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- Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010
Craft Research - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010
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Bamboo canopy: Creating new reference-points for the craft of the Kotwalia community in India through sustainability
More LessThis article presents a framework to provide the Kotwalia, a traditional bamboo working community in India, with new directions on which to base craft evolution. The article proposes that collaborative innovation between designer and craftsperson is a means of expanding the craft vocabulary and tapping contemporary markets. It is also argued that a link between the apparently conflicting tenets of sustainability can be achieved through responsible and strategic design innovation which integrates the social, economic, ecological and cultural aspects.
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Music and textiles interact
Authors: Nigel Morgan, Alice Fox, Phil Legard and Matthew RobinsonThis article describes a body of collaborative work titled Fifteen Images (Le Jardin Pluvieux). This web-based artefact brings novel approaches to textile representation in work produced under the umbrella of a practice-based research project in music called Active Notation a collective name for a set of approaches that seek to re-conceptualize the nature of music notation and the performer's relationship with it. Research undertaken during the creation of Fifteen Images investigated both aural and visual reception and issues of materiality and temporality in digital representations: how textile objects might become effective visual partners in the temporal domain of score-led music performance. Developed to exist primarily as a software artefact on the web, it links to a physical installation and performance that has stylistic and theoretical associations with the UK touring exhibition Taking Time (Carnac 2009). A description is given of the digital assets that support the project as a whole, the digital animation of textile images and the interaction with live musical performance. The article concludes with a review of the completed work and implications for future projects.
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Material inspiration: From practice-led research to craft art education
More LessCraft art discourse has centred on the use of physical materials. In Finland, craft art students are trained to understand various techniques and the materiality of their chosen medium. However, the materiality is often taught in terms of physical properties (e.g. tensile, elasticity, etc.). Conceptual or expressive properties (e.g. feel, impression, etc.) are hardly discussed and it is left to students to experiment with these properties in their studio practice. The conceptual issues of craft art practice concerning the use of materials thus remain personal and implicit. This article illuminates how the conception of materialness generated from within practice-led research in textile art can stimulate students' creativity in relation to physical materials and enable them to design the meaning and aesthetic of their work more intentionally. The consideration of materialness can thus serve as a useful means for textile artists and other craft artists in creating meaningful artworks with any chosen materials.
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Surface and substance: A call for the fusion of skill and ideas in contemporary enamel jewellery
More LessThis article references the ongoing practice-led research project, Innovation in Vitreous Enamel Surfaces for Jewellery. The project is based on my experience of enamel as an innovative, expressive and contemporary material. Drawing on extensive contextual research and my knowledge of the subject area I argue that, despite this apparent potential, there is little evidence of innovative practice within the field of enamelled jewellery in Britain. I outline the cultural, historical and educational factors that I believe contribute to this deficiency. I examine the two distinct and opposing approaches to enamel that are prevalent within contemporary jewellery. The first of these is a traditional fine practice that is predicated on skill and the inherent beauty of the materials; the second includes conceptually motivated work, where a rejection of both the skill base and the moribund traditional associations attributed to fine enamel practice have led to enamel work that demonstrates an impoverished skill base. I argue that the prejudice that inhibits innovation can be countered by wide dissemination of best practice and give examples of an alternative approach which values skill and knowledge, in combination with a conceptual approach, to produce work which is genuinely innovative.
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The adaptive capacity of rural crafts in the face of global challenges
More LessThis article is concerned with the adaptive capacity of craft based on research conducted as part of the Ph.D. The perseverance of Craft in a Local Rural Context. The objective of this PhD research is to explore the ways in which rural craft systems constantly transform their reality.
This research sets out from the idea that craft is a transformative activity that produces goods through traditional technical knowledge and the use of simple tools, and where a collective meaning is expressed in the product. The proposition is that craft stands out as a socio-ecological system, which relates a productive activity (and the necessary natural resources) with the material and immaterial legacy of a rural community. From this perspective, craft can be understood as a social system with mechanisms of a particular perseverance that can face the challenges of global dynamics.
In the article, we review different concepts concerning the adaptive capacity of social systems. Based on the model suggested by Anderies et al. (2004), we analyse the configuration of the socio-ecological artisan system in a rural context and its social structure. Finally, we reflect on the elements that constitute the adaptive capacity of craft in order to elicit the economic and cultural mechanisms of perseverance of craft in rural contexts. Thus the article provides a model of the adaptive capabilities of craft, and this allows craftspeople to change and respond to the disturbances that affect the social, economic and ecological structure based on their technological memory.
