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Intellect is happy to announce that Craft Research 9.2 is now available! For more information about the issue, click here >> https://bit.ly/2zhYLEJ

Contents

Making sense: Personal, ecological and social sustainability through craft

Authors: Kristina Niedderer And Katherine Townsend 
Page Start: 195

Towards making sense of self through emotional experiences in craft-art

Authors: Milla Ojala And Seija Karppinen And Erja Syrjäläinen 
Page Start: 201

The goal of this article is to explore how young craft students make sense of themselves through emotional experiences in craft-art. The study employs the grounded theory (GT) method. The key theoretical concepts of self, emotional experiences and engagement in craft making have been chosen based on how they support or resonate with the data and analysis. The data consists of several types of material that was collected in three schools: portfolios, participant observation, ethnographic interviews and students’ diaries. The data showed that students’ emotions were strongly present in the craft activity. Emotions were related to the students’ management of the different stages of the craft process, the expectations towards the outcome, the students’ holistic bodily and mental feeling during the making and their engagement throughout the entire process. All these elements, reflected against pre-existing theories, indicate that while studying craft-art, the participants were able to make sense of themselves in many ways. The analysis led to the finding that when students experience emotional ownership of the process in making craft-art, pleasant somatic experiences, realization of their own potential, and the result of craft making is a meaningful product in which their personal interests are materialized, a positive sense of self can be achieved. This article is a part of the larger study that focuses on students’ craft making experiences in the context of Finnish Basic Education in the Arts (BEA).

The ostrich eggshell beads craft of the Ju/’hoansi: A reflection on modern craft theories

Authors: Amit Zoran 
Page Start: 229

Western (modern) discourse often reviews craft in the light of industrialism and mass manufacturing, associating it with symbolic qualities that arise from the modern economy. This discourse highlights the dichotomy between machine-centred and human-centred production. Yet, some of these popular craft theories fall short when considered outside this context. For example, some foraging societies prioritize investment in social ties over material storage, offering additional perspectives on our study of craft. In this article, I present the case of the ostrich eggshell beads craft of the Ju/’hoansi, former hunter-gatherers from Southern Africa, which exemplify the plasticity of their practice in adapting to varying economic conditions. Using three case studies, I discuss different ways in which the Ju/’hoansi have commoditized and used their craft heritage as a comparatively stable economic foundation in a reality where some (modern) craft values, such as creative engagement, risk and unpredictability, can be found everywhere in their day-to-day lives.

Crafting environmental policies into action: Energy consulting practices of craftspeople

Authors: Roger Andre Søraa 
Page Start: 255

This article discusses the emerging practices of craftspeople – particularly carpenters – in relation to policies of energy-efficient homes in the building sector. The Norwegian political goal of making buildings more sustainable and energy friendly by reducing 40 per cent of the energy used in the building sector provides new challenges for craftspeople who are tasked with effecting these changes. Based on qualitative interviews, this article explores how craftspeople working as ‘energy consultants’ form their new role as what I call ‘green-collar workers’. The article explains how energy policies are translated into physical buildings by energy consultants. Four practices of craftspeople working as energy consultants are analysed – the practices of economizing, controlling, coordinating and selling. These practices are part of a complex sustainable transition that is taking place in the building sector. As craftspeople are the workers actually enacting energy policies in the building sector by working with energy mitigation hands on (whilst also building on their traditional crafts experience), it is necessary to understand their practices to further reduce energy use in buildings.

Rereading and revising: Acknowledging the smallness (sometimes) of craft

Authors: Jessica Hemmings 
Page Start: 273

Attention to the power of craft has come to dominate craftivism discourse. This article is interested in disrupting some of the claims of craftivism with a reminder that craft can remain powerless compared to the scale of the social problems that surround it. My interest in smallness is driven by a desire to make reasonable claims on behalf of craft’s power in an era when modest impact feels like an unwelcome truth in academic research. Craft research is perhaps ill positioned to expose itself as small. To see past this blind spot, I look to examples of craft practice described in novels and short stories from Chile, India and Zimbabwe: Isabelle Allende’s The House of Spirits (1985), Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance (1996), Yvonne Vera’s short story collection Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals (1992), Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not (2006) and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009). I propose that craft, in the contexts discussed here, accrues meaning through its limitations. This close reading has required me to revise the importance that I had placed, particularly on textiles in Zimbabwean fiction, in the past and instead recognize that what craft is unable to repair and recover are also components of its identity. As craft scholarship as a discipline expands, I find it increasingly important – amidst the many sincere efforts to proclaim what craft can do – to also voice what it is unable to change as a legitimate component of craft’s identity.

Ceramics and locational identity: Investigating the symbolism of material culture in relation to a sense of place

Authors: Peter Bodenham 
Page Start: 287

This article is an investigation into material culture and its symbolism in terms of place and space and addresses the research question ‘why do select ceramic artefacts evoke or become symbolic of a specific location and sense of place?’. The research covers the areas of conceptual ceramic design, craft culture and practice-led research. Dutch design duo Nadine Sterk and Lonny van Ryswyck – Atelier NL – are discussed as an example of contemporary designer makers who create objects that embody social meaning and express an evocative sense of locational identity. The two Eindhoven-based designer-makers’ creative process combines and reveals different strands of academic and material enquiry and representing a creative process that flows between making, scientific knowledge, anthropology, archaeology, geology, art, design and craft. Atelier NL’s practice is representative of a current interest within visual and material culture in both practice- led research and socially engaged practice. The narrative of their research-based practice is unequivocally part of the production and presentation of their work. Atelier NL’s practice stands for a creative partnership that investigates and celebrates their locality in addition to responding to a sense of ‘culture loss’ indicative of mainstream patterns of design, production and consumption of goods and services.

Mem...or...y

Authors: Marlene Little 
Page Start: 311

Focusing on my current body of work, the ‘Mem-or-y’ series, this article is an autobiographical account presenting my ongoing practice and research interest in the interrelationship between photography, textiles and Zeitgeist concerns. In this body of work, through a tacit response to materials and processes, craft practice becomes a vehicle for engaging with social issues, exploring complex questions surrounding personal concepts of identity, the reliability of memory and the increasing incidence and awareness of the many forms of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. Fabric has become a vehicle for exploring these concerns.

Exhibition Review

Authors: Violeta Gutiérrez And  Barbara Knoke de Arathoon 
Page Start: 325

Cofradía, garments and weavings from the Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Dress Main Collection, Guatemala City, opened 8 April 2016 and updated for conservation reasons in 2018

Book Review

Authors: Patricia Dillon 
Page Start: 333

The Erotic Cloth: Seduction and Fetishism in Textiles, Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle (eds) (2018) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 200 pp., ISBN 978-1-47428-680-0, p/bk, £25.00

Conference Review

Authors: Ganna Borzenkova 
Page Start: 339

‘Toys and material culture: Hybridisation, design and consumption’, the 8th World Conference of the International Toy Research Association, Paris, France, 11–13 July 2018