with the title of her business ‘Make-Do sense of specificity, value, excitement and intimacy, & Mend’ prominently displayed. This series of shots which underscores and reinforces Pippa’s narrative provides a background to Pippa’s narrative of her about valuing skills and competencies that are ‘making journey’. She describes how she learnt often dismissed as unimportant, domestic or to sew at home from her mother who was a hobbyist, and how these might be scaled up into dressmaker and needlework teacher, and how a business. She explains: ‘It is a question of having she learnt the economic value of her skills, making the confidence in your abilities and valuing what additional income when training to be a teacher you do and then other people will value it.’ and when her five children were young. The story of how the business grew with the support of her The film opens with a shot of Pippa’s hands local community is told against a sequence of stills: at work on a red garment (putting a zip into cloth, cotton reels, order books, clothes, pins, even someone’s much-loved cardigan). Against the a cat, which convey the intimacy of working in a background hum of the sewing machine, she domestic setting. The shop is located in part of the explains how her business gradually snowballed family home (although it was originally a shop) and from home dressmaking to more ambitious the business employs three full-time and two projects. The camera moves between close-ups part-time staff including her husband after he of Pippa working, to shots of her in her workshop, 30 31

was made redundant and one of her daughters. the creative fulfilment to be had from working in They do repairs and alterations, tailoring and this way. Pippa’s film depicts a quietly confident, dressmaking, curtains and soft furnishings, highly articulate woman whose attitude and upholstery and canvas work; ‘you have to be achievements, we would argue, represent a adaptable’, Pippa reflects. She is eloquent and form of quiet activism, an inspiring example of adamant about the real need for this kind of resourcefulness and resilience that exemplifies how service at a time when a lot of people don’t even undervalued, self-taught skills can be transformed have thread in the house: into a creatively fulfilling job. I feel these skills need to be continued. People The Creative Respondents, Mia, Hannah, Kathleen need to do them for pleasure but also to see them and Zoe, were teamed where possible with as an opportunity to earn money, to make a job buddies who worked with crafts and skills from it. And they are quite undervalued skills, unfamiliar to them. Beyond a list of prompts, I think, because they are craft skills and people see no guidance was given other than a request them as just hobbies now rather than a way of that they work as intuitively and responsively as earning a living. The main satisfaction, I think, at possible. They were given the ‘Making Boxes’ first the end of it is that you’ve got something that is and several commented on how enigmatic the absolutely unique and is yours. You’ve got that items were; the ‘Making Story’ films provided ownership of it haven’t you and the pride, and stimulating and much appreciated context. The CRs that I think is the thing that is very difficult to instil used a variety of methods and means to respond in people, the pride [pause] of creation perhaps to, and reflect on what they were given, including [laughs]. sketch and scrap-booking, collage, embroidery stitching, digital sketchbooks and digital The camera returns to shots of Pippa working on embroidery. Examples of work can be seen on the red cardigan, as Pippa reflects on her major the project website.20 Time was limited and, from concern: the ‘big divide between doing something necessity, the respondents had to work fast and as a hobby and thinking of it as a profession’. could not produce finished pieces, but this The difficulty, that is, of combining creative enhanced the freshness and immediacy of projects with the more mundane jobs that bring responses such as a lovely short film that Kathleen the money in: a dilemma that sits at the heart of made in response to Jane’s work and her feeling this project. In the closing shot Pippa talks about for colour in landscape.21 The resulting ‘buddy the satisfactions of running a crafting business films’ are available on the CARE website.22 There (see quote above), affirming the significance of was general agreement that the ‘call and response’ ownership (of one’s work and one’s business) and 32 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 33

method created an unpredictable and imaginative some examples of her work and together they space akin to Gilchrist’s intermediate zone of do some stitching. Dawn is particularly interested ‘untidy creativity’, which would benefit further in the cushions Myrtle makes employing triangles investigation. of material, a technique she recognises and they discuss the market potential of these wonderful The films made about Elsie and her respondent designs. Rosie, Myrtle and her respondent Dawn, show the buddies meeting face-to-face in the CPs homes in Material Consequences: Moving Towards Birmingham, and capture the intimacy of that a Digital Platform interaction. Elsie, who has a wide repertoire of Four major learning points emerged from the crafting activities including ribbon embroidery, Knowledge Exchange event. Firstly, everyone quilting, beading, painting on glass and mosaic, agreed that the films, particularly the first set shows Rosie (a post-graduate textiles student) in which the CPs talked about their work and examples of her work and together they look at motivations, had great presence as things. photographs of houses and dolls houses and think Participants found them inspirational and enjoyed about how crafting can transform a house into a watching each other’s films, while several reflected home. Rosie is particularly interested in Elsie’s use that their films caused them to view their own of Iris, a traditional paper-folding technique, which work in a different light. Concerns emerged, she uses to make pictures and cards from the however that, although beautiful, the films were insides of envelopes, and the film shows Elsie overly mediated and that the second set of ‘buddy demonstrating the technique. In response to her films’ were descriptive rather than reflective. meeting with Elsie, Rosie using the Iris technique A process of sharing, connecting and reflecting to make a beautiful piece by folding letters and was needed which allowed participants greater envelopes that Elsie gave her. Myrtle who, like Elsie, control over the process in a less stage-managed, has a vast array of craft skills at her disposal, works time-limited manner, with opportunities for further with embroidery, knitting, hand sewing and ‘call and response’ iterations. machine work, rug making, paper and canvas, Another concern was that participants invested in drawn thread work, and applique. She first learned CARE depending on the extent to which the her skills from her mother in the West Indies and project corresponded to their needs, interests and has subsequently developed them throughout aspirations; what they had to share for instance or her working life in the UK, recently undertaking what they wished to learn. Some found immediate a BA in Visual Arts. Myrtle runs a craft group in points of correspondence with and/or interest in Birmingham. She shows Dawn (a textile student) their buddy’s work, while others were less satisfied, 32 33

feeling that their work had been misunderstood or misinterpreted. More flexibility was required in the CARE process to allow participants to choose a buddy and shape their ‘call’, foregrounding, that is, what participants feel they had to offer and what they wished to learn, or to achieve. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, tensions emerged around different concepts of craft, skill, learning, amateur and professional practice, hand and digital making, and the complex notions of identity bound up with these. Generational differences emerged here, and were particularly she experienced a revelation about her work – evident among those with a strong sense of she went so far as to describe it as ‘an epiphany’ – community identity. For example, some members of but she could not see the connection to the project. the Helston embroidery group felt that the project Additional ‘call and response’ iterations would have pushed them into new, unfamiliar territory but did enabled her to share this experience with her buddy, not fulfil their primary aim of passing on information opening possibilities for deeper reflection through about traditional skills and techniques. To some collaboration. extent, these points of tension were the most Lastly, the issue of differing experiences and productive things to emerge from the pilot project qualities of on and offline interaction was because they signalled where learning/change was considered, as the Birmingham buddies had taking place and, crucially, how this might not face-to-face interaction throughout the process, always be a pleasant experience. Explicit protocols whereas the Cornwall buddies met only during are needed to enable participants to encounter the buddy-exchange filming. In summary, while unfamiliar approaches to creative making while the experience of personal contact was clearly asserting their own views; to find, in other words, beneficial and eased the process of interaction and a means of compromise, while acknowledging that skills exchange, the imaginative space that opened moving out of one’s ‘comfort zone’ can sometimes up between self and other for those working at a be difficult. The pilot project suggested that the distance seemed to become blurred or lost. This process of compromise was bound up with the indicative finding suggests that a process to track ability to recognise change when it occurs and and compare face-to-face and digital interactions reflect on it. One participant, for instance, felt that further is required. 34 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 35

The pilot project helped the team to identify some platform as fun and user-friendly as possible. of the shortcomings, but also the strengths and The research team, however, are mindful of real value involved in a ‘call and response’ method participants’ differing technical abilities and for promoting collaborative learning and self- supported group work will be a central component reflection through making. The issues that arose of this next phase of the project. around power relationships involved in exchange, Conclusion: Seeing Ourselves through differing values and identities (group and Others’ Eyes individual), aspirations, needs and skills, however, An initial starting point for CARE was that seeing suggested the need for a project framework that oneself through another’s eyes could unlock was more interactive and moved beyond film. unrecognised potential, as well as highlighting The idea of a digital platform titled ‘Material limitations in a beneficial way, and that Consequences’ emerged from discussions at the collaboration, co-operation and exchange through Knowledge Sharing event. The title signals the creative making might offer a unique way of playful, chance aspects of the project as well as its achieving this. To date, we have not yet fully tested grounding in material making processes. The digital this proposition. The pilot project has provided platform, which will be supported by additional insights and pointers, however, and illuminated offline activities, will involve members of the many things, not least the value of film for project team to insure a more inclusive approach communicating craft and its potential to develop a to research and will be developed with critical input craft aesthetic and tell craft stories. The possibilities from participants. The aim is that all participants of interactive forms of making through film will be will have the opportunity to develop ‘making extended as new apps become available to support relationships’ with two ‘buddies’ over a longer shared editing, storyboarding and animation.23 period of time (two-three months) and select who The ‘Making Stories’ told by Creative Practitioners they will partner with, connecting through a ‘slow demonstrate the blurred distinctions between making’ version of speed dating; a playful ‘musical ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ practice. Such chairs-like’ process that will retain elements of collaborations suggest an emergent space in chance. Digital workbaskets will serve as a place which ‘new amateurs’ can re-imagine their practice to store (and share) products and reflections from uninhibited by professional dictates in distinctive, the ‘call and response’ exchanges (stories, video, and arguably (quietly) activist, ways. patterns, instructions, poems, images) and basket interactions will be captured in a series of micro- To return to Richard Sennett, cooperation, if it is blog posts. Online and offline tutorials will be not to be collusion, is a difficult and demanding devised to support participants and make the process: a ‘fraught, ambiguous zone of experience 34 35

where skill and competence encounter resistance A film summarising the project to date can be and intractable difference.’ This statement echoes found at this link: http://vimeo.com/69686569 Gilchrist’s notion of an intermediate zone of 3. Partners websites can be found at: ‘untidy making’ and captures some of the tensions experienced in our buddy exchanges, when http://www.craftspace.co.uk; http://www. different generational notions of creative making voluntaryarts.org/ alternately clashed and compromised. Sennett http://bealtaine.com/ argues that the trick is to respond to others on their own terms. This involves such skills as: the ability http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/ to listen well, behave tactfully, find points of See project websites: agreement, manage disagreement, avoid frustration, and achieve interactions that are http://www.voluntaryarts.org/take-part/ ‘knitted together’ though exchanges of difference hand-on-crafts/ (what he terms dialogic cooperation) or the http://bealtaine.com/wandering-methods location of common ground (dialectic cooperation) or, most often, a combination of the two.24 Such 4. Gilchrist, A. (2000), ‘The Well-connected observations will be foremost in the CARE team’s Community: networking to the ‘edge of chaos’ mind as we move forward to phase two. in the Community Development Journal, Vol. 35, No.3, July 2000, pp. 264-275. Also see her website: This work was supported by the Arts and http://www.alisongilchrist.co.uk/ Humanities Research Council [AH/K006789/1] as part of the Connected Communities programme For a discussion of quiet activism and the new of research. We would like to thank all our project amateur see Hackney, F. (2013) ‘Quiet Activism and partners, consultants, advisers, collaborators and the New Amateur. The Power of Home and Hobby participants for their expertise, enthusiasm, time Crafts’ in Design and Culture, special issue on and commitment. design activism, Vol. 5, Issue 2, 2013, pp. 169-194. Notes 5. Katy Bevan’s website/blog can be accessed at: http://www.thecrafter. 1. Sennett, R. (2012), Together, the Rituals, me/?subscribe=success#subscribe-blog Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation. London & NY: Penguin. 6. See, for example, Greer, B. (2008), Knitting for Good! The Guide to Creating Personal, Social, and 2. cocreatingcare.wordpress.com/the-project/ Political Change, Stitch by Stitch. Boston & London: CARE will be completed at the end April 2014. 36 engage 33 CAREful or CAREless 37

Trumpeter, and Buszek, M. E. (ed.) (2011), Extra/ 14. On the growing gap between those with and Ordinary Crafts and Contemporary Art. Durham without resources see Dorling, D. (2011), Injustice, & London: Duke University Press. why social inequality persists. Bristol & Portland OR: Polity Press, and on the benefits of creative making 7. See Von Busch, O. (2010), ‘Exploring net political for older people see Reynolds, F. (2010) ‘Colour and craft: From Collective to Connective’ in Craft communion: Exploring the influences of visual Research, 1 (1), 2010, pp. 113-124, and Minahan, art-making as a leisure activity on older women’s S. & J. Wolfram Cox (2007), ‘Stitch ‘n’ Bitch: subjective well-being’ in the Journal of Aging Cyberfeminism, a Third Place and the New Studies, 2010, 24, pp. 135-143, and F. Reynolds Materiality’ in the Journal of Material Culture, 12 (2000), ‘Managing depression through needlecraft (1), 2007, pp. 5-21 creative activities: a qualitative study’ in The Arts in 8. Dant, T. (2005), Materiality and Society. Milton Psychotherapy, 2010, 27(2), pp. 107-114 Keynes: Open University Press 15. AHRC-funded research student Sarah 9. Bratich, J. Z. & H. M. Brush (2011), ‘Fabricating Desmarais is currently exploring the experiential Activism: Craft-Work, Popular Culture, Gender’ in benefits of crafting in a collaborative project with Utopian Studies, 22 (2), p. 234 Arts for Health Cornwall. http://www. artsforhealthcornwall.org.uk/news/arts-and- 10. Frayling, C. (2011),‘ Tools for Survival’ at http:// humanities-research-council www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/archive/ winter-2011/features/tools-for-survival 16. Exceptions include Major Casdagli whose (Accessed 10.06.2012), and Fraser, R. & A. quietly activist embroideries materialised a daringly Thomson (2012), ‘The New Artisan’ at http:// subversive act during his time as a prisoner of war www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/ in Germany. See Charney, D. (ed.) (2011), Power of features/the-new-artisan (Accessed 10.06.2012) Making: The Importance of Being Skilled. London: V&A Publishing and Hackney (2013) op.cit., p.172. 11. Hackney (2013) op. cit., pp. 183-187. Also see Fine Cell Work, which sells needlework 12. Gelber, S. M. (1999), Hobbies: Leisure and the work made by male and female prisoners Culture of Work. New York: Columbia University http://www.finecellwork.co.uk/ Press 17. Crouch, C. & Pearce. J., (2012), Doing Research 13. Stebbins, R. A. & E. Cohen-Gewerc (2013) in Design. London & NY: Berg. Matarasso, F. (1997), Serious Leisure and Individuality. Montreal & Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press Participation in the Arts. Stroud: Comedia. Ledwith, 36 37

M. & J. Springett (2010), Participatory Practice: participants/participant-profiles/boxes-and- Community-based action for transformative responses/ change. Bristol & Portland OR: Polity Press 22. All ‘buddy’ films can be seen on the CARE 18. The recent Crafts Council Report Craft in an website at http://cocreatingcare.wordpress. Age of Change http://www.craftscouncil.org. com/buddy-films/ uk/files/professionaldevelopment/Craft_in_ 23. Apps and platforms support shared editing, an_Age_of_Change.pdf identifies a new storyboarding and animation: Mixbit (shared landscape for crafts with increasing levels of editing), Director (storyboarding), Vine, redundancy and the effects of shifts in higher Monkeydust (animation) education as crafts courses are closed or diversify. In this context, the value of amateur skills take on 24. Sennett, R. (2012), Ibid. new importance, particularly if people turn to craft Images as an alternative career. The effects of ageing and people living longer also widens the scope for craft 1. Crochet made by Linda Attwell. Photo Bryony to contribute to supplementing income in later life Stokes but the enablers for this have not been fully 2. Lace made by Barbara Cooper. Photo Bryony explored. To this end the National Institute of Stokes Continuing Adult Education (NIACE) have produced a craft toolkit http://craftworkstoolkit.org.uk. 3. Pippa Bray standing in front of her shop Make Also see https://www.theamazings.com/ Do and Mend, Cornwall 2013. Photo Bryony Stokes pages/purpose for a popular online platform that 4. Pin Cushion in Pippa Bray’s workshop. Photo supports intergenerational crafting Bryony Stokes 19. See, for example, http://vimeo.com/ 5. Collage/sample Board made by Zoe Etter in user7202418. All the CP films can be viewed on response to Linda Attwell’s ‘Making Box’ and the CARE website at http://cocreatingcare. ‘Making Story’. Photo Bryony Stokes wordpress.com/buddy-films/ 6. Iris work card by Rosie Moss made in response to 20. http://cocreatingcare.files.wordpress. Elsie Embly’s work com/2013/06/research-project-book-1.pdf 7. Cushion made by Myrtle Farrell using a 21. http://care-project.tumblr.com/ traditional technique. Photo Bryony Stokes http://cocreatingcare.wordpress.com/ 38 Neither Craft nor Art 39 Lives Spent Making Andrew Stooke Artist, educator, writer and Director of Art at Dulwich College, Shanghai

Outsider art1 is a category that increasingly finds driven programme. Their work does not ‘develop’. itself inside the art exhibition space and For this reason it has been observed that Outsiders consequently in a relationship with the critical are often only celebrated after their death, when framework of mainstream art. The reputation of their output can be evaluated as a whole, as if their Outsider art and its acceptance as a legitimate living, their whole lives, were rhetorical, equivalent ‘genre’ has been reinforced by enthusiasts world- to the fictions of art.3 Biography is commonly the wide who have supported the public’s discovery substitute for a framework of critical analysis. and rediscovery of Outsider artists.2 Seen from the Craft and Outsider art appear to share common perspective of art theory, which bestows privileges ground both in their uncertain relationship to the upon groups and movements, ‘Outsider art’ seems overarching theoretical agendas of art, and in a to imply a cohesive and unified set of interests preoccupation with the specificity of material and practices. If, through theory, the individual qualities, understood through physical acts of practices and poly-modal expressions within art making. groups and movements can become logical unities, the Outsider artist, by definition, remains a In this article I will contrast my recent encounters heterogeneous individual who for one reason with craft and Outsider art. I will suggest that or another will not emerge within such particular Outsider artists are classified as a group around and reasoned critical contexts. their approaches to fabrication and choice of material. Biographical accounts of Outsiders’ lives Contemporary artists are responsive to the world suggest that these choices reveal innate creativity around them, their peers and their relationship to and artistic intent. I argue that Outsiders and craft precedents and cultural paradigms. Outsiders work makers may appear to adopt similar processes. with fierce independence, to a lifelong, subjectively- However, for the Outsider these are ritualised 38 39

Craft and Outsider art appear to share common ground both in their uncertain relationship to the overarching theoretical agendas of art, and in a preoccupation with the specificity of material qualities, understood through physical acts of making.

