2012 Craft Tour - Vanguard
The Wedgewoodn't Tureen by Michael Eden courtesy of Adrian Sassoon
Innovative, pioneering, experimental, hothouse, progressive, radical, avant-guarde, mindblowing CRAFT…the 2012 Highlights Contemporary Craft Tour will show work by artists and craftspeople that through single minded perseverance, research and experimentation, have exploded their traditional craft heritage into the realms of fantasy and adventure…. from crocheting with glass to the marriage of clay and computers; to jewellery that uses 3D Printing software, a rapid prototyping technology and CAD (computer aided design) designed cardboard furniture.
Michael Eden a Cumbrian artist, explores the relationship between hand and digital tools, investigating experimental manufacturing technology and materials. He is interested in how a thorough understanding of and sensibility to the 3 dimensional object developed through years of practice can affect and influence the approach to the creation of objects using digital technology. Michael’s early work was hand made but following the completion of an MPhil research project at the Royal College of Art in digital design and manufacturing, he developed and combined this new approach with his previous experience.
The resulting work ‘The Wedgwoodn’t Tureen’ consisted of an award winning series of unique pieces that won an RSA Design Directions competition. In collaboration with the French company Axiatec, the original piece was produced on a ZCorp 3D printing machine and then coated in a unique ceramic material that does not require firing. It was the first time that these materials and processes had been used for commercial production.
Since then he has continued to design and produce a series of pieces, inspired by historical objects and contemporary themes. The work further explores the relationship between hand and digital tools, investigating experimental manufacturing technology and materials. Having attracted wide media and public attention, the work has been exhibited internationally and bought by a number of Art Galleries and collectors. The Crafts Council acquired a piece for their collection, which was listed by Apollo magazine as one of the 24 most important world-wide museum acquisitions of 2010.
Nora Fok is a pioneering jeweller, textile artist and designer who transforms nylon micro- filament through the process of knitting, knotting, weaving and tying into wearable, otherworldly sculpture.
Based in Hove near Brighton, she says: “I spend my time experimenting and transforming this material into a personal vision of wearable sculptural forms for the female body. Each piece I make has a story behind it. Usually sources can be referred to nature or nature related and also ideas have evolved from previous work. My studies of nature and learning experiences accumulated over the years are still fuelling my imagination”.
Recent groundbreaking developments in Nora’s work has been in the use of rapid prototyping technology and a form of rapid manufacturing called ‘3D Printing’, the software for which was developed through a unique collaboration between Nora and her son.
Catherine Fuga Carr has developed a range of knitted and crocheted vessels in glass. Applying traditional fibre skills to an innovative process of recycled glass products, she has pushed the technical boundaries of glass whilst bring traditional iconography to the contemporary craft market.
Each piece has been individually knitted or crocheted by hand, then heated and manipulated through several firings at very high temperatures, eventually emerging as a formed glass vessel. Because of this hand crafted process, all pieces are both original and individual. Each vessel emerges as a beautiful lace glass sculpture in which each stitch is discernable and the openwork design casts striking dappled shadows. Catherine has been inspired by the role of women in textiles, especially her Grandmother who taught her these fading skills and bequeathed the patterns and tools used. Athough there are no glassmakers in her immediate family, Catherine has traced her ancestry back to the island of Murano in Venice, famous for its glassmakers. Catherine is based in the market town of Glossop in the Peak District.
Lazerian is a creative practice that began in 2006, set up by Liam Hopkins, a Manchester born designer-maker. The practice is focused on the creation of functional objects through playful investigation of materials and processes. The Bravais armchair and the Radiolarian Sofa are part of the Honeycomb range of furniture which emerged as part of a collaborative project between furniture designer Liam Hopkins and artist Richard Sweeney. The designers constrained themselves to the use of corrugated cardboard sourced locally from John Hargreaves’ factory in Stalybridge, which produces paper from recycled pulp using machinery originally installed in 1910. The design process involved experimentation with columnar forms, which were inspired by structural forms in nature, including a wasp nest and the crystalline bone structure of microscopic sea organisms known as Radiolaria. Computer design techniques were used to generate the form of the furniture using triangular columns, which were oriented to utilise the structural properties of the cardboard.