IC:Innovative Craft Blog

Exceptional works of innovative craft

Posted Monday 29 June 2009, 11:32am

Busy month. Sorry so little blog activity. Saw three exceptional works of innovative craft, as below:

Crown Derby and Ken Eastman at The Scottish Gallery (3-27 June 2009)

Take one exceptional Edinburgh trained potter; several bags of china clay; a set of exquisite industrial pattern books from the English Midlands, dating back to 1750s; mix in imagination, perserverance, mouldmakers, a lot of patience and a couple of enlightened dealers and watch something magical happen. The divergent histories of industrial production and independent studio production are brought together and reanimated in contemporary form.

Eastman’s Crown Derby productions are sensuous, rich 21st century vessels which have retained the poetry of the handmade whilst exploring the potential of larger scale collaboration. His works may have arrived too late to save the historic British ceramics industry but they go a long way to creating an imaginative future for the field.

Details of the exhibition are available on The Scottish Gallery website.

Artists Rooms at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (until November 2009)

Have to thank Marina Vaizey for this one. Normally have Sunday off from art - to maintain work/life balance etc. En route to The National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies lecture Marina was very keen to see the Artists Rooms at the Scottish National Galleries of Modern Art. The Anthony D’Offay collection’s first outing includes drawings and prints by American/Latvian artist Vija Celmins. Intense, poetic renderings of night skies; spiders webs; the surface of the sea.

In the Phaidon book Celmins says she has: ‘always been interested in very impossible images. Things blowing up, things disappearing in a breath….,...my work has always been so involved in the physical… (the future) only comes with the making.’

These fragments from a conversation with the sculptor Robert Gober. I immediately make a connection between the intense process that has created these works and the rhythm of other kinds of making.

Matt Hulse, ‘Follow the Master’

This linking line of making took me (despite my art free Sunday resolutions) to see a screening of ‘Follow the Master’ on Sunday. In the ‘eagerly awaited 75 minute debut feature from Matt Hulse…[who curated Filmcraft for us in January]… the audience joins the filmmaker on an invigorating walk following 100 miles of the South Downs Way in homage to this grandfather Eric, who died last year’ (see www.edfilmfest.org.uk for more details).

Following a postcard theme…

Dear Matt
That was an extraordinary film. 
Hard to make a film about loss without being sentimental, but somehow you pulled it off. 
Not quite sure what my favourite bits are but they might include:
the sound of windy weather on summer leaves, perfect for kite flying;
silent drumming with and without the dog
the shape of the shooting stick; setting sun;
96 union jack cocktail flags calling our attention to the details;
the postcards;
the long white chalk roads
the end - mellow, thoughtful
Moving and extraordinary. 
Liked the postcard too…
X Amanda
ps when can we show it at Dovecot?

Back at Dovecot Age of Experience has finished but Norma Starzsakowna’s wonderful hangings on show until 11 July. Then preparations in full throttle for installing Jerwood Contemporary Makers and the Reading Room - open from 5 August.