practices, whereas craft practice, often based on the needs and uses of objects by others, tends to have no narrative of the ‘self’ to smooth a disjuncture with the critical context of art. L’Art Brut The tendency to construct a style for the Outsider artist’s work had its roots in the early 20th offer direct access to the human creative impulse. century’s preoccupation with ‘primitivism’ and an A work of art is only of interest, in my opinion, anthropological interest in tribal and naïve art, when it is an immediate and direct projection of coupled with a taxonomic desire to classify, what is happening in the depth of a person’s exercised on the art of children and of the ‘insane’. being...It is my belief that only in this ‘Art Brut’ can The category was reinforced by exhibitions staged we find the natural and normal processes of artistic by Jean Dubuffet and La Compagnie de l’Art Brut creation in their pure and elementary state.4 from 1947 as le Foyer de l’Art Brut, a changing display, in the basement of Rene Drouin’s gallery at Aloïse Corbaz (1886 –1964) took part in the first Place Vendome, Paris. Outsider art was believed to Art Brut exhibition. A possible predilection for 40 engage 33 Neither Craft nor Art 41

delusion and fantasy, a brief formative period spent to the history which produced them and not from as a governess at the court of Emperor William II, the point of view of the logic for which they are as well as internment in a mental institution, kept used. It is with respect to content alone that they her well away from cultural dialogue but provided can be regarded as heterogeneous …’ 7 biographical material to explain her work. She is Interest in the work of Corbaz, in common with among an older generation of Outsiders known other Outsiders, is through images in reproduction, for their meticulous and obsessive work using rather than from the physical objects. It is materials vernacular materials.5 Dubuffet describes her work: and process that are associated with her creativity. ‘using graphite and ink. She would also use the Corbaz’s crayon colours and plump compositions juice from petals, crushed leaves and toothpaste. connect with aspects of the larger visual culture of The support material for her expression was her times and appear to anticipate or influence wrapping paper sewn with thread or alternatively subsequent styles.8 envelopes, bits of cardboard or the backs of calendars.’ 6 The description foregrounds the COLLECT fabrication process, the deployment of craft skills, Like Frieze Art Fair, COLLECT: the International Fair such as needlework, as well as specific and of Contemporary Objects 2013 has now reached its unconventional materials, petal juice and 10th year,9 signaling the strengthening of the craft envelopes. The materials are imagined as integral market and a growing interest in objects made by to the work although there is no indication that exploring the possibilities of materials, and thinking they were chosen for any reason other than about use. At COLLECT this year Torbjørn Kvasbø’s expedient availability. The subject of the image big pillar-box red ceramic sculpture presided over being discussed, Napoléon III à Cherbourg, the opening space of Saatchi’s Chelsea gallery. It is is passed over and the work is discussed as an a substantial object, almost life-size, made of fat object made of meaningful materials. Claude cylinders of clay dripping with a viscous glaze. Too Lévi-Strauss proposes that elements in a ‘primitive’ much glaze has fused the form to its base. The rest object, be they optical, technical, or properties, of the exhibition was equally flamboyant. In Cóilín are integrated. All types of thing or effect have Ó Dubhghaill’s Torqued vessels (2008), full a pre-ordained relationship, so that what seems roundness was exquisitely concluded at a fine to be imaginative improvisation is found to be a seam; in Annelies Planteijdt’s Moole Stad necklaces system. (2011), stiff rods are relaxed. Similarity and difference are juxtaposed and joined, often ‘Against this it may be said that, in the first place, luxuriously, although as in the work of Aneta these odds and ends appear as such only in relation Regel Deleu, these joins can be radicalised by 40 41

encouraging fissures to form in the joining measurements from a body. The flat paper shapes compound pigmented clay, where it meets precede the clothes they produce and therefore, pre-existing mineral elements. through their abstractness, maintain the privacy of the body that will be fitted and dressed. The artist Following previous years of COLLECT, the ground displays the patterns in two ways, inviting divergent floor presented mostly intimate personal objects, readings. Sets of patterns are hung on the wall whereas the first floor exhibited made objects with in layers, suggesting they are awaiting use; the more affinity to gallery art. But it was in the project garment requires the joining of the parts for it spaces of the second floor where the exploration of to come into being. The flattened shapes evoke craft and ideas was intensified. neither garment nor body until a process is carried Particularly interesting in this zone were Freddie out. Other patterns are twisted into simple Robins and Hormazd Narielwalla, whose objects sculptural forms mounted on plinths. The viewer were charged with intimate histories. Robins’ encounters these forms in the round, but any haptic making activities are brought to bear on association with the body is cerebral. In common assemblages with inverted figurative references, with Robins’ objects, these are not finely crafted as suggestive of furnishings, and babies’ and dolls’ are other objects in COLLECT. The implication is clothes, that defied both usefulness and skill. that the craft skills of the tailor following the The works resist association with other makers patterns will complete the work. such as Naomi Filmer, whose objects reference Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan both prosthetic design and the fashion design of At the same time as COLLECT, the Wellcome Dolce & Gabbana. Instead they are lodged in Collection in London presented Souzou: Outsider vernacular and traditionally ‘amateur’ fabric craft Art from Japan (2013).10 The exhibition brought activities, such as knitting and felting. Craft objects together a compelling collection of art from are often exemplary in the precision of their joining attendees of social welfare institutions. Much of material to functionality. In opposition to this, the display revealed a transparency of technique, Robins suggests a de-skilled approach. She evokes insistent hand interventions on the objects’ surface, relaxed therapeutic knitting, the recreation of a and the exposure of grounds. The objects and their craft club where ideas, like socks, can get away mode of display allow for comparison with both with being amorphous and slightly ill-fitting. art’s appearances and craft’s processes. Narielwalla’s work is formed from paper patterns, Takahiro Shimoda produces items of clothing a by-product of tailoring. In this case the decorated with hand painted representations of his assemblages evoke the formality of taking intimate favorite foods. These garments were suspended 42 engage 33 Neither Craft nor Art 43

flat in a case, so that they could be encountered from its process; the pattern is a residue found from both sides. The trousers were hung below the between activities such as measuring, making tunic, suggesting the presence of his absent figure. and wearing. Without the body to work from, Shimoda controls his production process from and the wearable garment, the work is incomplete. making the garment to applying the surface Shimoda is model, maker and user of his costumes. decoration: slices of salami in tight rows, or looser In the exhibition the explicit absence of his body, rows of bird-shaped biscuits. Shimoda then wears so integral to the item, also centres attention on these garments, making his body essential to the the strategy of fabrication. Measuring and work. By presenting the pattern for a garment deportment are necessary for both Shimoda’s Nariewalla focuses attention on an object removed costumes and Nariewalla’s patterns to be finished, 42 43

but for the former this body must be himself and wooden fences as barriers. These were strongly for the latter it must be another. evocative of Anne Truitt’s homely and minimal sculpture, First (1961), low enough to be traversed The Museum of Everything at will, high enough to suggest protection. The While COLLECT and Frieze have developed association with Truitt, whose autobiographical together since 2003, since 2009 The Museum of journals11 recount her inner life against a Everything has presented a collateral exhibition of background of trauma, and her outer life as Outsider art in conjunction with Frieze. In keeping a community leader, positions Scott amongst with the Outsider spirit, display spaces are creative professionals in caring communities. unconventional. Scott’s life as an artist with Down’s Syndrome, In 2012 The Museum staged an ambitious profoundly deaf and mute, is extraordinary and presentation of the work of Judith Scott in her liberation through art is a compelling narrative. Selfridges Hotel in central London. The once Interest in such narratives is borne out by the rash opulent hotel had been stripped for renovation of biographical and documentary motion pictures and consisted of zones of concrete traversed by produced just before and after her death in 2005. picket fences. Many of the works were suspended, Wrapped in iridescent fibres, Scott’s forms directly reinforcing the cocoon like nature of Scott’s forms. dramatise her constrained but creative worldview, The sculptures originated in a nurturing while also embodying the narrative of her early environment, The Oakland Creative Growth Art difficulties and her artistic emancipation. Both Center, a fact that was suggested by the use of low 44 engage 33 Neither Craft nor Art 45

conceptually and physically, the works closely relate The “bricoleur” is adept at performing a large to other fine art, from Claes Oldenburg’s Store number of diverse tasks; but, unlike the engineer, (1961) to Dennis Oppenheim‘s Violations (1971–72) he does not subordinate each of them to the and recent work by Phyllida Barlow and Isa availability of raw materials and tools conceived Genzken. and procured for the purpose of the project. His universe of instruments is closed and the Scott could not communicate about her work. rules of his game are always to make do with Whereas Corbaz and Shimoda’s homogenous “whatever is at hand”, that is to say with a set of objects and refined repetitive process suggest tools and materials which is always finite and is also the ego defense mechanism of the introverted heterogeneous because what it contains bears no character,12 Scott responds to the qualities of her relation to the current project, or indeed to any materials and improvises around the underlying particular project, but is the contingent result of all forms. Each work appears to be considered and the occasions there have been to renew or enrich resolved. Scott was 42, a mature adult, when she the stock or to maintain it with the remains of started making art. Some Outsider artists seem to previous constructions or destructions.13 follow an inviolable, and often incomprehensible, subjective plan. Scott, however, although isolated Concluding thoughts from external influences, nevertheless intuited the In a section of the Souzou exhibition devoted to fundamental formal and rational principles of Culture, Sharmacharja points out that there is an creative communication. Unable to bring external assumption that Outsiders are not aware of the subject matter to her work, her response to changing world around them. It is possible that this materials is prominent. Inability to communicate assumption derives from choice of material and implicates her as an Outsider and biography individual methods of fabrication, a lack of supports this connection when she is brought refinement that locates the work, including its to public attention. subjects, with pre-photographic representation and pre-industrial crafts. Among the people The celebrated passage below from Lévi-Strauss’ represented in this section is Keisuke Ishino. The Savage Mind might illuminate the difference Through an intricate and painstaking use of sticky between the strategy of Corbaz, the bricoleur, tape he produces flat, geometricised, anime-like unwilling to exceed the vocabulary of her materials, figures, made into three-dimensional standing and Scott who attempts within the constrictions forms. Like the costumes of Shimoda these doll like of her institutional environment, to engineer the constructions were displayed in a double sided case resources to make an ongoing creative project. so that the often undecorated backs can be seen. 44 45

Seeing the backs highlights the artist’s dexterity subjectively, from the outside. The view is and the consistency of the technique. Ishino makes sanctioned through reliance on biographical an empty paper skin, glazed with adhesive tape. accounts, intended to be summative of the Each figure has reached an end state at a slightly Outsider’s ‘wholeness.’ different point, some figures, though apparently Although Outsider exhibitions, such as Souzou complete are left drawn out but not coloured in, propose commonality with the themes of art,14 partially coloured, or blank on one side. the connection with the purposes of art is In Robins’ craft objects, exhibited at COLLECT, problematic. There is a fundamental difference the deployment of knitting is precise. It evokes between relationships within therapeutic and therapeutic and amateur activities by gradual within critical communities; for example, in Souzou enlargement, denoting an elastic and helpful creative work was framed as a community activity, attitude. The strategy draws on the precedents in but the films of the Outsiders making their art gave art, explicit in the structures of Ernesto Neto and in no indication of exchange or dialogue that one Yayoi Kusama’s White Infinity series, but in Robin’s would expect in a community. work it is the process, rather than surfaces or The disjuncture of Outsider work with the emblematic objects, that makes the work. discourses of contemporary art leads to the Variations in the states of completion of the assumption, supported by Lévi-Strauss, that it is amassed examples of Ishino’s figures have the processes and materials, means rather than ends, appearance of rehearsing a similar idea, based in that provides the impetus for the Outsider’s acts of making rather than in the final object. He bricolage. Choice within ‘previous constructions or masks the poignancy of the voids inside the forms destructions’ does not denote creative agency, but by the suggestion of experiment on their surfaces. a way of knowing what the end will be at the start. In common with other Outsider artists, repetition that appears to suggest variations on a theme is Inside the exhibition spaces of art, a focus on not repetition in the object, but in the method. biographical narrative and on making processes As long as he is supplied with materials, he will legitimises the Outsider’s presence without continue to generate examples, but the works do compromising art’s critical integrity. This seems to not develop and so cannot approach completion. associate Outsider art practice with craft-making. In fact it points to further disjuncture, applicable to Outsider art’s original legitimacy in relation to art the relationship between art and craft as well as was through its perceived unmediated access to between craft and Outsider art. The qualities of creativity. The Outsider is separated from art’s materials and the act of making constitute the critical debate; this allows individuals to be seen 46 engage 33 Neither Craft nor Art 47

Outsider’s practice; biographical material completes Museum of Everything’s collateral interventions, an ‘art-like’ exhibition object. The Outsider’s life initially with Frieze (from 2009), and latterly the story suggests distance, allowing the apparent exhibition of Carlo Zinelli, La Biennale di Venezia creative activity of the Outsider to enhance the (2013) context of the art exhibition. The practices of the 3. See Griffin, T, ‘The Order of Things’, Editor’s Outsider may be similar to the practices of making Letter in Art Forum, December 2009. art, but it is only through a biography that makes the Outsider a creative subject, can their work get ‘Compelling precisely for eliding (if not flaunting) closer to being art. the familiar, fixed categories and platforms of contemporary art circles and for skirting presiding Notes and arbitrating tastes in both subject and form. 1. Outsider art is a category synonymous with The work in the exhibition was, in other words, Art Brut, the latter term poetically coined by appealing precisely for its disarmingly, maybe Jean Dubuffet in the late 1940s, and the former a even profoundly ambiguous status. And while moniker created as an anglicised translation of the audiences’ desire for such an uncertain aura might French term in the title of a 1972 book by Roger have been described in other years as a simple Cardinal. appetite for novelty, in our present context the canny name of the venue alone offers, I think, a 2. In 2013 high profile exhibitions of Outsider work clue in another direction. That is, when it comes to have included Great and Mighty Things, the reception and resonance of the Museum of Philadelphia Museum of Art; Souzou: Outsider Art Everything’s first show, questions of outside and from Japan, Wellcome Trust (London); Hilma Af inside are perhaps less significant than is the status Klint, Hamberger Bahnhof (Berlin); Alternative of art as an autonomous field. If some old“ order” Guide to the Universe, Hayward Gallery (London); is being put into question, the depth of our affinity and the expansion of New York’s Outsider Art Fair here...suggests that the relevant systemic instability to embrace a Paris edition. Previous landmarks in is that of art itself.’ the expansion of the Outsider sector might include the reopening of Lille Métropole Museum of 4. Dubuffet J. (1967), Prospectus et Tous Écrits Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art in 2010; Suivants, Vol. II. Gallimard: Paris, pp. 203-204 Arts Council England’s acquisition of Jeremy 5. This ‘classical’ Outsider manner is also seen in Deller and Alan Kane’s Folk Archive (1998 – 2005) Edmund Monsiel, Adolf Wolfli and Madge Gill. and its exhibition in Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2008 – 2009) and the following year, the extension of the 46 47

6. http://www.artbrut.ch/en/21004/1000/ 13. Lévi-Strauss, (1966) op.cit., p.17 aloise accessed 3/09/2013 14. The exhibition was split into thematic sections 7. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966), The Savage Mind, that endeavored to connect with interests and University of Chicago Press: Chicago, p. 35 issues derived from art. The sections were: Language, Making, Representation, Relationships, 8. Images, colour, and the gathering of materials, Culture, and Possibility particularly the predilection for a paper rather than a fabric substrate, fit with choices made by Images commercial artists, fashionable in the ‘40s and 1. Aloïse, Napoléon III à Cherbourg, between 1952 ‘50s, such as Pierre Brissaud, whose figures were and 1954, coloured crayon, geranium juice on centered in the composition, their heads tilted, joined sheets papier. Photo Claude Bornand. suggesting a distracted glamour common to the Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne aspect of Corbaz’s figures; as well as fine artists, such as Sonia Delaunay, who favored a primary 2. Freddie Robins, Robins’ work at COLLECT 2013, pallette, and, exploit the limits of their surface as a mixed media. Photo Andrew Stooke compositional factor. The visual tropes of Corbaz 3. Judith Scott, Untitled 2004, mixed media. find endorsement in the work of later designers, Photo Creative Growth Art Center such as Alvin Lustio, and later, Wes Wilson and Milton Glaser. 4. Takahiro Shimoda, Exhibition view, mixed media. Photo Andrew Stooke 9. COLLECT: The International Fair of Contemporary Objects, Saatchi Gallery (London) 10 – 13 May, 2013 5. Keisuke Ishino, Installation view, marker pen on paper. Photo Channel 4 10. Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan, Wellcome Trust (London) 28 March 2013 – Sunday 30 June 2013 11. Truitt, A. (1984), Daybook, The Journey of an Artist, Penguin Books: London; (1987); Turn: The Journal of an Artist, Penguin Books: London; (1997) Prospect, Penguin Books: London 12. See Sass, L. (1987) ‘Introspection, Schizophrenia, and the Fragmentation of Self’, in Representations, No. 19 (Summer 1987), p.15 48 Playing with Real Stuff 49 Science Museums, Children’s Museums and Art Museums James Herring Exhibitions Manager/Designer, Miami Science Museum, USA

Museums in the United States and Canada are introducing maker’s spaces and making activities Although it is art within the gallery setting at an increasing rate. The institutions that have motivations for interest in making activities include the recent re-engagement of artists and art the requisite knowledge institutions with the handmade art object, the base and historical recognition of the potential for creativity and references to create innovation that the ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) and Maker Movements represent, and the potential to draw a rich, meaningful new audiences by activating otherwise dormant experience of making and exhibitions. How formal educational institutions are an appreciation of craft influencing this trend is through the establishment of ‘next generation science standards’ which are skill, they have failed to focused on science, technology, engineering and take full advantage of the mathematics or STEM learning. STEAM is another trend toward tinkering/ acronym that includes the arts in this new refocusing of standards. These standards are making spaces. nationally recommended and are in the process of being adopted by state governments which in the Of those museums which are embarking on US dictate educational policy. They are somewhat maker’s spaces and programmes, most are controversial and some states have chosen not to science centres and children’s museums. They are adopt these standards. approaching this from an engineering and science innovation perspective, not out of any awareness 48 49

The history of the DIY/Makers Movement offers a relevant context for the interest in making in museums. Garth Johnson, the founder of the blog Extreme Craft and curator of programmes at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, recently outlined some of this history at the symposium Crafting a Continuum at Arizona State University. Johnson grew up on a farm where his father was adept at repairing equipment, and this gave him a profound appreciation for those talents. Though he did not acquire the DIY abilities of his father, he went on to do an MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University, the most prestigious school for ceramics in the United of the decline in traditional craft practice. These States. Johnson pointed out that DIY tends to have institutions already have a culture of interactivity a cross-generational element, and includes and physically engaging the visitor, and in that activities as disparate as pickle making and pottery, regard are better equipped to introduce and the kit cars of the 1970s and building your own manage maker’s spaces which are integrated radio. He referred to the ‘mushy boundaries’ into the gallery floor. One strategy that has between what is understood as DIY, craft, been employed here are artists-in-residence and ‘making’. programmes. Art museums generally have a What has come to be called the Maker’s different approach to the visitor experience; Movement is a more recent twist on the already touching is usually discouraged and interactivity existing phenomenon of DIY. It has been is limited. I would contend that although it is art accelerated by the publication of Make magazine institutions that have the requisite knowledge and other books and papers that have been base and historical references to create a rich, disseminated widely online in the past decade. meaningful experience of making and an Make sponsors two national ‘Maker’s Faires’ that appreciation of craft skill, they have failed to take have grown to be huge annual events, and the full advantage of the trend toward tinkering/ innumerable ‘Mini-Maker’s Faires’ around the making spaces. This article will compare the country and internationally have been part of an approaches used by science centers, children’s exponential growth of interest in making. ‘Maker museums, and art museums to making within the Spaces’ are popping up all over the country. These gallery setting. 50 engage 33 Playing with Real Stuff 51

spaces attract a mixture of traditional craftspeople, or ‘tagging’ outside the constraints of the project’s computer hackers and electronics hobbyists. They suggested space, such as yarn appearing to truly are places with ‘mushy boundaries’. decorate objects outside the Thread Studio, or embroidered hearts appearing in unlikely spots Art museums in the museum. Spinners have spontaneously The art museums I have found that are most produced spinning wheels and started actively pursuing making activities on the gallery demonstrating their technique. DAM’s staff are still floor are the Denver Art Museum (DAM) in in the process of digesting what they have learned Colorado, the Museum of Contemporary Craft in in this most recent experiment and are trying to Portland, Oregon, the Museum of Art and Design identify ways to sustain the interest of the in New York City and to some degree the Renwick community of makers, as well as the public. Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. This past summer at DAM The Museum of Contemporary Craft (MoCC) under as part of the re-installation of their textile the leadership of Namita Gupta Wiggers has been collection the museum created fourteen exhibitions doing great work in integrating maker activities and what are described as ‘moments’, collectively and exhibition as well as direct artist/visitor titled Spun. Master Teacher for Textile Art and interaction. Beginning with Touching Warms the Special Projects Stefania Van Dyke opened the Art (a title even Namita admits is corny) in January Thread Studio, which became a permanent of 2008, curators Rebecca Scheer, Rachelle participatory space that enlists the local community Thiewes and Namita Gupta Wiggers challenged of weavers and fibre artists and hobbyists as well as the traditional approach to displaying jewellery in museum visitors in creating an evolving array of hands-off displays. Artists were invited to create works. They began by asking this community of works that were made with unexpected, non- fibre artists, ‘Have you ever made a quilt out of precious materials. They were asked to create particularly meaningful materials?’ ‘More than 160 pieces that could stand up to handling by contributors, ranging from nationally-known artists thousands of visitors. The curators made selections to hobbyist crafters, sent us samples, tools, and from 67 artists who donated their pieces to the heirlooms that almost completely populated the 80 museum’s teaching collection.2 Visitors were able cubbies in our dense curio-cabinet-style display.’ 1 to touch, try on the jewellery, and photograph Looms, embroidery tables and a variety of themselves wearing the works on display. In conventional and non-conventional materials are addition there was an Art Bar where visitors could provided for visitors. The enthusiasm of visitors create their own jewellery. What the curators did has manifested itself in ‘guerilla art’ expressions, here that is truly innovative is threefold. They had 50 51

‘hammer-in’ where the 22 artists included in the exhibition East and West: The Hammered Metal Object participated in demonstrations of their techniques. The Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York has workshops led by artists who are part of their open studio programme, as well as other professionals. They seem to use an approach that makes use of the artist-in-residence open studio where artists work in an environment open to the visitor. They also have monthly Studio Sundays and MAD Fun Family Days targeted at families where artist/educators lead making activities. These activities come at an extra cost to the visitor and may or may not be linked in any way to the current exhibition. This points to one of the main difficulties in maintaining any making space or activities: funding. While it is obvious that making is core to the mission of a museum like MAD, separate additional fees may put visitors off from participating in this activity that is so central to that mission. the insight to involve artists by having them create Similarly the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian works that could be handled without fear of American Museum of Art has a programme called damage, they then showed tough works that could ‘handi-hour’. Making activities are set up on these not only be looked at but touched, and lastly they evening events, in the entrance hall. Music and provided a space where visitors could make their craft beers are on hand. No making takes place own pieces. This kind of integrated approach to inside the actual gallery space, although access to curating makes for a more meaningful experience the galleries is permitted. Again, an extra fee is for the visitor. MoCC continues to use making required to attend handi-hour. The main purpose activities as part of their programming, that of this event is to foster interest among young includes workshops and special activities such as professionals in the museum and the exhibitions. 52 engage 33 Playing with Real Stuff 53

