Jean Vacher interview on 12 April 2011

Craft objects offer an excellent opportunity to study the transfer or recreation of memory through artefacts. For this exhibition curators Tessa Peters and Janice West invited artists Masie Broadhead, Steve Dixon, Laura Potter and Elaine Wilson to produce work in response to the Crafts Study Centre collections. The interview by Janice West explored Jean’s thoughts, as curator of the Crafts Study Centre Collections in relation to the meaning of working with archives and collections. She described what drew her to this type of work and some of the challenges that it presented. Jean was invited to select a group of exhibits for ‘Memoranda’ and to explain her reasons for doing so. The selection included textiles from the Balkan countries with associated archives, and centred on the significance of material culture in informing, and inspiring us to learn about other civilisations, and connecting to memories associated with travel

Bernard Leach: graphic artist

Bernard Leach was one of the first, great, donors to the emerging Crafts Study Centre. He donated a substantial body of his own ceramics, including rare early pieces; he also gifted his personal study collection of Oriental ceramics and early English pottery (inspirational pots 'that gave me joy'). His archive of prolific writings, diaries, photographs and extensive correspondence is an unrivalled source for research and study and is called on by scholars internationally. More recently, gifts have been made of new personal papers as well as the etching plates that Leach worked on between 1907-8 as a student and then in Japan until 1920. These etching plates remind us that Leach began his career intending to be a fine artist. Whilst he produced etchings in Japan during his first creative steps, he remained committed to drawing throughout his life and his skill as a painter of pots remains one of his distinguishing attributes. This new exhibition brings together archives. etchings and drawings together with his early ceramics to present a rounded portrait of an eminent artist discovering a life-long interest in and aptitude for ceramics, set in the context of his first love of drawing. The exhibition has been curated by Jean Vacher, Collections Manager of the Crafts Study Centre. Many of these etchings have rarely been seen in the museum environment, and the project, generously supported by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, is intended to stimulate a wider understanding of Leach's output as an etcher, and possibly to bring new etchings to light. The project is published in partnership with The Leach Pottery, St Ives

The Crafts Study Centre

The Crafts Study Centre is a specialist university museum open free to the public as well as a research centre of the University for the Creative Arts. The Centre's acclaimed collections include modern and contemporary calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, furniture and wood as well as makers' diaries, working notes and photographs dating from the 1920s. Inspiring exhibitions and gallery talks by leading artist-makers are held year round in our two galleries. We foster scholarship and writing about modern and contemporary craft through this website and publishing new books and monographs. We also host one academic symposium a year. The Centre's research library is available by appointment for those interested in learning more about our collections

Norah Braden

Chapter in catalogue, 'An outbreak of talent', to accompany the exhibition of the same name at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, Essex, 31 March - 30 June 2013. The exhibition brings together work by Edward Bawden, Norah Braden, Edward Burra, William Chappell, Barnett Freedman, Enid Marx, Paul Nash, and Eric Ravilious

Robin Tanner

Robin Tanner (1904 - 1988) said that 'as a boy I had two great longings - to be a teacher and to be an artist - and I have never wavered. It has been my great good fortune to live two long happy lives - in Education and in Art. This exhibition, curated by Jean Vacher, Collections Manager of the Crafts Study Centre, focuses on the twin aspects of Tanner's working life through the presentation of his etchings, publications and craft works that he collected, used or enthused about. Tanner had a passionate interest in the crafts and he gave full expression to this feeling in his deep friendships with important makers such as the textile artists Barron and Larcher or the potter Bernard Leach. Tanner also played a pivotal role as a Founder Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre (1970 - 1988) describing it as 'not just a museum collection but one that, augmented by craftsman's records, writings and papers, could be handled and seriously studied and enjoyed'. The exhibition offers a warm tribute to Tanner's vision and vitality

The new beginning 20th Century Crafts : a review of the first Crafts Study Centre exhibition 1972

This chapter examines the similarities and differences between the Crafts Study Centre's inaugural exhibition held in 1972 and Crafts in the 20th Century: a review of the first Crafts Study Centre exhibition, 1972, held between 1 June 2004 - 24 June 2005

Robin Tanner

Exhibition catalogue for the Crafts Study Centre 2012 relating to the exhibition curated by Jean Vacher and including an essay by Simon Olding on the etchings of Robin Tanner. The catalogue contains several essays: The Tanners as collectors of modern craft by Jean Vacher p 30, Robin Tanner: the etcher by Simon Olding (p 31-32), Robin Tanner and the child art movement by Jean Vacher pp 33-34, and Marion Richardson and the child art movement by Valerie Kohler pp 35-37

Reunion regional sobre el uso y procesamiento digital de imagenes de satelites

Las heladas en el Altiplano boliviano tienen una influencia muy severa sobre la produccion agricola. Este estudio trata de desarrollar una metodologia para efectuar una zonificacion de las heladas utilizando el infrarrojo de NOAA-AVHRR. Esta metodologia consiste en correlacionar temperaturas minimas del aire de las estaciones meteorologicas y temperaturas de superficie nocturna de NOAA a las 2:00 a.m. Se obtienen buenos resultados con esta correlacion, sin embargo, es necesario afinarla introduciendo otros parametros caracterizando la naturaleza de los pixeles NOAA (Situacion topografica NDVI). Se encontrara ilustrados en el texto una zonificacion regional de la imagen del mes de marzo y un estudio de la reparticion de las temperaturas en la zona de Viacha. (Résumé d'auteur

Sound Classification in a Smart Room Environment: an Approach using GMM and HMM Methods

International audienceBecause of cost or convenience reasons, patients or elderly people would be hospitalized at home and smart information systems would be needed in order to assist human operators. In this case, position and physiologic sensors give already numerous informations, but there are few studies for sound use in patient's habitation. However, sound classification and speech recognition may greatly increase the versatility of such a system: this will be provided by detecting short sentences or words which could characterize a distress situation for the patient. Analysis and classification of sounds emitted in patient's habitation may be useful for patient's activity monitoring. GMMs and HMMs are well suited for sound classification. Until now, GMMs are frequently used for sound classification in smart rooms because of their low computational costs, but HMMs should allow a finer analysis: indeed the use of 3 states HMMs should allow better performances by taking into account the variation of the signal according to time. For this framework a new sound corpus was recorded in experimental conditions. This corpus includes 8 sound classes useful for our application. The choice of needed acoustical features and the two approaches are presented. Then an evaluation is made with the initial corpus and with additional experimental noise. The obtained results are compared. At the end of this framework a segmentation module is presented. This module has the ability of extracting isolated sounds in a record by the means of a wavelet filtering method which allows the extraction in noisy conditions