This research is a focused investigation of the use of digital production technologies by UK designer-makers. The Critical and Contextual Review begins by examining what is known about the UK designer-maker sector. It considers how making practices relate to history and theories of craft, exploring meanings of key concepts such as ‘skill’ and ‘productive autonomy’. It reviews contemporary digital craft practice, identifying it as a genre and examines both digital economy and digital tool-use trends, relating to craft. The methodology Chapter 3 explains how the pragmatic philosophical approach taken justifies the focus on investigations of experiential practice and the specific mixed methods adopted. A series of experiential case studies looking at emergent practice is analysed using grounded theory techniques and concludes that in using digital tools the maker’s vision is the animating force in an inherently collective endeavour. This chapter is followed by an in-depth practicebased investigation looking specifically at the collaborative potential facilitated by digital possibilities. Chapter 6 presents an analysis of professional views based on interviews that probe the range and extent of technical and creative collaborations. At each stage of the research a reflective enquiry points towards the next step and provides successive iterations of evidence. The thesis that emerges from evidence is the contribution to knowledge of this research. It is that a cross-fertilisation between craft and digital technologies produces a hybrid networked practice that can amount to a new type of technology-enabled and networked craft – Technepractice – in which ‘negotiated collective engagement’ is the driving characteristic. This presents a fundamental challenge to the constructed authenticity of productive autonomy in 20th century studio craft practice. The animation of collective resources, from exteriorised skill embedded in technology to the expertise of technicians and machine operators and the use of digital data sources, requires a re-evaluation of the location and meaning of skill in digital craft practice. A full account of the digital ‘proposition’ for craft, both the opportunities and threats, places digital craft in the context of other digital creative industries and explores possibilities for extending practice from collaborations to digital business models.

Disputats (sammendrag), Uppsala universitet, 2006. / I samme bind 3 artikler.

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In a largely under-theorised subject area as the crafts, this practice-based research contributes to the knowledge and understanding of the body related crafts object at PhD level. It conceptualises the narrative methodology necessary to make the creative work and theoretically examines its intention. Because the theoretical work on narrative structures has been largely done outside the crafts/art context, the research adopts and adapts existing procedures and concepts from hermeneutic philosophy and literary theory to expand on the understanding of the body related crafts object in this new context. The research project investigates narrative structures in body related crafts objects to further the understanding of these objects and to make a contribution to the theory of studio crafts practice. The dialogical and dynamic relationship between the surveying of relevant literature and the creative development of the practical work enabled the development of the narrative context of the work itself and the advancement of a studio methodology that emphasizes reflexivity and is conscious of its own need for understanding. Drawing on historical and autobiographical material, fiction and fairy tales, a series of body-related crafts objects have been produced that tell hybrid, fantastical stories. These objects are enigmatic, yet suggestive of the wounds of history and of the trauma and healing processes that are part of our relationships with others. The work is understood as a mnemonic device created to evoke the complexities and webs of relationships, which exist between the various levels of interpretative investments that would otherwise be un-containable. The exploration of the notion of metaphor within a semantic context is here adapted to facilitate new understanding of the metaphorical qualities found in creative and narrative craft objects. Metaphoricity can be regarded as a way of cross-mapping the conceptual system of one area of experience and terminology with another, suggesting a coherent system created for understanding knowledge in terms of critical reflection, and being conducive to new creative articulation and representation. In the work theory emerges as a dynamic encounter, a continuous re-figuration within a tradition of commentary and interpretation. Researched ideas, practical work and developing studio methodology have been explored further and tested in exhibitions, written publications, conference contributions, teaching projects and artists residencies. A large body of practical work has been generated over the period of the research. Some of the objects are pieces of jewellery, using precious metals and other more idiosyncratic materials. Other objects, even though still wearable, extend the boundaries of the traditional piece of jewellery towards what has become a fine art practice, which uses a multi-media approach together with traditional handcraft goldsmithing skills. Assemblage, installation, video and relational interactive projects have been developed to investigate narrative structures invested in those objects.

This practice-based research investigates the potential applications of digital manufacturing technologies in the design and production of hand-made tableware at the Leach Pottery. The methodology for the research establishes an approach grounded in my previous experience as a maker that is informed by an open, experimental, emergent, and responsive framework based on Naturalistic Inquiry. A critical contextual review describes the cultural heritage of Leach which, for the purposes of the research, is developed through the Leach Pottery as a significant site, the historical production of the iconic Leach Standard Ware and the contemporary production of Leach Tableware. This is followed by an examination of Potter’s Tools in the Leach production environment, and a review of makers’ digital ceramic practice. The contextual review is followed by an explication of ‘standards’ presented through visual lineages of Standard Ware and Leach Tableware to define ‘standard’ at a design (macro) level, followed by an examination of how ‘standard’ operates at a making (micro level) level. This chapter presents new knowledge in relation to defining the visual field of Leach Pottery tableware production and its standards of design. A chapter focussed on practice presents the outcomes and analysis of my engagement with digital manufacturing technologies which resulted in the development of new tools to support Leach Tableware production and the interrogation of Leach forms, in different mediums, which led to the creation of Digital-Analogue Leach forms. The practice culminated in the design and development of new 21st century Standard Ware: a range of 9 forms, called Echo of Leach, that were developed by myself using digital and analogue methods: the designs were realised by myself, the Leach Studio, and a further four makers. The outcomes of the research were presented in a three month exhibition at the Leach Pottery in 2013. The conclusions of the research draw on the key points raised in the analysis of the practice and relate these to the approaches to making pottery that are highlighted in the cultural heritage of Leach in the contextual review. These are also discussed in relation to ways in which these findings could be taken forward into development of knowledge about Standard Ware, especially in a broader studio pottery context.

