Last October I spent a lot of time advising the team for a new BBC program on potential craftspeople they could visit as part of a series at that time billed as ‘Heritage at Risk’. The program is now airing fronted by John Craven as ‘Heritage Heroes’. They tour the country looking at buildings and traditions at risk and the people keeping those traditions alive. Last week was the Pennines, next the border country along the Welsh Marches down to Bristol I think and then the final week will be along the south coast.
Anyway last Thursday was the episode on the Peak district and they visited me and my friends at Portland Works in Sheffield. Here are a couple of screenshots, first of me waxing lyrical about an old bowl made by George Lailey about 70 years ago.
And here is my mate Stuart Mitchell showing John Craven his knives.
The episode is up on iplayer for a while, probably not available outside the UK I am afraid, this is the link and I am on around 21 mins in.
Both Stuart and I will be speaking about our work as part of the V&A craft conference on 24th March have you booked your tickets yet? early bird discount is still available here
TV is a funny thing, whilst 3 minutes of TV costs a huge amount to produce they very rarely pay the folk they film expecting you to give your time for the fame and glory. Another popular misconception is that a few minutes on TV bring fame and fortune, in reality the normal effect is a bunch of your mates phone and text saying they saw you on the telly but it rarely transfers into orders or increased business. In Fact a good friend Hector Cole who does blacksmithing and used to do a lot of work for Time Team reckoned that it was actually bad for business as most of his customers assumed he would be too busy to want to sell them a few arrowheads. This series does seem to have been better than most with 4 or 5 bowl orders this week mentioning the program and it’s always nice when you parents see you on the telly and think you have done good.
Yesterday I was a meeting in London of the steering group for a major piece of government funded research into the state of heritage crafts in England. The first and perhaps most difficult task is to define very precisely what heritage crafts are in such a way as the research company can go away and start counting and measuring.
Crafts consultant Hillary Jennings had prepared us a draft discussion paper which runs to about 15 pages, we hope to be able to make this document public in due course but for now I can share a few of the most important points.
It was felt that heritage craft could be defined as practice which encompassed these points
- Knowledge and use of traditional materials
- Skilled use of hand tools and hand operated machinery
- Knowledge and application of traditional, often functional designs
Then this was boiled down into an even more concise version for when we need a one line definition.
“Practices which employ skilled use of hand tools and an understanding of material and have their roots in traditional functional design.”
It’s not easy to define traditional craft, how would you do it? can you come up with anything better? One thing we were sure about was that heritage is not the same as old, it is more a question of what we value and wish to pass on to future generations.
To make the most of my London trip I also got to meet two people I have been corresponding with for a while. First was Adam Thompson who writes the excellent “manufacture and industry” blog here
We only had time for a quick coffee and chat but it was good to meet, his blog is well worth following.
Then last thing I visited potter Kate Malone. Folk who know Kate’s work may be surprised as she is very much a high end art potter making pieces which sell for thousands of pounds, she does have very strong roots in traditional practice however and believes that it is crucial that ceramicists learn basic craft skills first before considering any sort of innovative self expression.
I am in London next Tuesday and Wednesday for more meetings including John Hayes skills minister, Martina Milburn CEO of the Princes Trust, the BBC to discuss potential craft TV programs, Baroness Garden at the Lords and I am particularly pleased to be able to meet up with Betsy Greer, craft activist who is over from the US.
