This article forms part of a larger study examining how contemporary designer-makers are helping to develop the next generation, through apprenticeships, shorter internships and other forms of engagement. It is a collaborative project, involving an established furniture designer-craftsman and an academic researcher and educator with interests in craft business organisation, environmentally sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship.
Our article responds to the 2017 Making Futures conference theme: the role of studios and workshops as learning environments and/or modes of learning, which can encourage independence, personal responsibility and agency. It reports on an empirical study that compares and contrasts the experiences of practitioners who have been active over the last six decades. We focus on two domains of craft production, ceramics and furniture-making, but the analysis includes references to similar learning processes in other domains of craft practice. The article takes the form of parallel narratives, based on interviews with two practitioners who established their own workshops, along with two of their former apprentices
