Mapping the crafts in Dorset

An analysis of the founding of the Dorset Craft Guild and successor organisations, as well as a summary of the markeing of crafts and craft practice in Dorset in the second half of the 20th C

John Hinchcliffe

This is a monograph on the designer-maker John Hinchcliffe and charts his work from textiles to ceramics. This was published to coincide with a major exhibtion of his work at the Crafts Study Centre. The book is written by Simon Olding the Director of the Centre

Matthew Burt: idea to object

A monograph outlining the career and the practice of the Wiltshire-based furniture designer-maker Matthew Burt. The book was published for the exhibition held at the Crafts Study Centre in November 2008 and then touring

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

Urban field

Urban field is the title of a major new collaboration between three leading craft organisations in England. Contemporary Applied Arts (CAA), the Crafts Study Centre and The Devon Guild of Craftsmen have joined forces to present new craft works (many specifically made for this project) and to explore a forceful theme in three venues, located in the centre of London, in the market town of Farnham and on the edge of Dartmoor. Includes essays by Emmanuel Cooper, Linda Sandino, Sophie Heath and Ambre France. Published to accompany the travelling exhibition of the same name, April - June 2007, a collaboration on the rural / urban theme between Contemporary Applied Arts, The Crafts Study Centre and the Devon Guild of Craftsmen

Things of Beauty Growing

Simon Olding reflects on the curation of exhibition ‘Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery, on show at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 14 September 2017 to 3 December 2017

Foreword

Published to accompany the exhibition at the Kube Gallery, Poole, 9 December 2009 to 16 January 2010. This exhibition is a retrospective of Kremer's work, covering thirty years of her career

The English short story in the 1890s

The aim of this thesis is to draw attention to the work of a sadly -neglected genre. The short fiction printed in England in the 1890s has great variety and scope, and there is much work of literary enterprise and value which merits close attention. The method of the thesis is to proceed by 'readings', in depth, of a large number of short stories, thereby highlighting the importance of the genre. The first chapter establishes the theoretical arguments which authors and critics of the 1890s applied to the genre, and places the short story in its general historical context. A distinction is made be- tween the traditional magazine story to which most of the fiction conforms, and a new creative story, written by authors alert to the potential of the form itself. Chapter Two considers the achievements and drawbacks of the traditional story, and Chapter Three the range of new short fiction, through a survey of the most important (though little discussed) avant -garde periodicals.The main concern of this thesis is with individual authors. My choice of which authors to discuss has been determined by considerations of quality: they are, in my opinion, the authors writing the best, most imaginative and innovative fiction in the period. These questions of literary excellence are investigated by detailed descriptions of the significant achievements of new authors as they experiment with, and so develop, the genre. Chapter Four documents Henry James's uneasy relationship with traditional magazine fiction, and his efforts to concentrate the reader's attention and his responsibilities towards the text. Chapter Five considers the work of Hubert Crackanthorpe in the wider context of realistic fiction in England and France, and contests the claim that English writers simply plagiarise the work of Maupassant. Chapter Six treats the stories of the radical feminist author George Egerton, and the way her work combines uncompromising themes with highly conventional narrative techniques. Chapter Seven considers the technical innovations made by Frederick Wedmore, another underrated figure. His allusive, sophisticated stories make an important contribution to short fiction. All the various possibilities of the short story are realised in the work of a single writer, Rudyard Kipling. The astonishing range of his work, which is discussed in the final chapter, shows the short story flourishing -at its finest and most mature. It is in Kipling's hands that the English short story of the 1890s becomes a great art form

Foreword

Published on the occasion of the Stroud International Textiles exhibition, 'Pairings II – conversations & collaborations' curated by Lizzi Walton and Alice Kettle, and supported by Arts Council England and Stroud District Council, with a linked symposium. The exhibition ran from April 28 to May 27 2012 at the Museum in the Park, Stroud. This exhibition brings together pairs of makers to discuss and share the experience of making. Collaboration raises questions about ownership, it tests recognised working methods and negotiates how voices resonate and sing together. The exhibition is the culmination of commissioned work from over 20 makers and designers. Makers and designers have come together in partnership or in threesomes. Each participant has a distinct and established area of their own practice which they have shared with another maker in order to have an experience of a different material, a new process and an exchange of ideas

Foreword

This foreword was published in a catalogue to accompany the exhibition 'Life and Still Life', at the Crafts Study Centre, Farnham, 16 October to 15 December 2012. In the exhibition, Alison Britton shows a selection of objects from her own 'study collection' of other people's work - paintings, photographs, drawings, pots, tableware - as a framework for a group of her new pots, mainly in red clay, which she started to use after a residency at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan in 2010