Contemporary Crafts

by Imogen Racz

Overview

This book explores craft practices in both North America and Britain, revealing an astonishingly rich and diverse picture of artisanal work today. The text ranges across both urban and rural crafts, and analyzes how the country/city dichotomy creates differing approaches, practices and objects. Analyzed in the context of their environment and its localized history, crafted objects are shown to embody or critique particular urban/rural myths and traditions. Covering both traditional and cutting-edge crafts from the small-scale domestic to large outdoor works, Contemporary Crafts demonstrates how crafts-people today are responding to the changing creative contexts of culture and history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845203092
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/15/2009
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

IMOGEN RACZ is Senior Lecturer at Coventry University in England, where she teaches contextual studies across the fine and applied arts.

Table of Contents

Introduction * 1: Contemporary Crafts and Cultural Myths * 2: Contemporary Arts and Crafts-makers in Rural England * 3: The Artisan Tradition in Rural America * 4: Critique and Embodiment in Rural England * 5: Material, Space and Place in America * 6: Urban Crafts in America * 7: Urban Crafts in England * 8: Crafts in the Environment (America) * 9: Crafts in the Environment (England) * Afterword