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Contemporary Crafts

Contemporary Crafts explores urban and rural craft practices in North America and Britain, examining how the country/city dichotomy creates differing approaches, practices and objects. Analysed in the context of environment and localized history, crafted objects are shown to embody or critique particular urban/rural myths and traditions.

This book was the first to consider links between post-1970s craft practices and their immediate geographical and cultural environments. Given the paucity of critical writing or archived documentation about craft practice, research was conducted primarily through discussions and studio visits with crafts practitioners. The book covers William Morris traditions, cutting edge work, small-scale gallery practice and environmental works, arranged according to urban and rural visions of practice. Paul Greenhalgh commented in the Journal of Design History that ‘This arrangement was refreshing’... and ‘This is a good, terse and useful volume’, when considering it against Britton-Newel’s Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft, Risatti’s A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression, and Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft (all 2007).

Contemporary Crafts is available worldwide, has sold well and been widely reviewed: Journal of William Morris Studies, 2009; Ceramic Art and Perception, March 2009; Crafts, March/April 2009; and Journal of Design History, v 22, no 4 2009. Reviews acknowledge the openness of approach that places crafts within its specific contexts. Glenn Adamson wrote in Crafts: ‘Far from assuming that craft can only find a home in pastoral retreat, she argues that such 'urban flaneurs' as Pierre Degen, Grayson Perry and Lucy Casson thrive in London's milieu of floating signifiers.’

Maria Elena Buszek examined Contemporary Crafts against Glenn Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft at the SDA Conference 2009. The book is referenced on makers’ websites including Dail Behennah, Jenny Beavan, David Binns, Christian Burchard, Jennifer Trask, Jody Pinto, Tess Jaray, Gyöngy Laky and Mark Shapiro.

Contemporary Crafts is a sole-authored 80,000 word empirical investigation into the range of craft practice in America and England that took 3 years to complete. There were few craft texts available, with much existing research being discipline-based. Craft practices had not previously been aligned and research in related fields was required to formulate robust frameworks to position the breadth of material covered.

The research involved extensive gallery and workshop visits, with 26 practitioner interviews resulting in 4,000 hours of analysis. Archival and library research was undertaken in twelve repositories in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Coventry and London.