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Exploring net political craft: From collective to connective
More LessCraft and design has had a dialectical history since early modernism, where craft often sided with the romanticism of the arts and craft movement, while design became primarily market-led and allied with mass production, industrialism and consumerism. This conflict, which deepened through the twentieth century, is now exhibiting signs of reconciliation.
What happens at the borders between design and craft today, when a new generation of makers trespass and extend across this raft, to combine post-industrial design, open source shared engagement and net political craft?
An exhibition and series of workshops at the Jnkping County Museum, Sweden, set out to examine the new household tactics of the global popular crafts and the transversal movements of critical engagement, re-examining household production, craftivism and critical design.
This article specifically examines the Counterfeit Crochet project of artist Stephanie Syjuco whose works were exhibited at the show, to see how she uses networked craft as a critical tool for investigating contemporary modes of political power, globalized production, consumerism and DIY activism.
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Jakob Schlaepfer: A case study in laser innovation and the unexpected
Authors: Rob Huddleston and Paul WhittakerThis report aims to counter some assumptions about the nature of industrial technology by exploring the creative potential of the distancing effect inherent in laser materials processing.
A case study of an industrially based project involving the textile company Jakob Schlaepfer, based in St Gallen, Switzerland, will provide the research material and underpin the report. The case study presents the development and expansion, by Schlaepfer, of self-customized laser technologies and how different laser processes have come to form an integral part of the design and production innovation process. Through this historical picture of Schlaepfer's commitment to new technologies and investments that encourage innovation, we aim to offer two propositions that are facilitated by the distance inherent in the creative use of lasers. Firstly, that it is possible to utilize technologies normally linked with impersonalized standardization in production, to instead create experimental products; and secondly, that technologies normally used to replicate the unexpected and unique capacities of traditional making, can be in-themselves capable of un-programmed unpredictability.
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Crossing boundaries: A partnership of craft, industry and science through practice-led research into the patination of pewter
By Trish WoodsThe colouration of metal has a long and well-documented history. However, the colouration of pewter has not been widely exploited by industry or artists. What knowledge exists demonstrates potential, and therefore possibilities, for future expansion of the field. The research into defining, refining and applying new and evolved processes and techniques aims to provide new opportunities for craft and industry, expanding the market potential of the material through the development of new products. As part of a Ph.D. research project, the author collaborated with the science community and industry to develop a range of new processes and procedures for the colouration of pewter, with the intention to apply the outcomes of the research to new designs for jewellery and giftware. The collaboration necessitated establishment of a constructive dialogue across disparate practices and the integration of diverse research processes and procedures. This article discusses the alliance of craft, science and industry as experienced through a partnership with The International Tin Research Institute (ITRI Ltd), the pewter manufacturing industry and the maker/ researcher. Drawing on the researcher's experience, the article highlights the value of collaborative approaches to craft and contemporary practice, the positive discourse that can exist between industry, external agencies and the craft practitioner, and the impact that relationship can have on design decisions.
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Review: Classified personal: Drummond H Masterton's toolkit
More LessClassified personal: Drummond H Masterton's toolkit
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Review: Metallic Sound by Kinor Jiang and Junichi Arai
More LessMetallic Sound by Kinor Jiang and Junichi Arai Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, 18 January17 February 2010
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Review: Quilts 1700-2010: Stories in Stitch Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 20 March 4 July 2010
More LessQuilts 1700-2010: Stories in Stitch Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 20 March 4 July 2010
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Reviews: The Craft Reader, Glenn Adamson (ed.),(2010); A Theory of Craft, Howard Risatti,(2007); Reworthit! A catalogue of the W001worths project Reworthit!, Stephen Bottomley (2010),
Authors: Graham McLaren, Victoria Mitchell and David HumphreyThe Craft Reader, Glenn Adamson (ed.), (2010) Oxford and New York: Berg, 641 pp., ISBN 978 184788 304 9, cloth, 70.00, ISBN 978 184788 303 2, paperback, 24.99
A Theory of Craft, Howard Risatti, (2007) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 327pp, ISBN 978-0-8078-3135-9 Hardback, 42.95 (USA)/35.50 (UK).
Reworthit! A catalogue of the W001worths projectReworthit! Stephen Bottomley (2010),68 pp., ISBN 978-1-904443-39-1, paperback, 19.95
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Review: Crafts Council Conference Assemble 2010
By Tim BoltonReview of the Crafts Council Conference Assemble 2010 LSO St Lukes, 22 June 2010
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