The staff does try whenever possible to tie the Tinkering and tinkerability are the bywords used activities to exhibitions on view. Some of the artists to describe the messy, bottom-up approach to whose work is on show have been invited to lead making discussed by thinkers like Mitchel Resnick making activities. The staff is still learning and and Eric Rosenbaum. Tinkering is closely aligned experimenting with ways to better utilise making with play and is described as a playful way of activities to create a high quality visitor experience. designing. In their chapter ‘Designing for The concerns of protecting the collection of works Tinkerability’ in the recently published Design/ on view combined with the limitations of space Make/Play, they lay out their reasoning for and resources are a constraint. The Renwick did considering tinkering the path to creative thinking. put together in conjunction with the exhibition It is interesting that they reference craft traditions, 40 under 40; Craft Futures, the symposium Nation ‘In almost all countries, local craft traditions have Building: Craft and Contemporary American evolved over centuries, characterized by Culture. In attendance as a presenter was Neil experimenting with indigenous materials.’ 4 Gershenfeld, Director of the Center for Bits Educators involved with establishing these spaces, and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of especially in science centres and children’s Technology (MIT), the originator of Fab Lab.3 museums, use something close to Eric Children’s and Science Museums Rosenbaum’s account: ‘The tinkering approach MIT and the Fab Lab phenomenon have been is characterized by a playful, experimental, and at the centre of the rising interest of science/ iterative style of engagement, in which makers are children’s museums in maker spaces. The confluence continually reassessing their goals, exploring new of the building of new science centres in the US and paths, and imagining new possibilities.’ 5 More Canada with the emergence of the Fab Lab has generalised notions of ‘making’ are not enough, created an exponential growth in maker spaces and as Karen Wilkinson from the Exploratorium activities. The Exploratorium in San Francisco, Telus suggests: ‘ideas, models, tools, and facilitators are Spark in Calgory, Alberta, The New York Hall of carefully curated, but there is no set of instructions, Science, The Thinkery in Austin, Texas and the and no prescribed endpoint.’ 6 Tinkering is guided Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul are leaders by the principle of ‘constructionism’ as laid out by in the field. The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is Seymour Papert, ‘that encourages a project-based, also in the forefront of the push to establish making experimental approach to learning.’ 7 spaces as a permanent part of the museum The location of the Exploratorium at Pier 15 in San landscape, although it has not, like the others, Francisco has created a new home for the Tinkering been influenced by MIT and Fab Lab. Studio.8 This is a dedicated gallery where visitors 52 53

can design with light, construct marble machines, only the public but the volunteers engaged by the wind tunnels, electronics, and experiment with a constant change and playfulness of the activities. host of other activities in a robustly equipped The volunteers don’t become bored with the same space. In addition to floor staff, the artist-in- exercise repeated over and over. residence programme brings artists and visitors ‘Seeding’ is another technique used by Braafladt, together in workshops that undertake projects like in which facilitators simply start to make something constructing a subterranean cityscape, a constantly and as visitors begin to follow suit, the facilitator evolving landscape of cardboard buildings and steps away. Other visitors are motivated to begin objects. The Tinkering Studio is visible from other by seeing their peers at work. The activities are not spaces in the museum so that the activities necessarily connected to any exhibition and can happening there are always on view. There are happen almost anywhere on the floor. Braafladt also special events such as Meet Maker.9 As the has identified places throughout the museum that Exploratorium has made the Tinkering Studio a lend themselves to different activities. SMM has part of its core mission, access to it is included in also become part of a network called the Maker the general admission fee. They have long been an Corp which is funded by Cognizant, Intel, Maker icon in the world of science centres and have the Media and Pixar Animation Studios.10 They train support and financial backing to sustain such a and pay mentors to work with making activities space. Other less well-funded institutions will have in summer programmes across the US. Through to find alternatives to this kind of resource-heavy dispersing activities instead of maintaining a management of a maker’s space. dedicated space, working with volunteers and The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) has tapping into programmes such as Maker Corp, been exploring just such alternative methods. SMM has been able to maintain an effective Instead of a dedicated maker’s space they have programme at a minimal cost. a team that creates making activities throughout The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh (CMoP) has the museum. Keith Braafladt trains volunteers to also been the recipient of Maker Corp mentors. Lisa facilitate activities such as making constructions Brahms is the director of learning and research and from plastic laundry baskets and dowels. It is Jane Werner the executive director. In their chapter important in his work that all the activities are not in Design/Make/Play, ‘Designing Makerspaces for sedentary, that people are moving around using Family Learning in Museums and Science Centers’, their whole body while constructing objects. These they highlight the potential that learning through activities again are based on the concept of ‘playful making might have, given the current swell of design.’ In part Braafladt can manage to keep not interest in it, to transform education. 54 engage 33 Playing with Real Stuff 55

scale thematic traveling exhibitions—the museum engages the design process of collaborative ideation, prototyping, iteration, and reflection.’ 12 This is clearly a complex and thoughtful process which is very different from how the art museums described here have proceeded. CMoP is using formal and informal evaluation to assess their programmes and then adapting and changing those programmes to further their goals. They are working with partners to design research that can measure their progress. CMoP hires experienced makers with extensive backgrounds and credentials in their given craft and then trains them as ‘The opportunity for learning through making has instructors to work in their MAKESHOP space.13 sparked tremendous national recognition and Science centres follow similar guidelines in financial support; acknowledged by the White determining the design of programmes and House to be a potential alternative to traditional exhibitions. Art museums in the US could benefit science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) from developing such methods to test whether education (Kahil, 2010; PBS Newshour, 2011), their efforts to re-engage visitors with handwork as a stimulus for political and economic rebirth are effective. (Economist, 2011), and a possible key to retooling of libraries into tool-lending centers (with tools and The Thinkery is the rebuilt children’s museum in equipment such as 3D printers, CAD stations and Austin, Texas. It is due to open in December 2013 laser cutters) that promote free access for all (e.g. and has made making/ tinkering central to their Torrone, 2011).’ 11 new facility. The family/ inter-generational learning opportunities are seen here as important enough This museum does seem well placed to benefit that these activities take up a large portion of from this interest, with partners like Carnegie their floor space. In a post on the website of the Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Association of Science and Technology Centers Center (ETC) and the University of Pittsburgh (ASTC), Eli Kuslansky poses the question ‘Are Center for Learning in Out of School Environments Maker’s Labs a fad?’ It has been a big topic of (UPCLOSE). Brahms and Werner describe their discussion at this year’s ASTC convention. The jury process as follows: ‘When designing all visitor may still be out, but there were five sessions at this experiences—from singular components to large- 54 55

STEM-centered museums have the advantage of being environments that are suitable for the messy business of making, and also they generally have access to resources to throw at the problem. While some of the solutions that art museums in the US have put forward in regard to maker’s spaces are brilliant and innovative, I believe that a more deliberate and comprehensive effort needs to be made in those institutions. The interest in STEAM by governmental policy makers, the shift in the art world toward re-engaging with skilled work, and the rise of the DIY/Maker Movements year’s convention on making/tinkering. At one such provides an opportunity to use constructionist session that I attended, 75 people in the room thought and tinkerability as a model, to extend the were asked who already has built, or is considering excellent making practices already underway in building, a maker’s space in their institution, and some art museums. The ‘no touch’ presumption every hand went up. would need to change in order to develop these kinds of spaces, as well as any lingering notions The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh’s guiding about the low status of craft practice in relation to principle is ‘play with real stuff’, a phrase I have art. A commitment by art museums to reposition borrowed for the title of this article. They arrived at making as central to their mission, and not just a this principle through a process that began with a peripheral or ancillary activity, would change the small open-concept exhibit space, and progressed culture of institutions that have for too long through prototyping an electric shop followed by a ignored the important role making plays in sewing shop. Each iteration was evaluated and new informal learning. goals were set. Research was done and brought to bear on the latest version of the MAKESHOP Notes experience. The focus at CMoP, and at the science 1. Van Dyke, Stefania, Guest Post: Weaving centres discussed here, is not on looking backward Community Collaborations into Permanent at the loss of craft skill, but rather looking forward Installations at Denver Art Museum, Museum 2.0, to how making in informal learning environments August 2013. http://museumtwo.blogspot. can spark community and family learning that in com/2013_08_01_archive.html turn fosters creative thinking and innovation. 56 engage 33 Playing with Real Stuff 57

2. Touching Warms the Art, Museum 13. https://pittsburghkids.org/exhibits/ of Contemporary Craft, January 2008, makeshop http://mocc.pnca.edu/exhibitions/1399 Images 3. http://americanart.si.edu/multimedia/ 1. Touching Warms the Art, at the Museum of webcasts/archive/2012/nationbuilding/ Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon. Here the education/ visitors to the exhibition were allowed to try on and 4. Resnick, M. and Rosenbaum, E. (2013), photograph themselves wearing the jewelry on ‘Designing For Tinkerability’ in Honey, M. and display. A photo kiosk was provided as part of the Kanter, D. (eds), Design/Make/Play. London and installation New York: Routledge 2. ‘Art Bar’, materials and tools with a table 5. Ibid., p. 164 space was provided for visitors to produce their own jewellery 6. Ibid., p.163 3. Here a group can be seen engaging in a making 7. http://tinkering.exploratorium.edu/ activity on the floor of the galleries at the Science 8. Podcast of this event at http://tinkering. Museum of Minnesota exploratorium.edu/open-make-tools/. 4. Here at the Science Museum of Minnesota a 9. Petrich, M., Wilkinson, K. and Beven, B. (2013), mentor provided through the Maker Corp program ‘It Looks Like Fun, But Are They Learning? in Honey, gets up-close to demonstrate a technical point M. and Kanter, D. (eds), Design/Make/Play. London and New York: Routledge 10. Maker Education Initiative, http://makered. org/makercorps/ 11. Brahms, L. and Werner, J. (2013), ‘Designing Makerspaces For Family Learning in Museums And Science Centers’ in Honey, M. and Kanter, D. (eds) Design/Make/Play. London and New York: Routledge. 12. Ibid., p.73-74 56 Benefits of Craft 57 Building Human and Social Capital Deirdre Buckley Learning and Engagement Manager, Craftspace, Birmingham Deirdre Figueiredo, MBE Director, Craftspace, Birmingham

Craftspace, a Birmingham-based craft demonstrates that many artists are bringing development organisation, devises collaborations materiality and skill more to the fore. The art/craft between makers and various communities of debate has had its day and from working with a interest, place and fate. It uses an action research range of practitioners we concur with Glenn approach, posing critical and reflective questions, Adamson’s observation that we are in a post- to instigate dialogue and creative exchange disciplinary world. That is not to say that we between people, contemporary craft practice, shouldn’t continue to position contemporary work and making processes.1 in relation to a rich history of craft production and in relation to materiality and skill. There seems to be a burgeoning public interest in craftsmanship, making, handmade bespoke and For Craftspace, positioning craft is more about DIY, assisted by the ease of connecting, learning context, purpose, intent, and sensibility. What does and selling through the Internet. Small-scale the artist maker want to say, where and to whom? enterprises trading through etsy2 and folksy3 Artist makers like Clare Twomey4, Shauna has seen a blurring of the boundaries between Richardson5 and Amy Houghton6 defy amateur and professional and old hierarchies are categorisation but at the same time their work breaking down. Many traditional and domestic is resonant of a history of making and provokes crafts are being re-invented and re-purposed in sophisticated articulation about many ideas related extraordinary, radical and extreme ways. ‘Craft’ to craft values and production. A challenge for occupies a wide spectrum of activity, ‘making’ an organisations promoting contemporary craft is the even wider spectrum (as emerging maker spaces tension between trying to advocate for more bring technologists into the definition). At the same sustainable ways of consuming craft whilst being time a viewing of work at the Venice Biennale responsible for bringing yet more things into the 58 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 59

world that we don’t necessarily need. Two years ago Craftspace re-framed its artistic programme to Making offers a style better reflect the way our interests were developing. of thinking, a human- Craft in an expanded field is a way of harnessing a range of creative practices and other subject centred approach and disciplines to tell the story of craft to the widest tacit materials knowledge. possible audience. So we have worked with Making, when it connects geographers, design historians and radio producers (to broadcast podcasts about craft on community people and enhances radio). We have commissioned Trevor Pitt to their competencies, develop a touring play/performance about craft can build human and called Yarning.7 We are collaborating with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group to tour a production social capital and a sense involving new music and textiles to a rural touring of place. circuit in the West Midlands. For makers, participants and audiences alike, this approach provides wider The Crafts Council report Learning Through scope for interaction and engagement with the Making defines making as ‘a creative process culture of craft and its associated ideas and practices. that develops practical, conceptual and visual skills through personal engagement with tools in Our intention in this article is to explore why we response to human needs.’ 9 Its research suggests make, the kinds of learning that happen, the that intelligent making is fundamental to human acquisition of skills, the range of experiences that development in all its aspects and that craft-based develop and the benefits that accrue from making activity provides exemplary opportunities for and its associated activities. Making offers a style intelligent making. The report identifies words of thinking, a human-centred approach and tacit such as observation, perseverance, accuracy, materials knowledge. Making, when it connects achievement and satisfaction to describe the kind people and enhances their competencies, can build of learning that takes place while we are engaged human and social capital and a sense of place. in making. ‘I’ve been driven to make things all my life so there As a manifestation of lived experience, craft offers must be many reasons why, but mostly because us a particular reflexive and embodied way of using ones hands productively is part of the being in the world. There is a physical and visceral optimistic side of life.’ Laura Ellen Bacon, artist.8 materiality to which emotion, story and values can 58 59

be attached. The connection to touch and materials facilitates tacit learning. The Crafts Council’s Crafting Capital: New Technologies, New Economies report state that because makers ‘engage directly with objects and materials’ the thinking style is ‘characterised by the immediacy of shaping and refining ideas through active experimentation’.10 A process of ‘reflection- in-action’, ‘working with the restrictions of a given situation’ and a ‘capacity for lateral thinking’ are also positive attributes of making. Increasingly there is recognition of the contribution that making can have to the generation of social and human capital. In a background paper on social capital, renewal and community development for Networks and Norms conference, Alison Gilchrist describes how ‘social capital develops through the everyday interactions between people, facilitating co-operation for mutual benefit.’ 11 Also: ‘building social capital results in increased life expectancy and a generally improved sense of health and well-being.’ Putnam’s Some types of crafting, for example sewing circles approach, elaborated by Michael Woolcock, and knitting bees, have a communal aspect to defines three types of social capital, which he them. This is craft as social process, making as a terms: bonding (based on relationships between connecting activity. It stands to reason that a similar people who share a common interest), connected community is going to be a much more bridging (the horizontal connections between dynamic, co-operative, cohesive, resilient and different sections of the population who sustainable one. David Gauntlett in Making is may associate together but have dissimilar Connecting describes creative sharing and characteristics), linking (the linkages that cross exchange as a kind of ‘social glue.’ 12 Similarly organisational and sectoral boundaries, and often Richard Sennett, in The Craftsman, alludes to the involve differentials in power or status).’ 60 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 61

of capital. Human capital is described as a key wealth, which ‘flows from the use of our hands, brains and spirits’.15 Faud-Luke recognises that this form of capital easily blends with social capital which he defines as ‘practical support, co-operation, trust, structures and cohesion.’ Craftspace has seen the outcomes attributed to social and human capital in action across projects where there are a relatively small number of participants, where there are elements of co-creation and co-operation, where activity is immersive and sustained over a period of months or years to enable progression, and where importance of sociability within craftsmanship and achievements are displayed to a wider public. the concept of the ‘sociable expert’. Sennett Dialogue with makers and participants describes the craftsperson as a ‘sociable expert’, In order to elucidate something more specific about good at explaining and giving advice. ‘The sociable the making process, a series of questions and expert, that is, is comfortable with mentoring, discussion points were posed to makers and the modern echo of medieval in loco parentis,‘ community participants who have worked with and is ‘able to facilitate innovation by stretching Craftspace. The makers are Laura Ellen Bacon the competencies of others within reasonable who sculpts and makes site-specific public art using parameters.’ 13 willow as a principal medium,16 Maeve Clancy,17 In our projects, we are careful to enact the idea of whose practice includes paper cut, comics and the ‘sociable expert,’ positioning the maker as animation, and Carrie Reichardt,18 a craftivist using facilitator and only one of the many experts in a mural, mosaic and screen-printing. The participants group, on the basis that everyone has something to are Ruth, Mary and Alice from Shelanu Women’s share. Skills exchange and knowledge transfer are Collective who make jewellery mainly using fundamental to meaningful collaboration. metalwork and enamelling techniques and also batch produce in collaboration with industries In his paper ‘Re-crafting capitalism, regenerating in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and a digital societies: How do designer-makers amplify, build fabrication bureau,19 and Sarah from the Craft and regenerate social capital?’ 14 Alastair Faud-Luke in Mind20 project with young people and also a refers to Jonathon Porritt’s framework of five forms 60 61

member of the Craftspace Collective, a young as a reason to live and as a means of bringing people project employing DIY craft ethos and clarity. They recognise the physical and visual Craftivism as a mechanism to express their views learning that happens when mastering a new skill, and engage with the wider community.21 What they but also the kind of cognitive change that leads to had to say suggests the contribution that making increased clarity and focus. They identify a gentle can give to individual and collective fulfilment. social or emotional learning in which the process of making contributes to an individual’s sense of The work of Richard Sennett22 and Mathew ‘wellness’ and self-confidence. Crawford, author of The Case for Working with Your Hands suggests that craftsmanship and Why do you make? making may be a key to competence and Maeve: ‘I make because I love to create. I enjoy the fulfillment in work and life. This could be because process, the actual process and then the end result. making things well involves repetitive practice and There is a real feeling of pride and achievement.’ a lateral thought process resulting in a tangible Mary, an older person who attends Shelanu once sense of improvement and achievement. Sennett a week finds it a form of relaxation and a way to argues that the physical relationship and contact temporarily leave problems behind. She makes in with material is a necessary part of being human. order to think about something in a different way. How could we clothe or feed or shelter ourselves without being able to manipulate materials? Sarah, a young person responded: ‘I make for Making requires problem solving, as we learn enjoyment as a good use of time. You get about the tolerances and limitations of materials something at the end of it, possibly of worth which and through their use and manipulation. Crawford gives you a sense of achievement.’ Taking part in maintains that the hands-on investigation in a projects focusing on craftivism, people connect workshop environment, learning how things work with a sense of purpose, to reclaim an old tradition through tinkering, fixing and mending, develops or comment on over-consumption. self-reliance and cultivates ethical virtues like What is distinct about the making process? individual responsibility. The absorption in hand Maeve: ‘That you make something differently each and mind processes, he says, develops a heedful time, even if you are making multiples of the same way of working through which you come to realise object. There is also a very particular sensation you the consequences of your actions.23 get when making something. The opportunity to On a more personal level, participants and makers create instead of destroy gives you a positive identify their own reasons for making: purely for feeling and for me personally is very good for the love of it; as a way of reclaiming lost traditions; my health and well-being.’ 62 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 63

Alice a member of Shelanu compared music and up and layered their experience. They can see their craft making – ‘music is a feeling whereas making improvement and track the acquisition of more is tactile and touchable’. She acknowledged that skills through what they are able to make. They making required practice and repetition to improve. can exert more control over their tools, are more technically accomplished and feel proud and Sarah responded that ‘It keeps your hands satisfied with a tangible result. occupied and your mind focused and engaged. I use sight and touch a lot. Craft goes back to Why is it easier to talk about things whilst history and ancestors.’ you are making? Maeve: ‘It is easier to talk while working as your Laura responded that coordination of hand and eye hands are busy, you are semi-engaged in a process was fundamental in the making process. and so you relax and chat.’ What happens when you are doing the same Sarah: ‘You can be connected to others in a group task over and over again? doing the same task so there’s a common goal.’ Maeve: ‘You achieve a rhythm and begin to get a feel for what you are doing. Once you get to that Laura: ‘I’m not sure that it is always, as there’s lot point you become very absorbed in the process. of concentration involved. I’m often surprised by I always find this the most relaxing way to work. how much I have to focus when I’m making, as the You are fully locked into what you are doing forms I make don’t emerge from putting ‘one foot without being in a state of concentration that in front of the other’ so to speak. Having said that, makes you anxious or stressed. For me, this makes the role of conversation may benefit the momentum up part of what I do to keep myself on an even of making somewhat and perhaps put a creative mental keel.’ mind at ease.’ Laura responded that she goes through a process What potential is there for therapy/healing of constant evaluation and slow-growing whilst you make? satisfaction. Maeve: ‘A lot. It relaxes you, makes you active with your hands and allows you to think with Sarah responded that repeating practical making a calm mind.’ tasks ‘can distract you from whatever might be troubling you like a kind of hypnosis. I tend to Sarah: ‘A lot. For a start it gets you talking. There is disconnect from my surroundings.’ the potential to distract yourself from your worries and to express and feel good about yourself.’ Ruth and Alice members of Shelanu described how learning a skill through repetition has built 62 63

