I'm working on a book review at the moment for the AHRC: Past, Present and Future Craft Research project that the Visual Research Centre at  Dundee University is undertaking. The book is called Thinking Through Craft  by Glenn Adamson, and although I am not really a craft practitioner I thought it would be interesting to do the review. Its an internal review and needs to be 3,000 words, so I'm being very diligent in trying to absorb it all. 

I'm not that far in really, only the first chapter, but already there are concepts that really resonate with me. Adamson introduces the notion that  the finished work (be it art, craft or design) is supplemental to the concept behind the work. Its the idea that the really important thing is the idea or concept, but for it to be communicated it must take on a form eg painting, design, sculpture etc, and these are forms which give physical presence and exploration to an idea. It is almost as if the artwork is a frame for the idea

He uses the excellent example of a music score. The score itself is not what audiences enjoy, it is what the score denotes and gives rise to that is is important.  Adamson takes the debate further exploring the notion of jewellery, saying it is slightly different to other forms because the human body becomes the frame for the works, and one can view jewellery also a small sculptures.

He discusses Margaret De Patta (featured left)  who left commercial design in 1941 to work with Lazlo Maholy-Nagy at the School of Design in Chicago. There Maholy-Nagy told her to free the stones from their settings, and this lead to works which challenged conventional notions of jewellery design at the time.