IC:Innovative Craft - Directors

Director: Dr Elizabeth Goring

Dr Elizabeth Goring

Looking back over my life and career to date­ as researcher, writer, curator, collector and lecturer - I am struck by the coherence of the passions that have always driven me. The same themes continually re-emerge: the power of objects to communicate; admiration of, and respect for, those with the skill to express themselves through hand-crafted objects; and the thousands of compelling stories demanding to be told through and about objects and the people who make and use them. IC:Innovative Craft allows me an opportunity to draw on my experience to weave these threads together.

Elizabeth was a curator at the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh from 1982-2008, where she was responsible for the collections of modern jewellery as well as Mediterranean Archaeology. From 1992-95 she was also Deputy Project Director for the new Museum of Scotland.

She has considerable experience of curating exhibitions, and is an active researcher, writer and lecturer.

Other career highlights include:

  • 2000 | Co-curated Fired with Colour (with Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums), which placed contemporary enamelling in a historic context.
  • 1998 | Co-curated Jewellery Moves (with Amanda Game), which presented the work of some 130 artists from 24 countries. The ground-breaking exhibition attracted more than 50,000 visitors and the accompanying book is now in its third impression. It is still widely used as a text world-wide.
  • Has lectured and published extensively on the work of major international jewellers.
  • Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (London).
  • 2004- | Honorary Research Fellow, University of Glasgow
  • 2005- | Honorary Research Fellow, Edinburgh College of Art
  • 2006 | Juror for the Society of North American Goldsmiths’ Exhibition in Print
  • 2002 | Juror for the Design Podium at Inhorgenta
  • 2001 | Assessor for the Creative Scotland Awards
  • 2000 | Judge for the Jerwood Applied Arts prize for Jewellery




Large carved wooden sculpture and colourful large ceramic vessels

IC Projects

'Dryonautica', lettercutting in oak by Gary Breeze, 2008; 'The Ecstasy of St Teresa', painted and polished ceramics by Nicholas Rena, 2008. Part of Jerwood Contemporary Makers, 2008. Photo courtesy Shannon Tofts.