The Craft Revolution

For those of us interested in twentieth century craftsmanship, Dartington Hall in Devon, is a place to be revered and celebrated. Craft tradition at Dartington goes back a long way, the hall was founded in the 1920’s, based on the idea that ‘the arts and craft [are] the foundations of human flourishing’.

Dorothy Elmhirst, the co-founder of Dartington was greatly influenced by William Morris and one of the first artists that she invited to Dartington in 1926 was the potter Bernard Leach (pictured above in his studio at Shinner's Bridge, Dartington). Leach’s former assistant Sylvia Fox-Strangways installed a kiln at Dartington and felt it was her duty to bring art to everyone on the estate from ‘children to bricklayers’.

The Elmhirsts were pioneers and they poured their resources into the “Dartington Experiment” – restoring the estate buildings and setting up a host of farming, forestry and educational projects. Early initiatives included Dartington Hall School, Dartington Tweed Mill and later Dartington Glass. They also commissioned craftspeople to make unique work for the estate, including the beautiful Modernist tapestries by Elizabeth Peacock, still hanging in the Great Hall. Dartington quickly became a magnet for artists, architects, writers, philosophers and musicians from around the world, creating an exceptional centre of creative activity.

The estate has just appointed a new chairman and with his support launched a series of craft courses which hopefully will restore the links between Dartington and craft. The Craft Revolution features a diverse range of courses from furniture making to building a tiny home, brewing beer, dressmaking, cheesemaking and kiln building.

The Spoon Camp with Barn the Spoon sounds particularly good. Barn is an excellent spoon carver and the camp is a whole weekend of spoon and bowl carving for beginners, newcomers and anyone who would like to practice their spoon carving skills. There will be camping in the woods, sourdough pizza, coffee, local ales, cider, films and fresh woodland air… All while learning how to carve spoons, bowls and utensils.

It's a brave move for Dartington but as Bernard Leach said, “with hindsight, the years at Dartington were of thought and exchange of thought and friendships, a time of enrichment and expansion for which I am deeply grateful. […] For me personally, the years there provided a pause in my life, between East and West, during which I had the opportunity to assess its basic values, Dartington was a brave effort, worth all the cost.”

Spoon Camp - A Weekend in the Woods with Barn the Spoon, takes place from Thurs 1st - Sunday 4th October 2015, at North Woods on the Dartington Estate, Devon.

My New Book

Last year was a busy year for me. I wrote two books, had two very young children, and I generally ran around trying to do far too much. I think I might be still recovering. The nice thing, is that the first book, The Sustainable Design Book, has just come out. Because a good amount of time passes between writing a book and it being printed and available to buy, I had sort of forgotten what I had written. So, it was a pleasant surprise when a couple of copies arrived in the post and I could flick through the pages reading. "It's quite good" I thought. Far better than I had remembered anyway! The book contains profiles and interviews with over 250 designers working in a sustainable way. I've focused on material use and good design, highlighting experimental, natural materials and also a considered use of traditional materials. I'd like to think that there is an excellent range of products in there, hopefully there is something to appeal to everyone, whether they are a design professional or simply a casual reader. I'll be featuring some of the more in-depth interviews from the book on here over the next few weeks. I hope you'll enjoy reading them.

To buy a copy of The Sustainable Design Book, please order direct from the Laurence King website and use the code PROCTOR35 to get a 35% discount.

Maker Spaces

Maker Spaces is a new book which features the homes and studios of creative makers. It includes a variety of styles and disciplines from Donna Wilson's large warehouse in East London, to jewellery designer Teresa Robinson's converted garage in Portland, Oregon. The book looks first at each maker's home and then at their workspace. I found the studios most intriguing, as we rarely have the opportunity to see the places where other people work, as well as their specialised tools and machinery. I'm interested in how a workspace increasingly reflects its owners personality as it evolves into an efficient and well used working environment. My own recent experience of setting up a small pottery has taught me that tools and materials will find their way to the best place through daily use. It seems that only by allowing our working methods to gradually shape our environment, can we create the best, most efficient and uplifting space for ourselves. To see my own maker space, click here for a recent picture on Instagram.

Images from Maker Spaces by Emily Quinton, photography by Helen Cathcart, published by Ryland Peters & Small.

The Future is in our Hands

Tomorrow the Crafts Council launches Make: Shift, a conference taking place in London exploring the emerging relationship between crafts and technology. This follows an eventful few months where craft and craftsmanship have been (rightly) making headlines. It all started sometime last year when the UK government's Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) proposed dropping crafts from its list of recognised creative industries. Of course, this is crazy talk and it immediately produced a backlash. New research from the Crafts Council shows that last year craft skills generated £3.4bn for the UK economy, with 150,000 people employed in businesses driven by craft skills, in engineering, science, design, architecture, fashion and film. The figure is far larger than expected and includes the value that craftspeople bring to different industries including science and technology. Examples include the glass artist Matt Durran's work at the Royal Free Hospital to develop glass moulds for growing bio-engineered organs such as noses; and jeweller Lynne Murray’s pioneering work in augmented reality through her company Holition, which develops interfaces through which customers can virtually try on jewellery. So craft is important (I never doubted it anyway!) and just over a week ago the Crafts Council launched their brilliant new manifesto at the House of Commons which aims to reinstate craft skills as a core part of the UK's education curriculum. Making develops creativity, inventiveness, and problem-solving, yet strangely it is gradually being dropped from schools and universities. "Between 2007 and 2012 following changes in educational policies, student participation in craft-related GCSEs fell by 25 per cent," says the Crafts Council. "In higher education, craft courses fell by 46 per cent." This comes at a time when elsewhere around the globe investment in creative education is rising. The Craft Council's manifesto makes five calls for change, including putting craft and making at the heart of education, building more routes into craft careers, bringing the entrepreneurial attitude of makers into education, investing in craft skills throughout careers and promoting higher education and artistic and scientific research in craft. Change is needed - a number of leading education courses for craft skills have faced closure over the past five years. These include the celebrated Harrow Ceramics course, Bucks New University in High Wycombe, whose excellent Furniture Design course focused partially on traditional craft skills and now Falmouth University has just announced that it is closing its Contemporary Crafts degree to make way for Digital Gaming and Business Entrepreneurship. The Contemporary Crafts degree, with historic roots in Cornwall's creative culture, is considered a vital part of the Cornish economy. Living in Cornwall myself, I find it misjudged of them to close this course. Transforming it would be a far better option - and if they want ideas of how - I've got plenty! An online petition has been launched to try and save the Contemporary Crafts degree at Falmouth. You can sign the petition here. As the Crafts Council's manifesto says, "Our future is in the making. It is in our hands".