Laura: ‘I’m not sure. Certainly if things are going Laura: ‘Fingertips are always learning about well the rhythm of making and time spent alone materials, whatever our age. We learn a lot about can assist thought processes, but I’d say the only the environment that we are making in too – the real reward lies in the successful completion – the shift of daylight, the surrounding sounds, the heat pleasure of form brought to a successful conclusion and the textures around us. We may not realise is my main on-going drive.’ that we do this, but we do and every place that we have created in becomes lodged within our What happens in a cognitive process when memory and imagination.’ you are making? Laura: ‘I assume that the concentration required These responses highlight some of the different channels patterns of thought and I imagine this thinking, learning and feeling that happen in the focus is beneficial. The signals in the brain must making process. Makers and participants talk about be firing between aesthetic judgement, tactile a need to make and a love of making, they recognise response, logistical/mechanical requirements and the hypnotic effect of repetitive tasks and the way in constant visual assessment.’ which making can offer a distraction from problems and concerns. There is an awareness that making Sarah describes how her mind is sharpened and can focus the mind calmly in order to reflect. They focused on the actions of making. She has a sense also mention a communal element to making and of being very present in the moment rather than the benefit of a shared task or goal. It seems craft allowing her mind to dwell on other things. speaks to the everyday in its use of common It blocks out negativity. materials, but it also has the capacity to lift people Maeve: ‘I think that it calms you down, occupies out of the everyday into a playful space of part of your brain and gives you space to think in imagination, for example to make something peaceful mode.’ that doesn’t have a function. Making provides the opportunity to connect and disconnect by What kinds of learning happen when you choice – disconnect through individually focused make? concentration and absorption, or connect through Sarah responded that she acquires visual, social and collective making with a shared purpose. verbal skills. It has been good for hand and eye coordination. She also described a ‘kind of physical’ Craftspace recognises these varied points of learning, which can be interpreted as a visceral and connection between makers, making and embodied learning. communities, and in its action research work it tries to devise opportunities for creative dialogue and exchange. 64 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 65

messages visible in the wider arena, linking with organisations interested in these concerns and combating the sense of hopelessness experienced by many young people today. We asked participants and makers for their thoughts about the activism element of the work. Sarah: ‘It gives you a sense of purpose to express yourself and get your thoughts, feelings, views worries etc. out into the world.’ Carrie: ‘This project clearly demonstrates the power of craftivism to empower and give a voice to young Social change and sensitive subjects people. Over the last few weeks I have witnessed a Within its current programming strand, Craftspace growing sense of achievement and self-worth from has been particularly interested in craftivism (craft + all the participants involved in this project.’ activism) and the contribution it can make towards Alongside the empowering nature of activism, developing global social capital and individual what also emerged was the transformative powers empowerment. In its recent youth focused project of the making process in the creation of safe social Craft in Mind24, renegade potter Carrie spaces were young people felt able to talk about Reichardt25 worked with young people aged 14 to highly personal issues in a non-clinical and non- 22 who had experienced mental health issues to judgemental way. talk about their experience and to communicate these through a series of craftivist acts. From Safety and personal development painting messages in moss and creating Craftivist Safe social spaces for young people also became Collective26 inspired mini protest banners, to a theme of a programme of work in inner-city producing coffee sleeves and coasters printed with Birmingham over two concurrent summers with a mental health message, young people were the aim of building up a Craftspace Collective.27 empowered to make statements about how they Craftspace occupied part of the grounds of the felt and what affected their state of mind. Poverty, Cathedral with a DIY craft tent working with a lack of opportunities and family stresses were the range of makers to offer crocheting, sewing, key factors impacting on their mental health. By darning, knitting, stencilling, upcycling, stitching using social media we were able to make these and unravelling. The green space was a known 64 65

hangout for ‘emos’ 28 who had a turbulent what is my value? And I feel exhausted everyday. relationship with the Cathedral. What emerged When I start to do the creative work with the through the programme was an understanding jewellery group I feel my heart so strong and of the ‘power of craft’ to access a particular group bright. It made my mind more clear. It builds of hard to reach young people many of whom our self-confidence.’ were not in employment, education and training. Place making Fundamental to the success of the work was the With the shift towards localism and ethical concerns absence of a formalised structure. The work about provenance and local production, the values happened on their own territory on their own and practices associated with craft are well placed to terms. Significant numbers of young people stayed, contribute to a more sustainable future. The women engaged, learned new skills or remembered old members of Shelanu Collective have learnt new ones. They talked about the people who had skills, which have led to engendering a sense of taught them and it reinvigorated in them an belonging and re-defining place. They have chosen instinctive desire to make. The tent had no formal jewellery and metalwork as the focus of their rules but a basic respect for the space and each creative output. Their first collection was based on other developed and a along with a feeling of researching the industrial heritage of Birmingham, safety. making visits to the unique Jewellery Quarter, The role that craft can have in creating a safe museums and various sites in the city. Working social space and supporting well being is further collaboratively, they have re-claimed and re- exemplified by Shelanu; a collective of migrant presented the industrial heritage of Birmingham and refugee women supported by Craftspace from a culturally diverse perspective. The resulting who are working to create a craft social enterprise, jewellery has a provenance that is very much ‘of’ producing high quality jewellery. The aim of the urban Birmingham, making a statement about collective is for women to learn new skills in a safe place and what Birmingham has become. Being environment, building their confidence and self- handmade, the jewellery bears the mark of the esteem whilst improving their English and learning maker and links to their own narratives infused with transferrable skills. Shelanu creates a network for intercultural references. women who often aren’t allowed to work and can Having a new skill and engaging in making has be very socially isolated. given migrant women a stake in the city. They are One participant said: ‘it is an opportunity for active in the creative economy and they have women to have a change and look for different become the city’s new ambassadors, which have opportunities and a new direction. I was asking taken them as far as the craft festival in Bovey 66 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 67

Tracey and the South Bank Centre. In this instance, plasterwork for example), more carefully and craft has given rise to a renewed sense of civic appreciate the skill involved. The artwork also pride, legitimacy and belonging. Locally they served to anchor feelings about local pride and contribute to social cohesion and skills transfer by shared history. This project36 exemplifies how a providing participatory workshops to a range of focus on craft enables social interaction as well as community groups. being able to facilitate and foster connections between people of different ages and backgrounds In Wandering Methods29 a project at and also between organisations. Rathfarnham Castle in Dublin in partnership with Bealtaine Festival30 and the Office of Public Having gained a renewed sense of agency, the Works,31 paper cut artist Maeve Clancy,32 group has expressed a desire to continue working designer Linda Florence33 and textile artist Liz together collaboratively. Through this project they Nilsson34 collaborated with a group of people have come to recognise the assets they have as aged 50 and over to make individual and collective retired people in the community and would like responses to a specific local site and shared to share their skills and sustain a craft group linked heritage. Rathfarnham Castle35 is an unfurnished to Rathfarnham Castle through exploiting the property owned by the State but open to the potential to make work to sell. A new phase of public. The individuals in the group were recruited the project has been funded through the AHRC from the locality and mostly did not know each (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Connected other. Through researching and investigating the Communities strand.37 In partnership with history and stories associated with the castle and Falmouth University our project entitled Co- making site-specific artwork in response, they creating CARE will enable the Irish group to came to understand their relationship to place and develop a creative and online digital exchange locality. Once again, learning a skill within a with an age 50+ African Caribbean group in convivial environment has led to a deeper self- Birmingham.38 They will collaborate with awareness. The group has installed two exhibitions MakerNow, a digital fabrication lab at Falmouth of their work in the castle as part of the Bealtaine University, learning new co-creation skills to design Festival programme. As the castle is devoid of and manufacture objects that will be sold and objects and furnishings, the mediation of history profits returned to the groups to help sustain their through contemporary handcrafted objects future activities.39 In Making is Connecting David engages visitors in unexpected ways. Visitor Gauntlett describes Web 2.0 as ‘a tool for feedback revealed that the exhibition had made communication, networks… like a collective them look at the original features, (elaborate allotment. Instead of individuals tending their 66 67

own gardens, they come together to work collaboratively in a shared space.’ 40 The culture surrounding many craft practices transfers well into the web. He describes how the Internet fosters participatory cultures: sharing, playing, and hacking. It’s a social space to innovate and collaborate. It has the potential to create an intersection between creativity, craft and community. Sensory response and disabled people The physicality of materials and the making process can have a therapeutic benefit and be particularly accessible for those with profound and multiple disabilities. Over a number of years Craftspace has explored the different ways in which makers can engage with disabled people. Designing for Access set makers in partnership with young disabled people and together they worked to design a bespoke object that addressed a need identified by the young person.41 What was noticeable in this project was the human centred approach. The makers were able to respond directly to the needs of the young person in question, developing appropriate systems of communication and offering an empowering client/designer dialogue. In one case a small with a Birmingham Special School to explore the movement of the eye to indicate yes or no, was therapeutic benefits of clay and the impact it could the only mechanism for communication but what have on learning and development.43 During a emerged was an object that got to the heart of the yearlong residency, pupils were given the young person’s desires. Other work has taken a opportunity to access clay in all its liquid and more materials based approach. Through a solid forms as well as the potter’s wheel in an programme of work funded by Creative open-ended and playful way to build motor, Partnerships42, potter Jon Williams worked communication, concentration and social skills. 68 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 69

Well-being and sociable experts including recreating our social institutions and It is increasingly recognised that craft can have creating ways for people to help one another to a significant impact on the well-being agenda harness the opportunities of an ageing society leading to the generation of social capital. Makers and enable all of us to age better’.47 and making processes align naturally to the New Using a co-produced process Craftspace and Economics Foundation Five Ways to Well-being Falmouth University hope to answer the following – be active, connect, take notice, keep learning and two recommendations in the Five Hours a Day give.44 There are many examples of small making report: communities or individuals geared around this social agenda. More recently commissioning Purposeful work: develop new employment programmes such as Happy Museum are models that enable people to work purposefully exploring the role that cultural institutions can and enjoyably in the second half of life and have in creating conditions for well being and Plan for life: create a sense of opportunity about sustainability.45 By working creatively to explore the second half of life – to take stock, reskill, plan ideas of sustainability, provenance and stewardship, ahead, connect with others and live more healthily. makers can influence the communities they work with leading to the creation of ‘sociable experts’. From a public engagement point of view, the Craftspace is currently working with Bilston Craft benefits of and possibilities for making in an Gallery through a Happy Museum funded project expanded field are more wide-ranging than ever to explore this agenda in relation to early years before, encompassing new technology and digital practice.46 platforms, merging old forms of knowledge, hand making and DIY ethos with new and distributed Our work investigating craft in relation to ageing forms of production. The digital is an extension through the continued Wandering Methods project of the maker’s toolbox; human touch and tacit in Dublin and Birmingham (described earlier) knowledge can co-exist with it. Digital tools and addresses points raised in the Nesta report Five processes have expanded the language of making, Hours a Day. The report debates the impacts of creating new visual vocabulary as well as visceral an ageing society. It calls for the ‘need for systemic responses to new surfaces, textures, forms and change through innovations in policy, products and materials. In a world of what Glenn Adamson services, markets as well as behaviours to meet the terms ‘post-disciplinary practice’ 48 makers are using dramatically changing needs and opportunities of a whole range tactics, tooling, materials, creative an ageing population’ and the ‘need to innovate strategies and methodologies to connect and to enable us to adapt to an ageing population, assert craft into every level of life and society: 68 69

craftivism, geo-tagging, indie crafting, reverse 2. http://www.etsy.com engineering, bio-couture, up-cycling, re-purposing, 3. http://www.folksy.com stitch hacking, DIY, slow craft, mending and repair, knit graffiti, extreme crochet, guerrilla crafting, 4. http://www.claretwomey.co.uk additive manufacturing. Making is a form of 5. http://www.shaunarichardson.com currency that has enormous value contributing in significant ways to a society that is evolving, 6. http://www.amyhoughton.co.uk progressive, resilient, cohesive, connected, vibrant, 7. http://www.podprojects.org/projects/ productive and healthy. current/yarning Notes 8. Questionnaire response from artist Laura Ellen 1. http://www.craftspace.co.uk Craftspace is Bacon. September 2013 an independent organisation working to increase Questionnaire devised by Deirdre Buckley at opportunities for makers, as well as access to and Craftspace. participation in contemporary crafts for all audiences. Our programme is devised to stimulate 9. Learning Through Making: a national enquiry artistic excellence, critical thinking, curiosity, into the value of creative practical education in experience and understanding of contemporary Britain. Edited by John Egglestone. London: Crafts crafts in an expanded field. Craftspace curates Council p.7 nationally touring exhibitions of contemporary craft http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/files/ and devises interdisciplinary projects which professional-development/learning-through- investigate making in diverse contexts. It also seeks making.pdf to challenge public perceptions of craft by consciously creating highly focused, high quality, 10. Yair, K. (2011). Crafting Capital: New enquiring, engaging, transactional and meaningful technologies, new economies. London. Crafts contexts and bespoke collaborations in which Council http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/ makers gain new perspectives on their practice and professional-development/research-and- audiences gain deep insight and experience. We information/research-briefings aim to facilitate activism and encourage agency, 11. Gilchrist, A. (2003). Background paper on social strengthen communities and make them more capital, renewal and community development for resilient by ensuring they are connected, interacting the Networks and Norms conference. and engaged. 70 engage 33 Benefits of Craft 71

12. Gauntlett, D. (2011). Making is Connecting – 23. Crawford, M. (2010). The Case For Working The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and With Your Hands. Penguin Books Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge: 24. http://craftinmind.wordpress.com Polity Press. For details, videos, links and more, see: www.makingisconnecting.org 25. www.thetreatmentrooms.co.uk 13. Sennett, R. (2009). The Craftsman. London: 26. http://craftivist-collective.com Penguin Books 27. http://craftspacecollective.wordpress.com 14. Faud-Luke, A. (2011). ‘Re-crafting capitalism, 28. ‘Emos’ is short for ‘emotional’ and refers to regenerating societies: How do designer-makers teenagers identifying with a particular subculture amplify, build and regenerate social capital?’ related to music and fashion. Making Futures Vol 2 ISSN 2042-1664: 27-39 http://makingfutures.plymouthart.ac.uk/ 29. http://youtu.be/Wfrik_EaXRo journalvol2/index.php 30. http://bealtaine.com 15. Porritt, J. (2007: 141). Capitalism As If The 31. http://www.opw.ie World Matters. London: Earthscan. 32. http://www.maeveclancy.com 16. http://www.lauraellenbacon.com 33. http://lindaflorence.me.uk 17. http://www.maeveclancy.com 34. http://www.liznilsson.com 18. http://www.carriereichardt.co.uk 35. http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/Dublin/ 19. http://www.shelanucollective.co.uk RathfarnhamCastle 20. http://craftinmind.wordpress.com 36. http://wanderingmethods.com/year-2013 21. Questionnaire responses from artists Laura Ellen 37. http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding- Bacon, Maeve Clancy and Carrie Reichardt and Opportunities/Research-funding/Connected- project participants Ruth, Mary, Alice and Sarah Communities/Pages/Connected-Communities. September 2013. Questionnaire devised by Deirdre aspx Buckley at Craftspace 38. http://cocreatingcare.wordpress.com/ 22. Sennett, R., op. cit. the-project 39. http://www.makernow.co.uk 70 71

40. Gauntlett, D., op.cit. 4. Creative Partnerships project in Beaufort Special School Birmingham – Jon Williams working with 41. http://www.craftspace.co.uk/page.asp?fn participant. Photo Janette Bushell =2&id=2&stp=1&grp=3&srh=designing%7Cfo r%7Caccess 42. http://www.craftspace.co.uk/page. asp?fn=2&id=39&stp=1&grp=3 43. http://jonwilliamspottery.co.uk 44. http://www.neweconomics.org/projects/ entry/five-ways-to-well-being 45. http://www.happymuseumproject.org 46. http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/ visit/bilston 47. Nesta report Five Hours a Day http://www. nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/public_services_ lab/health_and_ageing/ageing_and_ innovation/assets/features/five_hours_a_day 48. Adamson, G (2007). Thinking Through Craft. London: Berg Publishers in association with V&A Publications Images 1. Embroidered protest banner by Craft in Mind participants – credit Craftspace 2. Wandering Methods project in partnership with Bealtaine Festival Ireland – participants working led by paper cut artist Maeve Clancy 3. Cross stitch graffiti by Craft in Mind participants. Photo Craftspace 72 Skills in the Making 73 Craft-based Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development Helen Adams VERVE Project Curator & Engagement Officer, Pitt Rivers Museum Penny Jones Co-ordinator, Skills in the Making, NSEAD Rachel Payne Senior Lecturer in Education, Oxford Brookes University

This article describes the multiple collaboration that knowledge and skills among teachers. It enables was developed between Skills in the Making,1 primary and secondary teachers and teacher the Pitt Rivers Museum2 at the University of trainees to work with some of the UK’s leading Oxford (PRM), and Oxford Art Teach network makers to improve their making skills and explore (OAT) to deliver teacher Continuing Professional the value of learning through making. Workshops Development (CPD) workshops in craft, led by are delivered for up to twenty participants by makers. It seeks to analyse the learning that took makers with national and international profiles, place during teachers’ CPD workshops held at the from all craft disciplines. Pitt Rivers Museum, referencing and building on They provide opportunities for skills development, research previously conducted at a Skills in the reflection on teaching and learning, and the Making workshop for student teachers (Taylor chance to apply the learning to the delivery of & Payne, 2013) and to describe intellectual and the curriculum. The makers model career paths practical reasons for using museums and galleries in the creative industries that the teachers are able as fitting venues for such activities. We hope to to pass on to their students. The Making crafts demonstrate the value of partnership working to development agency launched the programme in deliver craft CPD for teachers. 2009, but after three years of activity based mainly The Collaborators in PGCE Art and Design training courses, it handed Skills in the Making, delivered through the National the management over to NSEAD. Society for Education in Art and Design, NSEAD3 NSEAD5 is the leading authority on art, craft and and supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation,4 design across all phases of education in the UK. is a professional development programme It draws its membership from every sector of designed to improve the level of craft and design formal and informal education. It has a strong and 72 73

nationally recognised track record of CPD delivery The Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM)6, founded in for its teacher members and brought to the Skills 1884, is the University of Oxford’s museum of programme an understanding of teachers’ needs anthropology and world archaeology, caring for and strategies for meeting them, as well as a strong one of the world’s great collections deriving from commitment to enabling teachers to refresh their all corners of the globe and all periods in human practice through work in galleries and through history. The PRM joined the partnership in the contact with artists and makers. latter phase of Skills in the Making. The PRM 74 engage 33 Skills in the Making 75

occupies a unique position between academia and Craft and Design curriculum bringing associations public engagement and interaction. This means with individual creativity and meaning making.9 that in addition to its key assets – technologically At its inception Skills in the Making sought to and aesthetically rich and diverse collections of address shortcomings identified by Ofsted (2009), objects from around the world in a unique period which found that craft and design were poorly space, it brought to the partnership the capacity to taught or neglected in more than half the schools host events and act as a central ‘hub’, a wealth of visited. Stating that this was often due to academic research underpinning its collections, insufficiently trained teachers, Ofsted called for and staff with specialised curatorial knowledge continuing subject specific professional development and experience of interpretation methods and for art teachers at all levels. This view was echoed educational delivery. in the most recent Ofsted survey which found that Oxford Art Teach (OAT)7 was formed in 2011 as a ‘the impact of professional development on the collaborative learning community committed to quality of teaching and learning was profound’ 10 providing a stimulating and supportive network and which recommended that teachers be responding to the needs of secondary art supported to take advantage of contemporary educators in the Oxfordshire region. OAT was crafts based initiatives and build partnerships with well placed, due to its link with the Artist Teacher arts organisations and galleries to enable their Scheme run by Oxford Brookes University (OBU)8 continuing professional development. to act as a supportive partner in this project. In the fourth year of Skills in the Making (2012–13) It provided access to a regional audience of art the in-service teacher workshops were held at local educators who were engaged in a professional galleries and museums including Pitt Rivers dialogue about the value of craft in the curriculum. Museum, Oxford; Shipley Gallery, Gateshead; Local knowledge, word of mouth and professional Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, (GoMA); networking supported interest in the Skills in the and Stour Valley Arts, Kent. All workshop sessions Making workshops at PRM. were led by craft practitioners of national and Skills in the Making Programme international standing, including metal worker Learning through making or experience has been a and curator Helen Carnac;11 textile artists Shelly central tenet of educational theory from the work Goldsmith,12 Lynn Setterington,13 Shane of Froebel (1782-1852) onwards. The practice of Waltener, 14 Cas Holmes15 and Lucy Brown;16 craft and making in schools has shifted from a wire sculptors Celia Smith17 and Cathy Miles;18 nineteenth century model which encouraged skills and paper artist Su Blackwell19. The Pitt Rivers acquisition for preparation for work, into the Art, workshops were led by textile and multimedia 74 75

