Craft & Sustainability

I was very happy the other week when I was invited to participate in a workshop seminar on Craft and Sustainability. I had to do a short presentation on my practice and how it related to crafts and sustainability, then we had group discussions all afternoon.

I want to do a series of posts about what I have learnt from these discussions and all the interesting things that UK arts and crafts people are doing out there. Here are my rough, incomplete notes so far:

Craft & Sustainability
Plymouth College of Art
28th May 2009

http://crafts-and-sustainability.plymouthart.ac.uk/


Fairtrade Goldmine – Bolivia

Clare Moloney - River & Cloth – Merton Abbey Mills – 3 stages: Dyeing, Stitching, Printing: http://www.riverandcloth.co.uk/

Jonathan Garratt – Potter – “Craft has lost its way, there is a lack of leadership” – Wood fired garden pots, tableware and ‘garden punctuation’: http://www.jonathangarratt.com/

Clara Vuletich – Textile designer – TED project, Chelsea College of Art – Compiling an archive, library resource for textile designers of ways to reduce impact on the environment: http://www.tedresearch.net/resource_about.htm

Richenda Macgregor - Transition Town – ‘Sustainable Makers’ Founder (founded in 2007) – “What is the role of the maker in this time?” “Everyone can make” – Re-skilling, skills exchange from older generation to the younger and from younger to the older – Mobile hub for re-skilling workshops and outreach: http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/ http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/thearts/sustainablemakers

Nick Carrey – Furniture Maker – “so skilled you get separated from life” – people get overawed by skills

"The Craftsman" by Richard Sennett (Penguin Books, 2008)