DIY Colour Recipe Book

Laura Daza is a colourist who transforms raw materials into pigment. In her project Colour Provenance, she explores the ancient origins of colour, looking at both how it was sourced, crafted and utilised, and how different colours, shades and tints have the power to affect mood and emotion. Laura has recently released a beautiful book based on her findings from the project. Called the DIY Colour Recipe Book, it features a palette of eight ancient colours: whiteshell, saffron, ochre, verdigris, malachite, azurite, mummy brown and lamp black, and explains how to make them. Laura shares her personal methods, secrets and experiences in creating the colours, and describes processes such as making green from malachite, considered to be the first green ever used, or white from ground ostrich eggshells, a technique commonly used by Egyptians. The science of colour is a fascinating subject and this book would be an inspiring guide to anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the origin of everyday colour in a hands-on and authentic way.

Photography: KKgas

Changes

I'm not sure if anybody still reads this blog but if you do, you'll notice that a few changes have been made. In a bid to simplify and focus more on what I am interested in, I'll be writing more about craftsmanship, materials, people and their processes. In fact, much of it will be very similar to before, just presented in a slightly different way. It turned out that Futurustic wasn't a very good name. Almost everybody read and heard it incorrectly as Futuristic, causing a lot of confusion in emails, social media tags and general conversation. As anyone who knows me will testify, I'm really not very futuristic, so it seemed strange and I got tired of trying to explain a silly name.

I hope that Modern Craft Workshop is a clear and simple title that tells you something about the site's content. I'll be profiling some exceptionally skilled craftspeople, celebrating materials, techniques and good design. I aim to post once a week on a Thursday, because a little bit of routine (but not too much) is good for everyone. I hope you'll enjoy what you see.

Chelsea Miller Knives

When I wrote my post on Madesmith last week, I was struck by how insanely beautiful Chelsea Miller's one-of-a-kind, rustic knives are. The great thing about Madesmith is that you can read the maker's stories, and when I read about Chelsea, I liked her even more. An actress, who grew up on a farm surrounded by craftspeople, she started making knives almost by accident, while searching for more tactile work. “I had some unknown, unnamed frustration in wanting to do something with my hands," she explains. These days, when not performing, she goes into her workshop, puts on her mask and headphones and gets busy. The blades are cut from high carbon steel repurposed from discarded farrier files and tools. The grater-like etchings on those files give Chelsea Miller Knives their unique patterns. “While I’m not the first person to make a knife out of this type of material, I am the first person the leave the teeth on it intact,” she says. A completely sustainable product, Chelsea also sources the wood for the handles from scrap piles on her family’s farm, often choosing apple wood for its swirling pattern. The entire process can take about two days to complete a knife. For as Chelsea explains, "to me, my knives reflect the simplicity and complexities of being alive."

All photography courtesy of Madesmith.

Anne Lowe Design

Thank you Blissful Blog for introducing me to this lovely house. The home of interior decorator and stylist Ann Lowe, it features a row of beautiful large windows with views of open countryside. I'm also taken with the mix of vintage cane furniture, unusual tile formations and inspiring textiles - not to mention the concrete sinks and worktops! The outdoor entertaining area looks pretty interesting too. Roofed outdoor areas are unusual in the UK but they make so much sense, I would love to see more of them.

New Magazine: Kindling

I am on a brief holiday in Scotland at the moment - visiting family, but I wanted to let you know about a new magazine that I am intrigued about, which celebrates fatherhood. Through essays, interviews, editorials, art and photography, Kindling Quarterly aims to highlight creative individuals whose work and lives are inseparable from their role as a parent. This is a welcome discussion, as men who are active caregivers are no longer a novelty in today's society and thankfully, the magazine does not present them as such. Instead it provides a thoughtful dialogue about fatherhood that is frequently missing from our current cultural landscape. While the subjects of Kindling's stories may be fathers, each issue is also designed to appeal to anyone interested in art, creativity and community, as the magazine playfully assesses and celebrates the multitude of experiences that form contemporary fatherhood. The first issue is out now and I am looking forward to seeing many more.

www.kindlingquarterly.com

Happy New Year!

I love New Year and always make a tonne of resolutions. I hardly ever keep them but that's not really the point - it's the making of them that I enjoy. This year, along with all my regulars like eat less, cook more, spend less, walk every day and do my hair at the very least, occasionally, I've decided that I'd like to take more photos. To help me along the way, I'll be posting a picture a day on Instagram. Feel free to follow me @futurustic. I'll also be posting lots more photos here on the blog in my regular A Few Photos posts. I hope you'll enjoy looking at them. Here's to a healthy, happy and productive 2013!

Ho Ho Ho!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have an extremely fun-filled holiday and look forward to seeing you back here in the new year... Rebecca x

p.s. These pretty crackers are from www.liberty.co.uk