practitioners Michael Brennand-Wood,20 from around the world made from a huge range Caroline Broadhead and Julie Westbury.21 of materials and techniques including basketry, metal casting, woodcarving and turning, textile The work of these makers foregrounds process, techniques, ceramics, painting, forging, welding is conceptual or issue-based, and often non- and quilling. Using these assets to work with the functional. In many instances it involves non- teaching and professional craft communities is a precious, found or recycled materials, as in the key part of the revitalisation of the museum’s role work of the three makers who led the workshops in the twenty-first century. Background research described here. conducted in the application process for VERVE Workshops at museums or galleries used objects included consultation with local and regional Art, from the collections or exhibition themes as Design and Technology teachers, who agreed the starting points to link with the makers’ practice in museum was major potential resource for teaching terms of process and conceptual base. Participants and learning, and could be a place to meet and were encouraged to research and use these share ideas with each other and with craft objects, as well as the maker’s work as inspiration practitioners, much needed in a time of increasing for their own work, investigating techniques and professional isolation and the challenge to their process, context and meaning. subject areas in schools. Partnership with Pitt Rivers Museum Research: First Phase 2010–11 (2012–2013) Research was conducted in 2010–11 during the The opportunity to collaborate with Skills in the first phase of the Skills programme with fifteen art Making came at a good time for the PRM. The and design Postgraduate Certificate in Education museum is now delivering the VERVE project, (PGCE) student teachers, analysing the role of Visitors, Engagement, Renewal, Visibility and an expert craft practitioner acting as a cultural Enrichment which seeks to support critical mediator between learner and cultural tools. conservation and redisplay of more than 1,800 In this context, cultural tools refer to all human- objects and to facilitate a wide-ranging programme made equipment, materials and technologies used of public activities under the theme of ‘Need, in the craft making process.22 This research was Make, Use’. The intention is to illuminate the ways used to extrapolate student teachers’ learning in which human creativity and ingenuity has driven processes, particularly key moments when learning developments in design and technologies – the took place during CPD opportunities. It was hoped ways that people everywhere need, make and use that key findings could be extracted and applied to ‘things’. These things include the museum’s objects inform future CPD and to consider the pedagogical 76 engage 33 Skills in the Making 77

understanding develops through increased mastery Skills in the Making of cultural tools. Freedman claims that to study this focuses on the triangle of process is to reveal ‘what people know [and] how they know’.27 The process through which learning expert craft practitioner, is internalised is explored through identifying the tools used for craft moments of mastery where the learner moves production and the beyond replication of an activity towards appropriation, where the learner owns the making learner. At the heart of activity and responds meaningfully to a task.28 the project is Taylor and The initial research was conducted during a one- Payne’s assertion that day workshop with a wire specialist in a purpose ‘relationships with cultural built art studio. The student teachers were exposed tools alter human to the craft practitioner’s making practices and visual influences and were able to make through existence. mimicry initially, and then independently towards a set outcome. Film and still photography were used implications for teachers when taking new craft to capture the day’s activities and film footage was skills into the classroom. played back to the student teachers a few weeks after the workshop. A focus group discussion was Socio-cultural theory honours the symbiotic audio recorded after watching the footage, relationship between individual action and the focusing on the following questions: When did environment in which that action occurs. Drawing learning change direction? What impact did the a theoretical framework from Wertch’s idea of social or collaborative component have on your ‘mediated action’,23 Skills in the Making focuses on experience of learning? How can you transfer key the triangle of expert craft practitioner, the tools learning into classroom pedagogy? The discussion used for craft production and the learner. At the was transcribed and correlated to concepts heart of the project is Taylor and Payne’s assertion underpinning the mediated action: mimicry, that ‘relationships with cultural tools alter human frustration, collaboration, safety and restriction. existence.’ 24 According to Vygotsky26, learners These were the central concepts used throughout begin to apply concepts to themselves that are first to plan and evaluate the student workshops. applied to them by others. This may or may not Although the evaluation of the teachers’ include complete understanding of the processes workshops was not directly predicated on this initially, but with expert mediation a growing 76 77

and perseverance. What occurs at the initial stages is partial understanding, where learners are exploring how to organise their activities meaningfully and independently. In the context of making, frustration relates to manipulating the medium itself. Frustration may arise from the natural limitations of the medium, or from limitations in equipment available. The rate of progression is influenced by a number of internal factors, including the making history and experience of students, their confidence in front of their peers, and individual emotional and research, we have used participant statements behavioural characteristics. External factors may from both workshop sets to compare learning also influence this, for example the opportunities needs at different career stages. allowed for experimentation and using the Research Findings imagination when manipulating the media and the Mimicry. Initially the practitioner asked the student impact of the broad environmental context such as teachers to mimic a making exercise, which tutor expectation, peer relationships, workshop resulted in all creating a similar artefact. As with space and the availability of tools. classroom pedagogy, when learning new skills Collaboration. The act of collaboration and making it is common practice to demonstrate staged in front of their peers proved a source of divergent processes; mimicry through scaffolding social experiences. Four student teachers stated the interaction can be considered the beginning of importance of making together to support diverse the mastery process. However, tensions as well practices, problem solving and experimentation, as benefits were apparent, as some student but five said they felt inhibited by the social teachers felt frustrated at the lack of opportunity context. For example Student Teacher Eight said: for independent interpretation in later activities. This was particularly evident when the maker ‘Sometimes I think that working collaboratively can provided a common theme and some student have a negative effect cos [sic] sometimes you’re so teachers wanted to choose their own. pressured by what everyone else is doing that that then affects your work. Sometimes, with me Frustration and progression. Frustration is an anyway, if I’m left on my own I’ll just get on with important component in learning, as is resilience my work – I’m fine – I’m not worried about anyone 78 engage 33 Skills in the Making 79

else. But when you’re sat in a big social gathering Language. Different types of language are you can be sat there thinking ‘Oh God, hers looks developed through working with the craft expert. really good and mine’s not so good’. These include the ability to articulate new learning processes and ways to integrate them into This has implications for the teacher/expert who pedagogical strategies; subject knowledge and needs to be mindful of the pressures social settings craft specific terminology, as well as a visual can have on participants when making and how language used to articulate ways of knowing learning can be inhibited. In turn it is a useful inherent in craft production. The implications are reminder to participants of the position of their that student teachers’ confidence is raised and the pupils in the classroom. potential for transferral of craft into the classroom A safe learning environment. If learners are more likely. to move from mimicry to mastery, a safe and The conclusion from our initial research was that respectful learning environment where risk Skills in the Making opportunities for student taking is supported, and outcomes are open teachers were effective when students were ended, seems to be imperative. While some may manipulating craft materials, but if a deeper find making in a group challenging, it is neither and longer term impact is to be examined desirable to separate learners nor possible for them more thoroughly, the workshops should be tailored to progress when making in isolation. Ultimately, to the learners’ needs, prior experience and the emotional as well as cognitive function has to be purpose of engaging in the learning activity. supported, if teachers are to enable learners to re-present internal thought processes, imagination CPD sessions at the Pitt Rivers Museum and experience into external visual form. With the inclusion of in-service teachers as Skills in the Making participants, a different approach Restriction. Several student teachers felt that to structuring and delivering the sessions was restrictions placed on them by the craft expert, employed, taking into account the research such as limited tools and equipment or given findings above. While providing a clear thematic themes, contributed to their transformative structure for the workshops, the Pitt Rivers makers learning moments. Some students said they saw encouraged experimentation and personal research, elements of that the workshops that could be an open-ended use of materials and peer discussion. translated into the classroom, indicating that individual’s backgrounds have an impact on their Makers depth of understanding and ability not only to Michael Brennand-Wood is internationally known master key skills and tools but to apply them.29 for his assembled and woven work, which has its 78 79

exploring light and shade, and considering ways in which the body moves through and experiences space. Caroline delivered the workshop with Julie Westbury, who makes jewellery assembled from her own photographs. They displayed objects selected from the Pitt Rivers collections, including snowshoes, woven hats, body extensions and inhibitors of many kinds. The brief for the teachers was to make something that inhibited or changed body movement in some way. Findings The evaluation responses by the in-service teachers who participated in the Pitt Rivers workshops roots in textile practice. Combining contemporary reveal that while their goals were similar to those of and historical textile sources he investigates teacher trainees (‘learning practical skills I can put political and social themes through the exploration to use in school’; ‘planning a Year 10 scheme of of three-dimensional line, structure and pattern. work’; ‘the opportunity to spend more than a His work has regularly been cited in the National few minutes making something’), their ability Curriculum, and in art, craft and design public to appropriate the techniques and ideas offered exams. The Pitt Rivers collections provided many by the makers was greater as a result of their examples of textile weaving and assemblage experience. Their investment in the session was techniques and of the diverse uses, practical and high. They had chosen to participate, paid a fee symbolic, that textiles are put to. For the workshop, and already had an understanding of the workshop teachers were given a frame onto which they wove situation and working in galleries. The majority, a range of materials. 42 of the 44 participants, described themselves Caroline Broadhead’s work is associated with as art, craft and design and/or education experts, the body, its movement, modification, and its despite having varying levels of confidence and skill interaction with clothing and adornment. She in making. started out as a jeweller and moved on to body The Pitt Rivers Museum and its collections was adornment and performance through her work a significant factor in engaging the high profile with choreographers. More recently her work has makers who led the workshops as well as involved constructing and manipulating spaces, attracting participants. All three makers were 80 engage 33 Skills in the Making 81

excited by the prospect of working in the museum chose to address this was left completely open, and undertook research there prior to the sessions, limited only by the available materials, and their to identify objects and themes that they wanted to prior experience and interests. However, the incorporate. Caroline Broadhead and Julie importance of the modelling a range of strategies Westbury selected objects that were displayed for workshop delivery should not be overlooked. during the workshop. These related to the theme Because they are experienced teachers, participants of body modification and performance, and were were quick to identify new teaching strategies composed of a range of non-precious materials employed by the makers and to articulate how they similar to those made available for the use of might apply them. These included the use of single participants. Michael Brennand-Wood made links words to inspire ideas or photographic sequences with the textile processes and themes of his own to document work. work, and encouraged teachers to research in the Frustration and Progression. These were not collection. The selection of objects from the addressed specifically in the teacher evaluation and collection and the links made to the makers’ were not openly discussed. However most teachers practice in terms of theme, process and use – worked with materials or in ways which were new practical, decorative or ritualistic – encouraged the to them, which brought challenge and a teachers to engage with the collection in different consequent adjustment in order to progress in ways. It also built their confidence to translate their terms of skill and ideas. The ideas around body new knowledge and skills into classroom practice modification introduced by Caroline Broadhead and ways of exploring the collection during and Julie Westbury were new to many and the museum visits. As well as re-connecting teachers teachers’ responses to the sessions reveal that they with their own creative practice, working in the felt more confident to apply problem solving collections reminded them of the position of their strategies in terms of materials manipulation and to pupils as learners in new surroundings. expand their ideas to produce effective outcomes. Mimicry. Mimicry of Michael Brennand-Wood’s For many the requirement to apply their learning way of working was the starting point for his directly in school framed their approach. One practical session, but the choice of themes teacher identified several themes that she would addressed and the use of materials were left to the follow up in school, not all of which had been participants, many of whom had brought materials raised during the group discussion. ‘Restricted view with them. The theme of body restriction and of the face for portraiture, deforming the body manipulation runs through the work of Caroline shape, issues regarding restriction and oppression, Broadhead but the way in which the participants body as possession.’ 80 81

Collaboration. For in-service teachers the social physical, personal and conceptual. David Gates element of the workshops was a key factor in their explores how craft has somehow become success. Both primary and secondary teachers decoupled from language and how ‘doing’ words stated that they valued the sharing of their prior are more difficult for children to learn, so that any and new practice with their peers and that this communicative task aiming to describe activities, contributed to a renewed sense of inspiration processes, doing and experience is best achieved and confidence. Those who said they felt isolated though active participation, seeing and hearing – in school valued the opportunity for discussion the living and sharing of cultural practices or and co-operation even more highly. Several joined traditions.30 The Skills workshops enabled teachers the Skills in the Making Facebook group where to engage in the making process in a social information about craft initiatives, schemes of situation, with evidence of the hand-made around work and photos of pupils’ work are shared. them to refer to. The presence of an established If some felt the social exposure threatening, it was maker, who had insight into how these artefacts not reported, but as the level of social interaction had taken shape, and who encouraged listening, was completely voluntary this is not surprising. talking and observing, helped participants absorb a common or contemporary language of making The reputation of the makers was a key factor in and problem-solving, which they were confident the high number of participants who attended in using and could employ with their pupils. each session. The opportunity to engage with the makers directly, and consider the ideas and Impact practices of someone whose work they held in A significant majority of teachers stated that the high esteem was a significant incentive for teachers workshops had re-inspired their own making to attend. The makers’ presentations, which practice and would inform future work with their described their career trajectories and the pupils. 32 of the 42 participants said that they were conceptual basis of their work, were highly valued confident to teach the skills and ideas that they had and provoked questions and discussion. Teachers experienced during the two workshops, with 20 valued direct contact with these makers in a out of 22 teachers who attended the Michael relaxed and informal situation away from the Brennand-Wood session stating this. Indeed, school environment. one participant, a member of the OAT Steering Committee, presented her adaptation of the CPD Language. An aspiration of the VERVE project is to session to the classroom at an OAT networking address the apparent lack of common language to meeting. This was well received by art educators talk about craft, particularly the making process in the audience and demonstrates how impact can and learning cycle itself, which is simultaneously 82 engage 33 Skills in the Making 83

be longer term, diverse and disseminated through gaps in both formal and informal craft education. multiple platforms. The project intends therefore to take this further by not only continuing to provide teacher workshops The Pitt Rivers Museum educator’s feedback, where possible but also craft demonstrations and which came three months after the workshop, workshops for schools and the general public; shows the impact of the sessions on pupils’ work networking evenings for design and technology at local schools: teachers, professional craft practitioners, ‘The Michael Brennand-Wood workshop came enthusiasts and gallery owners/ buyers; and micro- up in conversation when I visited the summer residencies linked to school programmes including exhibitions of both Cheney and Bartholomew talks and studio sessions, video-based interaction schools. Staff at both schools had used techniques and development of web resources. and ideas learned at the workshop and the Conclusion evidence was on show in the exhibition.’ Michael The use of a gallery or museum for teacher CPD Brennand-Wood himself said of the workshop: adds value, not only because of the range of It’s a rare opportunity to chat over strategies and resources available in its collections or access to ideas with colleagues, particularly methodologies makers who would not necessarily come into of teaching. It’s also a chance to personally work schools. The museum provides a stimulating, safe on a set of ideas. The majority of art specialists are and supportive environment where teachers can still very interested in being personally creative. define themselves differently – as artists, makers, It’s an important part of their own self esteem, researchers and as learners who can experience I believe they return to the classroom energised and research new practices and ideas and transfer and excited to put into practice what they have them to the school context. Working with an encountered.31 established maker who has insight into the production of artefacts and command of the One participant at the Caroline Broadhead and contemporary language of making and problem Julie Westbury workshop commented that it had solving enhances the experience still further. been ‘a good opportunity to make some work for myself’ which supported the PRM’s aim to provide The Skills in the Making workshops at Pitt Rivers an inspiring, contemplative and creatively ‘safe’ reflected the aspirations of art, craft and design place for teachers to work, away from the teachers in school in that they modelled ‘non- demands of the school environment. The positivity didactic techniques such as active dialogue, with which the workshops were received interpretation, observation and hands-on demonstrated support for VERVE’s aims to help fill participation; learning is viewed as a self-reflexive 82 83

process where knowledge is discovered, not what for, and so on. A maker’s eye and expertise simply imparted…Participation then becomes a can contribute new insights about materials and collaborative process between the artist/practitioner manufacturing techniques. In this way, staff and the assembled group.’ 32 According to Hager members are prompted to think about the and Halliday: ‘This enables the in-service teachers nature of future temporary exhibitions, criteria to participate and learn collaboratively as well as for commissions and acquisitions, and how to actively shaping the content and structure of best use handling collections. learning, for when learning socially it is not just the For the Pitt Rivers Museum collaboration offers a individual who is changed, but the environment number of advantages. Partnership work with new changes too.’ 33 organisations and individuals strengthens the In a period with fewer opportunities for art, craft Museum’s position in times of competitive funding. and design teacher CPD, and a drastic reduction Indeed, reporting on the trial and success of such in university-based art PGCE training places, work is crucial to ensure continued support of the collaborations with museums and galleries are VERVE project, and supports the Museum’s essential to ensure the continuation of making advocacy of best practice in the arts and heritage within the art curriculum and beyond. To deliver sector. Hosting workshops allows the museum to Skills in the Making NSEAD has initiated, and hopes gauge the capacity, scope and potential of future to sustain, strong partnerships with high profile events, whilst feedback from participants helps galleries and museums that attract important improve the way the Museum makes use of its makers in order to support teachers, and ultimately collections and spaces, especially when it comes young people, to experience a broad range of to catering for different learning styles through creative making opportunities. Partnership is imaginative interpretation, and encouraging increasingly necessary to ensure CPD delivery that cultural understanding among visitors of all is affordable as well as stimulating and valued by backgrounds. The creation of contacts, plus the teaching community. reputation- and relationship-building among teachers and artists, is invaluable since it ensures As far as a museum or gallery is concerned, active the Museum will continue to have an impact on learning helps realise space and collections as young people, who are our visitors of tomorrow. starting points for knowledge exchange; working with teachers and practitioners allows museums Collaboration of the sort described in this article staff to appreciate a different story told about can help both individual and common goals with artefacts, which is so often reduced to dry respect to the promotion of craft skills and information about where from, who collected, learning. The presence of multiple organisations 84 engage 33 Skills in the Making 85

and agendas has to be carefully considered and independent trade union, with benefits for monitored as practical, logistical and political issues members in the UK. can arise, but the overall experience has been 6. The Pitt Rivers museum, (PRM), founded in thoroughly positive, as the work both endorsed 1884, is the University of Oxford’s museum of and validated what Skills in the Making, OAT and anthropology and world archaeology. Entry is free the PRM are all trying to do to support the future and the Museum received some 350,000 visitors in of collective knowledge, craft skills, and the craft 2012. It is the recipient of many awards, ranging economy. What lies ahead is an optimistic resolve from The Guardian’s prize for the country’s most among all parties to achieve the financial backing ‘family friendly’ museum in 2005, to a Queen’s to ensure such partnerships can survive and flourish Anniversary prize in 2010, to the inaugural Clore amid a challenging social, political and economic Award for Museum Learning in 2011. The Museum landscape. receives core funding from Higher Education Notes Funding Council for England (HEFCE), which accounts for around half its sixty full- and part-time 1. http://www.themaking.org.uk/content/ staff. In 2012, a consortium of the Oxford our_programme/skills/skills_making.html University Museums (including the PRM) and the 2. http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk Oxfordshire County Council Museums Service – known as Oxford ASPIRE – was one of sixteen 3. http://www.nsead.org/home/index.aspx Renaissance Major Partner Museum Services 4. http://www.phf.org.uk nationwide to receive three years’ funding from Arts Council England to support excellence and 5. The leading authority on art, craft and design resilience within regional museums. The remaining across all phases of education in the UK, NSEAD posts are supported by short- and medium-term draws its membership from every sector of UK project funding streams, to which the Museum formal and informal art, craft and design education regularly submits project applications. The Museum and from an increasing number of overseas also relies to some extent on public donations. associate members. The NSEAD is an affiliate of the International Society for Education through 7. Oxford Art Teach (OAT) was formed in 2011 Art, a UNESCO non-governmental organisation. as a collaborative learning community committed In its role as advocate for visual arts education the to providing a stimulating and supportive network NSEAD canvases the opinions of practising experts responding to the needs of secondary art to promote policies for, and on behalf of, all sectors educators in the Oxfordshire region. Its Steering of art, craft and design education. The Society is an Committee includes departmental heads of art, 84 85

secondary teachers, lecturers in art education, 9. For a more detailed analysis, see Taylor, S. & and education officers in the cultural sector. Payne, R. (2013) Skills in the Making, Chapter 10 in OAT’s aim is to support specialist CPD A. Ravetz; A. Kettle, & H. Felcey (Eds.) Collaboration opportunities, stimulating debate about the current Through Craft. London, New York: Bloomsbury, climate of art education, and networking across a pp. 147-149. range of partners. It achieves this through termly 10 OFSTED (2012) Making A Mark: art, craft and meetings, annual symposia and workshops, and design in schools 2008-11. p. 38 promoting conferences with national bodies such as the NSEAD. 11. http://helencarnac.wordpress.com Academic staff from Oxford Brookes University are 12. http://shellygoldsmith.com involved in OAT programmes and remain in close 13. www.lynnsetterington.co.uk dialogue with both NSEAD and the PRM, offering an academic underpinning to Skills in the Making, 14. www.shanewaltener.com as well as prior experience of teacher CPD with 15. www.casholmes.textilearts.net craft practitioners. OAT meetings provide a platform for members to disseminate learning and 16. www.themaking.org.uk/content/ classroom application after the workshops to a makers/2010/04/lucy_brown.html wider audience. 17. celia-smith.co.uk 8. Oxford Brookes University (OBU) was an early 18. www.cathymiles.com partner with Skills in the Making, having supported The Making’s initial funding bid to The Paul Hamlyn 19. www.sublackwell.co.uk Foundation. 20. http://brennand-wood.com/ Working collaboratively through the School of 21. www.axisweb.org/p/juliewestbury: Education Secondary PGCE art/design course, Skills in the Making workshops have been established 22. http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/needmakeuse. with primary and secondary ITE students since the html programme’s inception in 2008-9. Additional CPD 23. Taylor & Payne, 2013, op. cit. opportunities have also been explored including PGCE student teacher visits to maker’s workshops, 24. Wertsch, J.V. (1998) Mind as Action. New York, and maker residencies in partner school art Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 24. departments. 25. Taylor & Payne 2013, op. cit., p. 150. 86 engage 33 Skills in the Making 87

26. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: Barlex, D. (2000) Young Foresight: Handbook for the development of higher psychological Teachers and Mentors, processes, Cole, M., John-Steiner, V., Scribner, London: Software Production Enterprises. S., & Souberman, E. (eds). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bubb S. and Earley, P. (2008), From self-evaluation to school improvement: the importance of effective 27. Freedman, K. (2003) Teaching Visual Culture: staff development. CfBT Curriculum, Aesthetics and the Social Life of Art, Teachers College Press: Columbia University, New Kimbell, R. & Perry, D. (2001) Design and York and London, p. 83. technology in the knowledge economy, London: Engineering Council 28. Daniels, H., Cole, M., & Wertsch, J.V., (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky. Cambridge: Larson, F. (2007) ‘Anthropological landscaping: Cambridge University Press, pp. 178-192. General Pitt Rivers, the Ashmolean, the University Museum and the shaping of an Oxford discipline’, 29. Taylor & Payne 2013, op. cit., p.153. Journal of the History of Collecting, 2007, pp. 1-16 30. Gates, D. (2013), ‘The Trouble with Verbs: Tools OFSTED (2009), Drawing together: art, craft and and Techniques’ in E. W. Lasser (ed), The Tool at design in schools 2005-08 Hand. Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, p. 8. (pdf version available at: http://toolathand.org/ Images wp-content/themes/toolathand/pdf/Tool%20 1. Teachers discuss and record each others’ textile at%20Hand_book.pdf) creations. Michael Brennand-Wood workshop at 31. Mossop, S. (2013) Evaluation of Skills in the PRM, March 2013 making 2012-13. NSEAD, p. 10. 2. Teachers get hands-on during a workshop at the 32. Taylor & Payne 2013, op. cit., p. 144. annual OAT conference. Oxford, 2012 33. Hager, P. & Halliday, J. (2009) Recovering 3. Basketry work and Arctic snowshoes from the Informal Learning: Wisdom, Judgement and PRM’s education collections act as inspiration and Community, Springer starting points for participants at the Caroline Broadhead and Julie Westbury workshop at PRM. Further References April 2013 Adamson, G. (2007), Thinking through Craft. London: Palgrave Macmillan 86 Crafting Difference 87 Christine Checinska Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Art & Design, University of East London

What is the place of textiles within the global ‘otherness’. In contrast, El Anatsui, the Ghanaian flow of identities, ideas and objects that map artist based in Nigeria, has observed: ‘the scope of our contemporary cross-cultural entanglements? meaning associated with cloth is so wide… [It] is to How might gallery education use textile crafts the African what monuments are to Westerners.’ 1 as a critical tool to explore diasporic histories of In contemporary African Art the separation of craft movement and migration, and concepts such from fine art that we witness in the West does not as ‘difference’, ‘postcoloniality’, ‘hybridity’ and happen. The Kuba raffia weavers of the Congo are ‘globalisation’? often described as the finest artists in Africa. In China, amongst the Miao community, one’s festival The subject of textile crafts and difference has to costume is amongst the most valued of date been somewhat underrepresented within possessions; embroidered clothing is a main visual gallery and museum education, in spite of the art form. Japanese textiles are considered national plethora of artists working with textiles to explore treasures, so central are they to the history of postcolonial themes, or using fabric and fibre to Japan; the weaving of textiles is one of the earliest question the representation of other cultures, not art forms recorded in the Kojiki and the Nihongi to mention the curators and writers that mine our mythological texts that form the foundation of public archives and museum spaces for hidden historical records. Under Mahatma Gandhi, of diasporic histories that can potentially be revealed course, handcrafted khadi became a symbol of through a textile artefact. Crafting Difference Indian independence. explores the relationship between textile crafts, race and culture from the perspective of diaspora. My own work as a writer and curator has seen me delving into a number of archives and engaging Craft has historically played a central role in with a variety of museum and gallery spaces that ethnography, where it has been a marker of 88 engage 33 Crafting Difference 89

house and exhibit textile crafts, searching for traces difficult to present and communicate effectively in of the African Diaspora. But why textiles? a museum and/or gallery context. Textile craft is a rich subject, starting from the Within the field of textile cultures, textile crafts breadth of its techniques: woven, felted and present a powerful metaphor with which to knitted cloths, embroidered and appliquéd examine issues around racial, gendered and cultural surfaces, bleached, dyed, painted and printed identity. Indeed textile metaphors are woven into grounds, pieced and patched fabrics, crochet, the histories of global diasporas. Frantz Fanon, for sprang and cutwork lace, and many more. example referring to the African Diaspora in Black Whilst textiles do have a practical use, they play Skin: White Masks, likens ‘blackness’ to being clad a significant role in ritual, whether ceremonial in mourning.2 He describes his own skin as a kind or everyday, spiritual or secular. They become of uniform that masks both his humanity and saturated with cultural meaning, as craft individuality. Shrouded in blackness, he is ‘fixed’ techniques and family keepsakes are passed from by a colonial gaze, stereotypical views of the other one generation to the next. Cloth can be worked, come into play; metaphorical tom-toms batter embellished, manipulated and transformed, then him down.3 Such complex associations are often folded, packed and transported across continents invisible in gallery spaces that assume a universal – on the move with the people that make and use spectator. them. Yet this fluidity of use and meaning can be 88 89

Textiles enclose the body like a second skin, of freeing oneself from society’s hierarchies of race becoming a part of us – protecting, adorning and and culture. The clothing of the body in textiles signifying through colour, pattern and texture. effectively becomes a self-reflexive practice, In colonial and postcolonial societies textiles, integral to the process of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ whether preserved as uncut lengths or fashioned from a postcolonial perspective. Given all the into clothing, facilitate the formation and conditions that contrive to flatten cloth’s textured, maintenance of social and political hierarchies. inter-textual and cross-cultural sophistication, what It is partly through dress that these hierarchies models might we think about for displaying and are experienced as legitimate. However, textiles utilising textile crafts? can also be personalised through surface Looking beyond the self, textile crafts offer a way decoration and cut, which opens up rich of mapping the cultural exchanges that occur with possibilities of communication and self- the global movement of people and goods. For the representation. Textiles have the ability to both 2012 Institute for International Visual Art, (Iniva), bind and separate us from one another through touring show Social Fabric, on which I was an their capacity to signify, to convey difference. associate curator, historical and contemporary Again, this capacity, and the complex textiles/textile related objects, images and texts understandings it affords, may be undercut were used to unpack Alice Creischer’s Apparatus when textiles are presented within the spectacle for the Osmotic Compensation of the Pressure of of the museum apparatus. during the Contemplation of Poverty.6 Creischer’s As Annette B. Weiner and Jane Schneider note, multi-media installation addressed the uneven ‘complex moral and ethical issues of dominance power relations between India and Britain that are and autonomy, opulence and poverty, continence rooted in our Imperialist pasts and channelled and sexuality, find ready expression through cloth.’ 4 through the production and consumption of cotton. Textiles therefore trouble what Fanon described This method of using textile crafts as a critical tool as the ‘colonial gaze’ that fixes the other, is exemplified by the Whitworth Art Gallery’s 2012 as a chemical fixes a dye. The ‘third person Cultural Olympiad projects Cotton: Global consciousness’ that he identified in the minds Threads and We Face Forward, the latter of of the colonised, may become, through the which was developed in partnership with expressiveness of cloth, no longer a solely negating Manchester Art Gallery. Located in the city once activity.5 Dress, for example, moves beyond its referred to as Cottonopolis, the Whitworth is basic function, becoming a non-verbal language, known for its textile collection. Textiles are what at once a method of communication and a means you see first on entering the building. The original 90 engage 33 Crafting Difference 91

collection was created as a technique and design resource for the textile industry in the North West. Pieces have always been sourced globally, reflecting the history of Manchester’s economic relations. Over twenty percent of the collection is from Africa.7 Cotton: Global Threads relooked at the history of cotton through a postcolonial lens, which resituated it within the context of Empire.8 Through cotton, the exhibition considered migration, global trade and visual appropriation primarily from a non-European perspective. Exhibiting other cultures in the museum and gallery is always a contested terrain. The Whitworth chose to orchestrate an open exchange between the visitor and the seven artists featured in the show: Yinka Shonibare MBE, Anne Wilson, Grace Ndiritu, Lubaina Himid, Liz Rideal, Aboubakara Fofana and Abdoulaye Konaté. Abandoning the gallery’s customary use of space, the entire ground floor was given over to Cotton: Global Threads. The division between loans and pieces from its own collection was deliberately blurred. The selection of work from contemporary artists drew attention to the story of cotton and the uneven relations between east and west created by its production and consumption. An interactive space designed by young people for young people explored the theme experientially through cotton-related games. Curator and Whitworth Director Jennifer Harris’ strategy created a space in which alternative perspectives 90 91

and interpretations could be voiced and heard. highlighted the way in which cotton, and by my As Harris stressed in a recent conversation, the extension textile crafts, can be used to map world emphasis had to be on ‘dialogue’ between the histories; cotton was the first global commodity; visitors, the artists, the collection and the loans that rapidly increasing cotton production fuelled the could potentially cut across cultures and histories. Industrial Revolution; cotton gave impetus to the American Civil War.9 The accompanying Educators Resource Pack, aimed at Key Stage 3 to 5, (young people aged eleven to We Face Forward emerged from a desire to eighteen years), set the artists’ work into cultural and consider contemporary culture in West Africa historical context. Lubaina Himid’s intervention, whilst acknowledging Manchester’s historical Kangas from the lost sample book (2011/2012), relationship with the region. Recognising that the inspired learners to research their own family history, past continually informs and cuts into the present, race and identity. Himid has pioneered the sector’s We Face Forward took an innovative stance in current move towards making hidden diasporic remit, content and execution. Whilst the artists histories visible; her work as an artist, curator, writer were all of West African origin, the curators actively and collaborator has constantly shone a spotlight on sought to situate them within the international art the absent presence occupied by the African scene thereby avoiding the trap of removing them Diaspora in Britain. Aboubakar Fofana’s Les Arbres from the global flow of ideas and concepts. à Bleus informed learners of the history of indigo Emphasis was placed on foregrounding difference dying in West Africa and the artist’s commitment to within what might be termed contemporary maintaining Mali cultural heritage. Learners were African Art. Thirty three visual artists, amongst encouraged to engage with the work at both them El Anatsui, and over forty musicians came a cerebral and a practical level, for example together alongside international experts to deliver experimenting with strips of cotton cloth and an impressive season of West African art and vegetable dyes to create three-dimensional music. The ‘show’ migrated beyond the borders of structures in response to Fofana’s piece. By engaging the museum and gallery, taking to the streets via with each of the artists’ work, learners experienced the Art Bus.10 textile craft techniques at first hand whilst As with Cotton: Global Threads, the Educators expanding their understanding of concepts Resource Pack for We Face Forward contextualised like ‘globalisation’, ‘colonialism’ and ‘hybridity’, the artists’ work. Meshac Gaba’s We Face Forward the ‘British Empire’ and the ‘African Diaspora’. Flag Commission, 2012, which was reproduced on The Whitworth’s learning and interpretation the outside of the Art Bus, the dust cover of the team, under the leadership of Esme Ward, also exhibition brochure and hung on the façade of the 92 engage 33 Crafting Difference 93

gallery, deepened understandings of the meaning without attention to material culture.’ 13 As already of the term ‘intercultural’. El Anatsui’s In The World noted, textile crafts reflect the beliefs and values of But Don’t Know The World, 2009, brought those that made, used and/or collected them. Since ‘materiality’, ‘culture’ and ‘metaphor’ into focus. every object tells many stories, material culture Again activities were a mix of the cerebral and the provides new insights into the past; it allows for the practical, for example crafting textiles from layered interpretations and alternative perspectives discarded materials like plastic bags, learning that the Whitworth actively seeks and I aim to experientially, embodying the concept under promote, to be accessed through focusing on the discussion.11 object. But if migration throws objects, ideas and identities into flux, how do we in the Diaspora Textile crafts are important to the team since relate to traditional cloths and textile craft practices? they are seen as the most accessible part of the Whitworth collection. According to Esme Ward, the Artist Rosanna Raymond’s use of tapa/siapo, or tactile nature of textiles closes the distance that can barkcloth, to educate, to challenge and to tell New exist between the viewer and a work of art that Zealand-Samoan (hi)-stories is inspiring. Barkcloth is hangs on the wall. I would argue that textiles also one of the earliest forms of crafting textiles that close the distance that is created by an unfamiliar does not involve weaving threads on a loom. Made language. Ward described textiles as ‘part of the from the inner bark of trees, it is typically found in conversation of everyday life … part of the way in heavily wooded regions in Africa, South-East Asia which we understand our old culture [culture of and Polynesia. I first encountered Raymond’s work origin] in our new environment … Textile crafts at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and allow people to open up’.12 Here the museum Anthropology’s Pasifika Styles exhibition in 2008. becomes a space of exchange, a forum for Co-curated by Raymond alongside the Museum’s conversation and debate, for sharing experiences Dr. Amiria Henare, Pasifika Styles featured five and expertise; a site where interwoven histories are Polynesian community groups and incorporated revealed and new knowledge is produced. collaborative workshops led by Raymond. Craft workshops remain a feature of her practice. Setting textile crafts into the wider frame of Most recently she staged the Tapa Master class: material culture in the Whitworth method clearly Beaten, Twisted and Flowing at the Ikon demonstrates their potential to map peoples, Gallery, Birmingham, which took place alongside cultures and histories and facilitate debate about the Tapa: Barkcloth from the Pacific exhibition.14 such concepts as ‘difference’ from the perspective of diaspora. On the mapping of social and cultural Raymond writes on the centrality of tapa/siapo history, Karen Harvey writes: ‘history is impoverished to her everyday life, her practice and her culture: 92 93

My Samoan grandmother didn’t feel the need to pass on to her children or her grandchildren her The haptic pleasures native language, which she felt would not be of inseparable from the any use to us in New Zealand, yet she insisted that I was always to be in possession of siapo, for you crafting and everyday use were not a real Samoan unless you had some. of textiles are removed To this day, even living in the UK, I am never when objects are without this cloth. enclosed in glass cases or Siapo or tapa cloth floats through my memories: set apart from the viewer the smell, folded, stacked in piles, under beds, wrapped around our bodies, rubbed with coconut by other similar means. oil, adorned with feathers we danced in them, 94 engage 33 Crafting Difference 95

gifted them, received them. Later in life I hung crafts are to West Africans what monuments are them on walls, rescued them from organic rubbish to Europeans, whilst considering the origins of the days to make art works.15 term itself, textile crafts remind us of alternative perspectives and other histories but, as Raymond The notion of the past continually informing and implies, they also re-mind those of us in diaspora. cutting into the present is lived out through her practice; it is enmeshed in the tapa/siapo pattern- Raymond is a much-valued contributor to the work, the (hi)-storytelling and the craft workshops. Horniman Museum’s innovative Collections, She elegantly reminds us that many textiles that we Peoples, Stories: Anthropology Reconsidered see in the museum and archive setting were programme, contributing to the review of the actually meant to for use in the everyday; they Museum’s Maori collection.16 This three-year were supposed to be handled. The haptic pleasures project aims to explore new methods of inseparable from the crafting and everyday use of engagement and interpretation. Collaboration textiles are removed when objects are enclosed in with those that the project will directly affect is glass cases or set apart from the viewer by other fundamental to the Horniman’s approach. The similar means. This in turn draws us to consider the team hope to deepen understanding and respect narratives behind the objects: Who made them? for cultural difference by creating a dialogue Who used them? How did they end up here? between diverse community groups in Southwark, Remembering El Anatsui’s observation that textile Lambeth and Lewisham as they respond to the 94 95

Museum’s anthropology collection. As Project Selected textiles and related objects from what was Co-ordinator Johanna Jetterstrom-Sharp explained, the Constance Howard resource will become the ‘multi-vocality’, or the inclusion of voices from the focal point for a guest lecture and workshop on Diaspora, is key. The project themes centre on ‘fashion, postcoloniality and difference’ this common human experiences, concerns and autumn. Curator of the Goldsmiths Textile and Art activities: food and feasting, health and healing, Collections Jenny Doussan sees the textile crafts family and home, war and peacemaking. By resource as a ‘thriving nucleus for humanities foregrounding cross-cultural voices ‘different research in general … across disciplines, that perspectives on the things that we think that we extends beyond the university.’ 19 In part she views know’ will emerge.17 Although textiles make up the her role as a facilitator of relationships and largest part of the Horniman’s collection, there are engagement with the collections internally and currently no firm plans to focus specifically on them externally. A priority going forward is to reach local as part of this project, although Jetterstrom-Sharp young people, i.e. the sixteen plus age group that did concede that there is a natural place for textile may or may not be considering higher education. crafts within the ‘family and home’ theme so there Doussan is keen to emphasise the potential power is a possibility of their inclusion in a later phase. of engaging with textiles at a personal level: ‘there is history embedded in these pieces’.20 Handling Future practice for me includes collaborative work the fragments and assorted lengths of cloth, the with the Goldsmiths Textile Collection.18 96 engage 33 Crafting Difference 97

sometimes worn garments, and the stitching samples – some hand-worked by Constance Howard herself – makes for a unique experience. The less than pristine condition of some items is a reminder of their materiality and their history. Much of the textile collection made its way into the archive via a personal commitment; gifted, purchased then gifted, brought back from overseas travel and donated. The archive houses an eclectic mix of textile art, embroidery, clothing and textiles from around the world: West Africa, China, South Asia, Japan, Peru, Guatemala, Turkey and Eastern Europe. Given the location of Goldsmiths in the multicultural New Cross area of South London, Doussan’s drive to reach users beyond the academy is a welcome development. Contemplating my own engagement with textile crafts, the spirit of Stuart Hall is always present in my work. Hall once drew a parallel between the ‘diasporic view’ and the ‘knight’s move’ in chess, likening his methodological approach to a stepping forward or back and to the side.21 By this he meant that his view was that of one that has been displaced, one who is the same but not quite. It is primarily the view from the margins to the centre. A chief concern of Hall’s has been the impact of the post-War, post-colonial African Diaspora cultures on British culture. Against this framework, his notion of the ‘knight’s move’ alerts us to the fact that differing versions of the national past co-exist at any given time depending on the perspective taken up – the problematic role of the 96 97

curator and/or the educator in ‘writing’ history is Consider the Whitworth projects discussed above. exposed, as is the role of the museum and gallery In the other examples outlined here, it is the close exhibition to articulate such viewpoints. There are readings and creative imaginings around textile always other standpoints and (hi)-stories present crafts that allow us to explore histories that are beyond one’s own. In my view, Hall’s work is as missing or obscured, and concepts that are subject much about seeing or attentive looking as it is to change or are otherwise heavy or abstract. about the elegant use of the written word to In sum, textile crafts both mediate and express decentre and destabilise our assumptions about our social relations and cultural behaviours. Whilst social and cultural history. His attentive looking performing a functional purpose, they bind and is tied to the handling of textiles discussed here; separate us through their power to communicate, it promotes layered interpretation. There is also to convey our beliefs and values, to signify our a point of convergence with Sarat Maharaj’s cultural identities and map our entangled histories. ‘thinking through textiles’, a concept that is Textile crafts mean different things to different comfortable with open-endedness and cultures; they carry a sense of place and prestige undecideability.22 peculiar to specific societies. What can textile crafts The repetitive action involved in the making of do that other media cannot? The closeness of textiles, for example, in the case of embroidery, textiles to skin, their presence in our everyday lives, the stitching, unstitching and re-stitching, echoes our instinct to touch, to hold, to wrap ourselves in the thinking process. Indeed there is a meditative cloth creates a sense of accessibility that opens the quality to creative making and to the attentive possibility of cross-cultural dialogue. As Paulo Freire looking that precedes Hall’s critical thinking writes, ‘without dialogue there is no described above; the constant in-out of needle and communication and without communication there thread, the shifting of one’s gaze forwards, then can be no true education.’ 23 Further, ‘true dialogue backwards, then to the side. Such making and cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical looking that involves repetition and revision allows thinking.’ 24 Textile crafts in this schema might then us to explore ideas and concepts that are in be seen as a mediator, a facilitator of dialogue and constant flux. ‘Crafting’, i.e. creative making and a catalyst for critical thinking. attentive looking, hinges on meticulous reworking I would like to thank Jennifer Harris, Esme Ward, and relooking, finessing and fine-tuning. So, in Rosanna Raymond, Johanna Jetterstrom-Sharp and thinking about how such theoretical frameworks Jenny Doussan for their generosity in giving their might inform museum and gallery display and time. I also thank Teresa Cisneros and Helen Casey. education practices, might we turn to making? 98 engage 33 Crafting Difference 99

Notes 11. http://www.wefaceforward.org/ 1. Anatsui, E. (2003), cited The Essential Art of 12. Esme Ward, telephone interview, 16th August African Textiles: Design Without End http://www. 2013 metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2008/ 13. Harvey, K. (ed.) (2009), History and Material african-textiles/el-anatsui Culture. Oxford: Routledge, p. 2 2. Fanon, F. (1986), Black Skin, White Masks. 14. http://www.jacquithomson.com/2013/06/ London: Pluto Press, p.113 tapa-barkcloth-workshop-ikon-with.html 3. Fanon, F. (1986), Ibid., p. 112 15. Artist’s statement in N. Thomas & J. Adams 4. Weiner, A.B. & Schneider, J. (eds.) (1989), Cloth (2013), Tapa: Barkcloth Paintings from the Pacific. and Human Experience, pp. 1-2 Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications 5. Fanon, F. (1986), op. cit., London: Pluto Press, p.110 16. http://www.horniman.ac.uk/about/ collections-people-stories 6. http://www.iniva.org/exhibitions_ projects/2012/social_fabric 17. Johanna Jetterstrom-Sharp, telephone interview, 20th August 2013 7. http://cottonglobalthreads.com/ 18. http://www.gold.ac.uk/textile-collection/ 8. Rees Leahy, H. (2012), Cotton: Global Threads. Whitworth Museum, Manchester, exhibition leaflet 19. Jenny Doussan, personal interview, 22nd essay August 2013 9. Educators Resource Pack (2012), Cotton: Global 20. Jenny Doussan, personal interview, 22nd Threads. Whitworth Museum, Manchester, online August 2013 resource 21. Hall, S., public lecture, ‘Culture, Politics, Race Balshaw, M. et al (2012), We Face Forward: Art and Diaspora’, Queen Mary, University of London, from West Africa Today. Manchester: Manchester 24th October 2007 City Galleries and Whitworth Art Gallery 22. Maharaj, S., keynote address, ‘Second Skins: 10. Educators Resource Pack (2012) We Face Cloth and Difference,’ conference, Iniva, London, Forward: Art from West Africa Today. Whitworth 29th April 2009 Art Gallery, Manchester City Galleries, online 23. Freire, P. (1993), Pedagogy of the Oppressed. resource New York: Continuum, pp. 73-74 98 99

24. Freire, P. (1993), Ibid., p.73 Waller, D. (2012), World Textiles: A Source Book. London: British Museum Further References Ward, E. (2010), ‘New Spaces for Watchful A. B. Weiner & J. Schneider (eds.) (1989), Cloth and Creatures: Family Learning at the Whitworth Art Human Experience. Washington: Smithsonian Gallery’ in C. Tims (ed.) (2010), Collection 29: Born Institute Press Creative, London: Demos, pp. 53-62 Balshaw, M. et al (2012), We Face Forward: Art Links from West Africa Today. Manchester: Manchester City Galleries and Whitworth Art Gallery http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/ listings/2008/african-textiles/el-anatsui Hall, S. public lecture, ‘Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora,’ 24th October 2007, Queen Mary, http://www.iniva.org/exhibitions_ University of London. projects/2012/social_fabric Karp,I. & Lavine, S. D. (eds.) (1991), Exhibiting http://cottonglobalthreads.com/ cultures: the Poetics and Politics of Museum http://www.wefaceforward.org/ Display. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press http://www.jacquithomson.com/2013/06/ Jackson, A. (2000), Japanese Textiles. London: V&A tapa-barkcloth-workshop-ikon-with.html Publications http://www.horniman.ac.uk/about/ Gillow, J. & Barnard, N. (2008), Indian Textiles. collections-people-stories London: Thames and Hudson http://www.gold.ac.uk/textile-collection/ Gillow, J. & Sentence, B. (1999), World Textiles: A Visual Guide to Traditional Techniques. London: Images Thames and Hudson 1. Fresh Made Trade project, a collaboration Thomas, N. & Adams, J. (2013), Tapa: Barkcloth between Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Paintings from the Pacific. Manchester: Academy, Spring 2013. Photo Joel Chester Fildes Cornerhouse Publications 2. The Art Bus, part of We Face Forward, Rees Leahy, H. (2012), ‘Cotton: Global Threads.’ Whitworth Art Gallery, Summer 2012. Image taken Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, exhibition by a member of Whitworth Art Gallery staff leaflet essay 100 engage 33 Crafting Difference 101

3. Printed cotton length picturing political figure, Cameroon, 20th century. Image courtesy Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Photo David Ramkalawon 4. Embroidered Hindu wedding choli, India, 20th century. Image courtesy Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Photograph by David Ramkalawon 5. Wedding skirt with embroidery, China, 20th century. Image courtesy Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Photo David Ramkalawon. 6. Detail of wedding skirt with embroidery, China, 20th century. Image courtesy Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Photo David Ramkalawon. 7. Kuba cloth, West Africa, 20th century. Image courtesy Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Photo David Ramkalawon 8. Self-portrait with Siapo. Photography Rosanna Raymond 2013. Customised image with Tapa Cloth – Z 30709 courtesy of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Digital Image and acti.VA.tion, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK 9. Workshop by Rosanna Raymond, Tapa Masterclass at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Photography by Jaqui Thompson 100 Radical Craft Interventions 101 in Museums and Galleries Contesting Dominant Paradigms Maria­-Anna Tseliou Freelance Researcher

‘Curators and makers have a lot in common. from collecting and documenting, to interpreting They are trained to challenge, re­interpret and and displaying both tangible and intangible communicate the meaning, role and purpose material. Consequently, museums end up with of objects. Both professions use real and virtual collections and programmes that tend to exclude artefacts to provoke curiosity, support learning the voice of certain minority groups, as they do and explore personal and collective identity. not fit the expected norms of gender, sexuality, Museums can offer makers privileged access class or race. to their collections – and stores – and inspiring In particular, the sector still appears reluctant to opportunities to extend their creative practice to engage confidently and on a permanent basis new audiences. In turn, makers have much to offer with sexual difference, experiencing a number museum managers, curators, educators and of challenges when the topic is under discussion, retailers in their ambition to make museums ranging from complexities in documentation, relevant to 21st century communities.’ 1 interpretation and representational devices.4 Despite significant progress in enhancing their There is still a substantial lack of relevant material social role and becoming more responsive to their in collections, as well as a lack of quality projects to diverse communities, museums are still considered engage sexual minorities in the life of the museum. to be complicit in the maintenance of the Western The LGBTQ5 community is rarely included on a cultural dominant paradigms of ‘heterosexuality, permanent basis, with the exception for example masculinity, and whiteness’ 2 Normativity, in the of Brighton Museum, Nottingham Castle or sense of ‘conventional forms of association, Merseyside Maritime Museum. Exhibitions or belonging, and identification’,3 appears to be events focusing on sexual diversity can be easily prevalent at multiple levels of museum practice, classified as ‘queer ephemera’ separated from the 102 engage 33 Radical Craft Interventions in Museums and Galleries 103

rest of a collection. Therefore, according to a affecting people who share their racial or sexual number of scholars,6 museums are regarded as identity, can help museums tackle sensitive topics places reinforcing society’s heteronormative way more actively and creatively. of thinking, rendering as deviant or worthless any Based on my PhD research,9 I conclude that the gender and sexual identity at odds with it. cultural sector has to seek novel approaches to Although a range of curatorial techniques, difference if it aims to become a proactive site of involving special exhibitions, outreach cultural diversity. Institutions, at least in the UK, programming, tours and workshops, are being have been developing a wide range of remarkable developed in some, I believe that contemporary events and projects to reach out to disadvantaged craft has a huge potential to unsettle normative and previously ignored communities. Yet from the museum narratives. In the toolkit produced by perspective of sexual difference representation, I museumaker, this potential is described as follows: argue that museums need to expand their practice: ‘Contemporary craftspeople makers are interested ‘Although a variety of projects is favorable for in the world of ideas and the myriad ways their increasing sexual minorities’ cultural representation finger­tip knowledge of traditional and new tools and visitation, one could come up with the and materials can be employed to break rules following interpretation, that there seems to be a and challenge accepted norms about form and continuing focus on projects based on difference function.’ 7 and separatism...perpetuating the core binarisms This article draws upon a number of cases featuring (e.g. hetero ­vs. homo­sexuality) upon which forms radical craft interventions. These include Fred of prejudice (e.g. homophobic bullying) and social Wilson’s work on race in the US (e.g. Mining the exclusion are based.’ 10 Museum at the Maryland Historical Society) and, Certainly, special exhibitions on race or sexuality particularly, Matt Smith’s recent work on sexuality can draw visitors’ attention to these issues and in the UK (e.g. Queering the Museum at encourage cultural inclusion. However, such Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery). I argue that initiatives may appeal mainly to people already craft interventions are effective in disrupting familiar with these issues, or with close connections museums’ normative practices, especially in to the community on display. Strategies must be conservative contexts. ‘A craft artist reflects developed to reach the widest possible audience. multiple subjective identifications that may (or may not) be readily identifiable in objects created by a Intervention strategies maker’. 8 Artists like Fred Wilson and Matt Smith, In my research I focused on two possible directions interested in raising awareness about issues of a more inclusive curatorial practice. One was the 102 103

use of radical craft interventions by an externally tell these stories seemed a natural decision. It has commissioned artist. The case study was the strong gendered links – woodwork for boys and exhibition Queering the Museum at Birmingham sewing for girls – as well as a domestic connection. Museum & Art Gallery (4 November 2010 – 27 Its homely connotations make it an ideal vehicle for February 2011) for which ceramist and craft artist conveying potentially unsettling messages’.15 Matt Smith was commissioned by SHOUT! Another approach I considered was that of the Festival11 and funded by the Arts Council to well-known installation artist Fred Wilson in the intervene in the museum collections and storage US. His exhibition Mining the Museum (1992) at and through a variety of methods, ‘sometimes the Maryland Historical Society was based on an serious, sometimes humorous...change how you uncommon use of crafted objects to critique the look at museums and question what you see’.12 tendency of museums to be, consciously or not, The artist visited the museum storage and racially prejudiced. Fred Wilson juxtapositioned exhibitions and made suggestions of way in which items on display or in storage, presenting on equal LGBTQ narratives could be introduced into the footing incompatible objects. For example, for permanent galleries – through creating new Metalwork 1793–1880,­ he placed slave shackles ceramic pieces, or removing, adding and re­ with silver vessels in Baltimore Repousse style. For interpreting already existing objects. Cabinet Making 1820­–1960, a wooden whipping Smith used white earthenware to craft most of his post was displayed alongside elegant chairs made additions, including figurines like the Figure of a of rosewood, walnut or gilded wood, mother of Youth Cruising13 with underglaze colour, or the pearl and brocade. As Berger puts it, Fred Wilson figurines in Reflection coloured with car spray ‘attenuates a curatorial history, juxtaposing the paint, or even everyday cookware items like the expected with the unexpected, the ordinary with Double­-Spouted Teapot.14 He also created Green the unusual, in order to reveal its prejudices and Carnations from silk organza to decorate the very omissions...Thus all of his extraordinary installations first statue one encounters in the first gallery to act are preeminently allegories of absence and loss ­ as a signifier of the project and to inform visitors of aesthetic meditations in which fragments from the meaning behind carnations, as their green the historical past are brought together to reveal colour was used as a strapline on every label difficult truths about the present’.16 accompanying Matt Smith’s interventions. The reason for embracing crafts amongst his Based on these two examples, it could be argued interventions was very lucidly explained by Smith that interventions that specifically attend to crafted in the online exhibition catalogue: ‘using craft to objects could be an important way of challenging 104 engage 33 Radical Craft Interventions in Museums and Galleries 105

dominant paradigms. Moreover, according to Sanders, apart from racial or sexual normativity, Especially given the craft interventions in art collections can assist in current lack of funds unsettling the normative art canon, as both Wilson and Smith suggested. ‘Integrating craft works into available for diversification the fine arts halls, rather than assigning them to of collections, intervening decorative art wings, could serve as a means of in permanent displays decentring the traditional canon and the elitist interest it serves’.17 with items made by local people would be a Craft has a lot of potential to relate dynamically to collaboration and partnership, at least in the creative and sustainable context of museums and galleries, and through strategy, at least for craft, communities which are not part of the museums, which promote usual audiences can be invited to contribute to programming and collections. Craft related themselves as safeguards projects have been developed successfully in the of local history and art. past with people from minorities, as the Craft and Wellbeing report produced by Yair for the Crafts the museum sector, as the Making Value report, Council reveals18, enriching collections and produced by Schwarz and Yair for the Crafts ‘promoting wellbeing and social interaction Council in 2010 revealed.20 amongst people otherwise excluded from social There is another type of intervention in relation to and community networks.’ 19 Especially given the decisions taken by museums about the value of the current lack of funds available for diversification of objects within it. In 2009, the Los Angeles County collections, intervening in permanent displays with Museum of Art (LACMA) de­accessioned a number items made by local people would be a creative of objects from its collections, a practice that is still and sustainable strategy, at least for museums, highly controversial.21 A local artist, Robert which promote themselves as safeguards of local Fontenot, developed the project Recycle LACMA history and art. Similarly, collaborative projects to express his and other artists’ disapproval of where craft makers are invited to work with groups de­accessioning, which they saw as a mishandling and contribute newly made items could have of a museum’s collection. Fontenot bought more multiple positive effects on audiences, and in turn than 50 items, predominantly textiles and vintage on their engagement with and attitude towards clothing items – that had been de­accessioned, 104 105

which were then auctioned and exhibited in 2011 ‘I believe certain types of craft objects ­ especially at Jancar Gallery in Los Angeles. objects designed to be used, rather than just looked at embody sympathy. Because craft objects A dynamic use of crafted objects, especially in the are substantially handmade, traces of the maker’s form of artistic interventions has, I believe, great body and its movements often remain in the potential to be introduced in more conservative object: the potter’s fingerprint; the silversmith’s contexts than the US and the UK. Due to the subtle planishing mark; the stitches of the needle worker; ways in which objects can be rearranged and the irregular form of a glassblower’s vase. Such integrated into permanent collections, craft marks record the presence of a living person who intervention is regarded as a promising and exists at one “degree of separation” from the user. significantly safer curatorial method for initiating Ordinary people recognize this intuitively, and they discussion on contentious topics, especially in read a craft object as a symbol of human relation to violations of human rights. presence...In an increasingly dematerialised world, A number of interesting points emerged from these records of human presence become the small-scale audience research undertaken for increasingly important to people.’ 22 Queering the Museum. The curatorial approach of Craft interventions like those of Wilson or Smith integrating sexual difference through craft manage to integrate the voices of previously interventions and the depiction of sexual minorities disregarded minorities into permanent collections. was well received by visitors, even by people who This might enable more people to encounter these disclosed that their personal or religious beliefs stories, possibly for the very first time, as compared condemn, for instance, homosexuality. Intriguingly, to an exhibition confined to a gallery space and respondents made direct reference to the subtlety branded as a project on racial, sexual or other of this mode of LGBTQ portrayal as a strength of identities. In this way craft can be political as well the project, especially when compared to other as aesthetic or functional. Furthermore, regular use shows where sexual difference is the sole focus. of crafts in museum projects counters the usual While these answers suggest a level of hierarchies in which craft is subordinated and conservatism and homophobia, or at least hence amounts to another type of critique. Sanders discomfort with non-­heterosexuality, one thing explains how craft’s subordination in relation to art cannot go unnoticed: members of the public had works in favour of ‘those seeking to sustain class, considered sensitive and controversial topics they race, and gender domination by means of formalist might otherwise not have engaged with. Metcalf and traditional aesthetic theories that marginalise suggests that crafted objects lend themselves to the craft experience and craft maker’s subjectivity’.23 subtle and portrayals of otherness. 106 engage 33 Radical Craft Interventions in Museums and Galleries 107

Moreover, craft may be a particularly powerful tool lesbian and gay history and culture in social history in contexts where public discussion of ‘hot topics’ museums, 1994) and the following up study on tends to be disregarded or even suppressed. The Bourn’s findings by Angela Vanegas Representing( very nature of crafts, and people’s familiarity with lesbians and gay men in British Social History them, means that everyday products and materials Museums, 2002) offer an substantial insight into are seen to relate to the experience of minority the reasons behind practitioners’ reluctance to groups, stressing commonality and ordinariness, portray sexual diversity. making difference perhaps less threatening. 5. The acronym LGBTQ stands for people Overall, I will conclude by suggesting that the use of identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, radical craft interventions by contemporary artists is transgender or queer. an important tool for a socially purposeful museum. 6. Sandell, R. & Frost, S., (2010), ‘A persistent There is a place for complex portrayals and explicit, prejudice’ in Cameron, F. & Kelly, L., (eds) Hot provocative, segregated exhibition strategies. But Topics, Public Culture, Museums. Newcastle upon the use of crafted objects to emphasise what Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 150­-174 & communities share could be an alternative path to Sanders, J. H. (2008), ‘The Museum’s Silent Sexual the representation of invisible identities, and one Performance’ in Museums & Social Issues, vol. 3, that might reach a wider audience. no.1, Spring 2008, p.15­-28 Notes 7. museumaker (2011), A Guide to Unlocking the 1. O’Reilly, S. and Howarth, B., cited in Potential of Collections through Contemporary museumaker (2011), A Guide to Unlocking the Craft, p.7 Potential of Collections through Contemporary 8. Sanders, J. H. (2004), ‘Moving Beyond the Craft, p.6 Binary’ in Fariello, M.A., & Owen, P., (eds) Objects 2. Levin, A. (2010), ‘Introduction’ in Levin, A. (ed.) and Meaning; New perspectives on Art and Craft. Gender, Sexuality, and Museums. London and New Lanham, Maryland & London: The Scarecrow Press, York: Routledge, p.5 p.89 3. Halberstam, J. (2005), In a Queer Time and Place. 9. The provisional title of my PhD thesis is New York and London: New York University Press, ‘Museums and (hetero)normativity; Exploring the p.4 effect of inclusive interpretive strategies’ 4. The work, though not very recent, of Gabrielle 10. Tseliou, M. A. (2013), ‘Disruptive paradigms in Bourn (Invisibility: A study of the representation of museums and galleries: Challenging the 106 107

heteronormative frame’ in The International Journal 16. Berger, M. (2001), ‘Viewing the Invisible: Fred of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Wilson’s Allegories of Absence and Loss’ in Berger, Arts, vol.7, issue 2, p.1­12 M. (ed.) Fred Wilson; Objects and Installations 1979­ – 2000. Baltimore: Center for Art and Visual 11. SHOUT! Festival is the local annual festival of Culture, University of Maryland, p.10 Birmingham on queer arts and culture taking place at various stages across the city. Queering the 17. Sanders (2004) op.cit., p.94 Museum was the first time that the festival was 18. Yair, K. (2011) Craft and Wellbeing report of using Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery spaces Arts Council. 31 March 2011. http://www. among the places where its diverse events were craftscouncil.org.uk/aboutus/press­ room/­ taking place. The collaboration was extended to view/2011/craftand­ wellbeing?from=/about­ next year as well with a one-off LGBTQ tour us/press­ room/­ ‘Queering the Portrait’ by David Hoyle. 19. Ibid. 12. Promotional leaflet of Queering the Museum exhibition 2010 20. Schwarz, M. & K. Yair (2010) Making Value: craft & the economic social contribution of makers. 13. The Figure of a Youth Cruising was one of the June 2010. http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/ interventions critiquing the unconscious tendency files/file/7cec2fd1e3bdbe39/making_value_ of curators to display couples in male to female full_report.pdf pairs. The accompanying label reads ‘When displaying human figures, there is a tendency to 21. Recycle LACMA http://recyclelacma. pair up male and female figures into heterosexual blogspot.co.uk/ couples. Often this is done with no historical 22. Metcalf, B. (2004) ‘Evolutionary Biology and Its evidence that the artist intended this to happen’ Implications for Craft’ in Fariello, M.A., & Owen, P., 14. The Double­-Spouted Teapot was one of the (eds) Objects and Meaning; New perspectives on interventions to display aspects of gay slang. Art and Craft. Lanham, Maryland & London: The The accompanying labels reads ‘Tea­rooming’, Scarecrow Press, p.226 American gay slang for anonymous male­male 23. Sanders (2004) op.cit., p.88 sexual encounters in public toilets’ 15. Online Exhibition Catalogue of Queering the Museum exhibition 2010 http://www.bmag.org. uk/uploads/fck/file/Queeringbrochureweb.pdf­ 108 Review 109 Collaboration Through Craft Edited by Amanda Ravetz, Alice Kettle & Helen Felcey 2013, Bloomsbury ISBN PB 978-0-8578-5392-9 £13.12

Collaboration Through Craft aims to ‘insert craft No account runs to more than ten pages, and with into the growing contemporary debate about what the addition of separate introductions heading up it means to work with others – with the political each of the four sections, this can at times makes and cultural ramifications this brings – while also for disjointed, overly-condensed texts that are not questioning where craft stops and other territories always able to do justice to their subject. Perhaps begin’ (p.1). It does this by collecting sixteen ‘first- the collection’s offerings may most profitably be hand critical accounts’ of collaborative projects, thought of as guides for further exploration. largely carried out over the last decade, and I’ll focus on four of the projects here, one taken involving the crafts or craft practice. The impetus from each section, both to give an impression of for the publication was the Pairings project – the diversity of the contributions and to point to specifically the international conference in 2011 some of the repeated questions and assertions that led by Alice Kettle at Manchester Metropolitan surface in the book as a whole. University – that offered collaborative opportunities to ‘makers’ from differing disciplines. ‘Triangulation: Working towards a Practice of Collaboration’ is an account of shared practice by The resulting publication draws together the voices furniture maker David Gates, textile artist Alice of 27 contributors. This is a number that points to Kettle, and material culture historian Jane Webb. the breadth of contemporary craft practice, but is Their collaboration had its roots in the Pairings not a number necessarily suited to the book’s project, which included a touring exhibition used to relatively slender spine. Each chapter provides a showcase its outcomes. Geography and language theoretical overview to contextualise the makers’ predominate in their account, starting with a series practice, a description of the project, and of conversations that moved from discussion of the reflections on its impact and outcomes. role of text in recording and sharing crafts practice, 108 109

history and theory, through to personal histories, laundering process. The second project, Tactility and then to possible frameworks for collaboration. Factory, a collaboration with architect Ruth These conversations resulted in a list of words ‘... Morrow, explores methods of setting textiles like holes – surface – volume – planes – back – front...’ linen and velvet into concrete to create new which became touchstones for their work. building materials. What comes across in Belford’s Following visits to their respective workshops, they discussion of her work with Tony Ryan is their considered how these words could be ‘interpreted mutual curiosity about, and respect for, each and transformed into material and visual forms’, other’s subject knowledge and dexterity. Both which were then passed serially among the three recognised similarities in their approaches, which and worked on individually. The storing, balance trial and error with questioning and precise unwrapping and choosing of these objects measurement, constituting an informed, for exhibition was seen as an integral part of challenging, and open type of ‘play’. developing reflexive collaboration. They write of In his contribution to section three of the book, the value of this experience as lying in the ‘practical which looks at collaborations within and among difficulties and genuine excitement experienced in institutions, Stephen Knott examines the value maintaining the required openness and lack of of play as a reflexive practice in ‘Department 21: possessiveness around skills and materials’ (p.45). The Craft of Discomfort’. Subversive in intent, They interpret the ambivalent ownership status of Department 21 was set up in the ‘in-between’ the objects in positive terms, considering it a state spaces of the Royal College of Art when of possibility and space: ‘the objects...were all departmental areas were being remodelled. aspects of ourselves but were slightly altered or Initially, it provided shared events – film screenings, unfinished, leaving room for others’ (p.56). roundtable discussions and performances for Perhaps the most engaging account comes in the students throughout the college. It found, second section, which focuses on materials. The however, that its most effective encounters textile specialist Trish Belford’s open, direct style were generated when participants from diverse suits very well the strictures of the book’s format. departments were invited to collaborate in the She writes of two projects, the first a collaboration making of objects such as tables, chairs, trays and with fashion designer and activist Helen Storey and vessels for social gatherings, using the materials chemist Tony Ryan called Catalytic Clothing. They thrown out by the building work around them. devised a dress, made of concrete and textiles, to Finding themselves in unfamiliar territory, they demonstrate the potential of catalysts to purify air became suddenly aware of their own clumsiness when added to clothing via the domestic and lack of knowledge, experiencing a kind of 110 engage 33 Collaboration Through Craft 111

‘reversed pedagogy’ through a heightened This experience, for the curators, drew into focus awareness of the act of making. This, in part, ‘the very beautiful slips and transpositions of was due to a kind of disinterest in the value of the reason and result’, revealing ‘the complexity of finished outcome, given that they were creating thought that characterises deep engagement’. objects that ‘no-one owned’. These encounters What is perhaps most interesting in this account is provided participants with ‘breathing spaces’ the view it affords of the visitors encountering the within the competitive individualism of the intense exhibition. For all its physicality, it appeared difficult courses they were pursuing inside their for visitors to parse the practice enacted in front of departments. them, and snatches of conversations overheard suggested that they remained bound by the The formalising of ‘process’ into a performative language and habits of the economic culture spectacle is one of the issues addressed in the final we inhabit. section. In ‘Circling Back into That Thing We Cast Forward’, Judith Leemann and Shannon Stratton All of the contributions to the collection, either give an account of their co-curation of Gestures of explicitly or implicitly, claim a predisposition in Resistance at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, craft to reflect on its own practice. Its affinity for in Portland Oregon, in 2010. The exhibition, in collaboration allows this practice to be further effect, constituted a game of Telegraph (Chinese slowed, the better to make visible the mechanics Whispers). A temporary wall was erected. Artists of ‘making’, deferring or indeed circumventing the Sara Black and John Preus stood one on each side imperative of material outcome. This affinity is at and took turns delivering instructions to each other least in part attributed to craft’s capacity to for a day’s work, with the objective of creating a generate dialogue. The editors, Ravetz, Kettle and workspace for the visiting artists who would later Felcey, situate this capacity within an historical be involved in the project. At the end of a week the model, the ‘sociality’ of craft, as understood by wall was removed to reveal the hybrid platform, anthropologists and archaeologists for whom constructed from two people’s differing ‘many of the properties associated with craft – understandings of the same string of instructions. materials, tools, techniques of the body, practical Six artists then peopled this space in turn, each of skills – are highly social and open to shared them leaving behind their ‘mark and materials’ as working’ (p.3). The book also emphasises an they saw fit. The final artist, Theaster Gates, internal dialogue within craft practice between covered the whole structure and its contents with makers and their materials. Something that porcelain slip which, left to dry, transformed the surfaces in nearly every chapter is the makers’ space into a ‘calcified relic’ of the preceding weeks. acute, haptic sensitivity to materials and their 110 111

mutability. The process of making emerges as a practice in his epilogue to the collection. sustained series of responses to change, responses He suggests that the efficacy of short-term that, even within any ostensible progress toward collaborations is seldom apparent until much resolution, allow always for the possibility of failure. later, when participants withdraw to their own disciplines – ‘a word that is currently under-valued What is not always compelling in the volume is the but deserves respect in all of its registers of language being used for these dialogues. For a meaning’ (p.249). Through collaborative reader, the sheer multiplicity of voices creates a experience, artists can bring informed reflection mongrel lexicon, drawn from anthropology, back to their own practices. Indeed, he posits that linguistics, the sciences, computer technology, ‘it is only by taking ownership of these new vectors business, and the ubiquitous government directive. that most artists will really make collaboration The centrifugal voices are not always the most worthwhile’. persuasive or the most thought provoking. When writers give themselves the space to describe their Hannah Fussner observations using the vocabulary of their own SEN educator and freelance writer. discipline, we can glimpse a more eloquent medium for genuine exchange. I’m thinking here of Belford’s extended, technical description of the difficulties she encountered developing a process for creating devoré textiles, or of David Binns’ discussion of the process of fusing waste ceramics with crushed glass. Such contributions raise a question: is it the opportunity for sustained passages of reasoning, afforded them by their discrete craft practices, that in fact makes their agency within collaborative forums effective? Sustained reason cannot be claimed as a quality unique to craft practice, but such practice surely can be accepted as an equivalent to any rigorous academic discipline. Glenn Adamson, whose name, along with that of David Pye, is the one most frequently cited by others in the volume, returns the focus to singular 112 Review 113 Art and Innovation Edited by Veronica Sekules 2013, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia ISBN 978-0-946009-56-5 £5.00

Art and Innovation reflects on a project jointly run benefit. Liliya Serazetdinova maintained that by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA) InCrops and its clients would be able to raise and InCrops, an organisation based at the awareness of new markets within the creative University of East Anglia that supports sector for producers of sustainable, bio-based businesses in the East of England. InCrops stands materials. For Veronica Sekules, the project for ‘Innovation in Crops’. As part of the Adapt represented an opportunity for SCVA to extend Low Carbon Group, it works to increase low into new areas, and ‘to open up new ways to look carbon economic growth, advising on the at materials and making both from traditional and development or adoption of bio-based products contemporary perspectives.’ The ground for Art made from plants, algae, and agricultural and food and Innovation was laid by SCVA’s educational wastes. Not perhaps the most obvious partner for a outreach project The Culture of the Countryside, university museum renowned for its collection of a three year programme which aimed to create world art, but in introducing the project, John greater understanding of local heritage through French of InCrops describes several areas of artist-led workshop activities based around the common interest, such a need for fresh ways of SCVA’s world collections. A number of these artists thinking and a shared appreciation for innovative became involved with the Art and Innovation materials and sustainable design. research, chosen for their relevant skills or links with local projects. In Sekules’ words: ‘We had The idea behind the project was to invite a range of no particular expectations and required only that local artists to engage with a number of InCrops- the artists would visit the companies as often as supported companies, to design and create practically possible in the time allowed. They were artworks using bio-based materials produced by given a very open brief, to conduct whatever the businesses themselves. All parties stood to experiments they felt were relevant. They were 112 113

then required to present their findings at a seminar sustainable starch based plastic; and creating at which the entire group would be able to discuss pieces that raise awareness of environmental issues the results.’ such as climate change.’ Jones’ experiments led her to create sculptures and site-specific installations, With clear descriptions of the origins, process the latter sited temporarily within Thetford Forest and expected outcomes of the project by French, in the East of England. Jones also developed a Sekules and Serazetdinova, the publication moves performance piece using a variety of plastics, on to profile each of the artists who took part. and testified to the beneficial influence of Art and Although all attest to new inspiration and new Innovation in developing her working practices. directions in their work as a result of their involvement with Art and Innovation, some artists Other artists seemed to be still in the throes of are still at an exploratory stage, while others have exploration, and enjoyably so. Having arrived at already put their research into practice in the the project with a number of preconceptions as to creation of new artworks. how he expected he would work with his partner business, Hardy Bamboo, artist Mark Haywood Jacqui Jones began her research by experimenting quickly decided to cast aside his earlier ideas in with oil and starch-based plastics from Cyberpac, favour of pure experimentation with the material, in particular one named ‘Harmless Dissolve’, with no plan or design as to the finished outcome. a water-soluble biodegradable polymer that Haywood admits that it is still ‘very much a work breaks down naturally and harmlessly in nature. in progress’, as he continues to play and test the Encouraged by her preliminary investigations, she bamboo’s capabilities, and to consider the way that was introduced to two further InCrops-supported it fits with existing themes in his artistic practice. businesses, Marchant Manufacturing and A&O Bio In another partnership, Marcela Tršová worked Resins, both of which specialise in similar starch- with Woad Inc, and endeavoured to develop an based plastics. Having played with the materials innovative use of woad, an ancient dye with a long and made use of the company’s advice and association with East Anglia. Marcela experimented expertise, Jacqui began to take her work outdoors, with dyeing a range of different materials with to allow the environment to exert its own influence varying degrees of success, and her experiences on the biodegradable material. The message of have since led her to develop a new body of work. Jones’ work speaks through the medium itself: Tršová is also interested in creating multi-sensory ‘the impact of conventional plastic litter on the sculptures, and mixed essential oils sourced from environment; the connection between water Norfolk Lavender with different fibres to try to soluble plastic and water in the landscape; the understand the longevity of the distillations. She creation of interventions, site specifically, with 114 engage 32 Reassembling the Barricades 115

has begun to combine these ideas with knowledge others worried about the commercial sensitivity of gleaned through her dye experiments, and intends their products. to create sculptural objects from fibres infused with And yet perhaps it is within this slightly tense liaison essential oils that have been dyed with woad and that the real ‘Innovation’ of the project lies. Shared weld. Other contributors to Art and Innovation trust within an unusual partnership can push were Kaavous Clayton, Samuel Abelman, Carlos boundaries and break with convention, to give Gonzalez and Andi Sapey. unexpected and varied results. ‘The main value Although the project clearly has had significant of the programme,’ writes Sekules, ‘has been in, impact on the artists involved, as well as on InCrops firstly, the open and generous sharing of ideas and the SCVA, one voice missing from the dialogue between creative and commercial enterprises is that of the businesses themselves. According to which has led to greater mutual understanding, John French, although some of the companies did which was one of the most remarkable results…’ not initially view the project as relevant to their It is clear that lessons have been learnt on all sides business, ‘without a doubt, the companies we and the publication is very honest about this in its support who interacted with the artists came concluding summary. Despite its experimental to see their activities and the value of their own nature, the project ultimately succeeded in its business processes from a completely different remit to bring two very different worlds together, perspective and all changed their approach as a which resulted in an array of new ideas and result.’ It would have perhaps added some balance unprecedented concepts. The experience also to the publication to include reports, even if brief, provided the artists involved with fresh inspiration from the businesses involved. In her contribution, and a greater sense of the part they can play in Veronica Sekules alludes to a less-than-easy conserving the environment through their choice relationship within some of the artist and business of materials. Art and Innovation is not the end partnerships – perhaps a likely consequence of of the journey, but the first step of a resourceful a project that matches creative individuals who and pioneering venture that paves the way for are not usually bound by rules, with commercial further cross-disciplinary experiments and research companies who have a commitment to their in the future. business, staff and premises. Although artists and scientists might employ original thinking in Ailbhe Mac Eoin their investigations in similar ways, it transpired Communications Officer, engage that some of the companies were not as engaged in the project as they could have been, whilst 114 115

Weblinks http://www.scva.ac.uk http://www.incropsproject.co.uk http://www.uea.ac.uk http://www.adaptlowcarbongroup.co.uk www.jacquijones.co.uk www.markhaywood.co.uk www.marcelatrsova.com 116 Contributors’ Details 117

Helen Adams is a museum professional Connect to enable regional library services to whose work involves collections research develop relationships with arts organisations. and interpretation, audience engagement and She previously worked as Education and Outreach development. After beginning her career at the Manager for Compton Verney. In a voluntary Victoria and Albert Museum, she has worked at capacity she has been a regional representative the Pitt Rivers Museum since 2007 on diverse for engage in the past. projects including improvements to gallery Christine Checinska writes about the relationship interpretation, making collections accessible online, between cloth, culture and race from the creating audio and multimedia content, and perspective of the African Diaspora. The cultural developing research networks and partnerships. exchanges that result from movement and She is currently Project Curator & Engagement migration, creating hybridised cultural forms, Officer for the Museum’s VERVE project (2012- are recurring themes. The (dis)connections 2017), which seeks to combine gallery redisplay between personal history and received social with innovative public programming. history is an ongoing interest. Her PhD, Colonizin’ Deirdre Buckley is currently Learning and in Reverse! the Creolised Aesthetic of the Windrush Engagement Manager at Craftspace (job share) Generation, was awarded by Goldsmiths Centre for initiating and leading on a range of projects. Cultural Studies in 2009. She has since collaborated As part of her role she undertakes consultancy with Iniva on various projects including Second for Craftspace and is currently the evaluator for Skins: Cloth & Difference, (2009), and Social Fabric, a Happy Museums project at Bilston Craft Gallery, (2012). She is currently a Post-Doctoral Research is providing developmental support to staff at Fellow in Art & Design at University of East London. Ironbridge Gorge Museum, and working with Arts 116 117

Deirdre Figueiredo, MBE, is currently Director provided services for artists and art related projects of Craftspace. She has worked as a curator and and museum exhibitions. For the past 11 years he manager in the field of contemporary visual arts, has been the exhibition manager for the Miami craft and museums for over 25 years developing Museum of Science where he was the exhibit particular expertise in diversity, socially engaged designer for Amazon Voyage; Vicious Fishes and practice and audience development issues. In a Other Riches. He recently received a Master of wider role she has contributed to a range of Arts degree in Asian Studies, his thesis focused advisory panels, boards and steering groups on the Mingei Movement and Contemporary including Arts Council England West Midlands American Ceramics. Regional Council and currently Turning Point West Joe Hogan has worked as a basketmaker since Midlands steering group. She is the Arts and 1978. He came to basketmaking at a time when Culture Champion for the Third Sector Assembly in the local indigenous styles of Irish baskets were Birmingham and is a board member of Axis, Punch dying away. He spent many years discovering and a trustee of The Crafts Study Centre, Farnham. more about these baskets and how to make She is the Co-Secretariat of CraftNet, a Crafts them, and this work culminated in the writing Leadership Network. of Basketmaking in Ireland, published in 2001. Hannah Fussner has degrees in English Literature Although he still makes functional baskets he from universities in the UK and the US, and an MA has over the past fifteen years or so, become in Education in Museums and Galleries. Currently, increasingly interested in making non-functional she works as a SEN Coordinator at a London or sculptural baskets. He also runs basketmaking school, and as a freelance writer. courses. www.joehoganbaskets.com James Herring received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Penny Jones is an arts and education consultant degree in ceramics from Florida International working in gallery and museum education and arts University. He was subsequently an artist-in- in health. She currently coordinates Skills in the residence at Penland School of Crafts in North Making for the National Society for Education in Carolina. He was the Visual Art Director for Ground Art and Design (NSEAD). Other clients include the Level, an alternative gallery at the South Florida Art Crafts Council, National Trust and the Specialist Center in Miami Beach. While there he curated Subject Network for Ceramics Museums. She many exhibitions and oversaw the selection process managed engage’s Watch this Space programme and installation of shows at that venue. He worked from 2004-2011 which enabled partnerships extensively in the film industry as a scenic artist, between schools, teachers, galleries and museums. set builder and owned a fabrication company that 118 engage 32 Contributors’ Details 119

Ailbhe Mac Eoin graduated from Trinity College Director of Art at Dulwich College Shanghai. Dublin with an M.Phil in Irish Art History, and went Previously he directed the pioneering programme on to study for an MA in Arts Management and of artist residencies in education at the Oliver Holt Cultural Policy at University College Dublin. She has Gallery, Dorset, UK. He was part of the curatorial worked for galleries in both Ireland and the UK, team that produced ExLab, a programme of art/ and is currently employed as engage’s science collaborations on the Jurassic Coast Communications Officer. UNESCO World Heritage Site, for London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. His recent writing has focused Frances McDonald is a freelance professional; on the different experience of contemporary art project manager, curator and writer. Formerly between Shanghai and London and can be found Studio Manager at Joseph Walsh Studio, she now in the Asia-based Galleries magazine, online on works primarily in the craft sector. Frances has ArtRadar and Randian, in the British Art Journal, organised craft exhibitions in Ireland and the US and the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. and currently collaborates with SO Fine Art Editions, a Dublin gallery that shows studio craft. Maria-Anna Tseliou is a PhD candidate at the She has written on Irish studio craft and is currently School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. completing an MA in Design History and Material The provisional title of her thesis is ‘Museums and Culture at the National College of Art & Design, (hetero) normativity.’ It explores the effects of Dublin. inclusive interpretive strategies, and how inclusive curatorial approaches might contribute to the Rachel Payne is a Senior Lecturer in Art Education cultural inclusion of disadvantaged social groups at Oxford Brookes University. She has worked in and eventually to the promotion of human rights Initial Teacher Education since 2004, manages and values of equality and respect for cultural the Artist Teacher Scheme MA programme and diversity through a spatial or thematic teaches on undergraduate modules focusing on contextualisation of the ‘other.’ Overall, her education, film and media. Rachel’s research research interests have developed around the interests include visual enquiry, methodologies socially purposeful museum and the representation and culture within education. How the visual and of sexual and other minorities. research enquiry combine to enhance meaning is of particular interest, especially when considering its socio-cultural context. Andrew Stooke is an artist, educator and writer based in Shanghai and London. He is currently 118 engage Journals 119

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engage 32: Citizenship and Belonging Editor: Karen Raney This issue explores the themes of citizenship, identity and belonging, and the role that gallery Back issues 31-15, 12, 8 education cal play in exploring these issues. Available online and in hard copy. Visit www.engage.org/journal for details engage is the lead professional association All contents © engage unless stated otherwise. promoting understanding and enjoyment engage journal is published twice yearly by of the visual arts through gallery education. engage, the National Association for Gallery As well as the engage journal, engage’s Education (charity registration number 1087471, programme includes innovative projects, OSCR no. SC039719). conferences and seminars, training and networking programmes, and advocacy to engage governments and funding bodies. engage Rich Mix, 35–47 Bethnal Green Road, has a membership of around 900, including London E1 6LA galleries, museums and arts centres across T: +44 (0) 20 7729 5858 the UK and in 24 countries internationally. F: +44 (0) 20 7739 3688 E: [email protected] For details about membership please visit W: www.engage.org/journal www.engage.org/join Design engage is supported by Arts Council England, Unlimited Creative Scotland and the Arts Council of Wales, www.weareunlimited.co.uk and by charitable foundations. engage is committed to maximising access Donating to engage enables us to continue throughout its programmes. This journal is bringing the visual arts to new audiences. available in a range of formats. For more For more information or to make a donation information, contact [email protected] visit www.engage.org/about/donate.aspx The Editor and engage are grateful for the kind support of the contributors and of the Editorial Advisory Board. The views expressed in engage journal are not necessarily endorsed by the Editorial Advisory Board or by engage. ISSN 136593800 25

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