In transparent glass, colour occurs through the absorption of certain wavelengths of light, and transmission of other wavelengths. In thicker sections of glass, more light is absorbed than in thinner sections, making the thicker sections appear darker, and sometimes a different hue. This phenomenon is called volume colour by Joseph Albers, and together with the optical properties of glass as a denser material than air, leads to remarkable possibilities for glass artists, to work with form to achieve light accents and/or different hues in solid object made from a single transparent glass colour. Artists in the Czech republic have explored this potential in cast glass since the 1960s, working directly with colour factories, and passing on gained knowledge through teaching. Elsewhere, it is difficult for artists to explore these possibilities for two reasons: Firstly, the lack of literature on volume colour, and the difficulty of translating theoretical information on optics into practical application. Secondly, on the practical side, it is unusual for artists to work with factories to develop their glass colours. Instead, colours are available in a limited range of hues, and casting colours are developed for small to medium sized objects around 5 cm thickness, therefore often appear very dark or black when used for larger solid casts of more than 10 cm thickness. To explore the relationship between colour, form and light in glass sculpture, artists need to be in control of colour hue and value. To achieve control, they have to either work with a factory, or colour their own glass. This research contributes to the practice of kiln casting through the development of methods to produce homogenous transparent colours in a studio environment, using ceramic crucibles in a kiln. Visual and written guidelines about basic colour results using single colouring agents provide a starting point for development of bespoke hues and densities. Drawing on physics texts and through a thorough study of existing glass sculpture, the optical properties of glass are explained in relation to practical application.

This research by project is asking whether the affect of embodied materiality can be materialised from complicated grief, in an investigation into the relationship between the affect of grief and the creative, embodied encounters with paper materials. In some types of traumatic loss, complicated grief can subsume the bereaved in a way like no other. Mourning can be a very difficult process. The research integrates creative practice, working with fibre-based materials, with the scholarly and cultural exploration of the literature and theory of mourning as a specific psychological state of mind. It is an exploration of the experience of mourning a complicated grief, through the sustained process of an embodied encounter with the materiality of making paper. Paper becomes the metaphor to discuss research questions that connect the maternal with affect in maternal grief, that paper can be the Symbolic and the body that inputs Cartesian culture is feminised using affect of the embodied encounter with materials. This research is not into art therapy, nor into art as illustrative of psychology. I use a hybrid approach to methodology, involving auto-ethnography and subjective experience as a medium through which to reflect on the relationship between materiality and affect. The substrate uses play; judgment is suspended, whilst the substrate is being handmade to create individual materiality. Culture and social theory, which enabled the methods of auto-ethnography and creative practice research to emerge, is the paradigm of postmodern and post positivist accounts of new relations between ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’. Moving forward from Glaser and Strauss’s thinking on grounded theory, display, together with reflective practice, is compatible with the emergence of feminist thinking on the significance of subjectivity and affect. The submission comprises a written dissertation, which reflects on the six years of creative practice, making new sense of the conventional silence surrounding complex mourning. The practice itself, connotes affect through the materialities of paper.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University

This practice-based research addresses internal form in cast glass. That is, ink- like imagery, which is wholly contained within clear, colourless glass. For the purposes of this project, ‘ink’ refers to liquid ink as is used in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy rather than to ink applications such as those used in print media. The aim is not to use ink itself. Rather, it is to emulate ink, rendered inside glass, while exploring the material similarities between the two media, including their liquid properties and their ability to be worked opaque or translucent. The project examines the interface between control and chance; where the artistic process ends and the unique properties of glass take over and are governed by heat, time and gravity. It also addresses the transformation of two- dimensional line drawing and ink wash into the third dimension. My research question is how the kiln and furnace casting processes can best be exploited to render the fluid, gestural and expressionistic immediacy of brush and ink painting, three-dimensionally, in solid glass. Following 14 years of studying and making art in Korea (1997‒2003) and China (2003‒2010), I have developed an affinity for brush and ink painting and, more specifically, for Chinese Grass script calligraphy and traditional landscape. This project aims to explore various methods of capturing apparent gesture and spontaneity in cast glass, in the form of ‘ink’ abstractions that evoke these styles of Chinese painting. My methodology includes identifying and isolating the elements that characterise Chinese brushwork in calligraphy and landscape painting, which are intimately linked fine art forms in China. Studio tests include manipulating different types of glass to create a dynamic, rhythmic, assured and graceful ink aesthetic, interpreted in the third dimension. I use flameworked inclusions to explore ink-like line and experiment with glass powders to evoke different intensities of ink wash. All tests are recorded in detail and are used to anticipate and loosely control glass movement. My research into Chinese brushwork characteristics is used to identify a framework within which the studio work sits. The variety, order and combination of techniques used to create the work constitute original knowledge in the field of cast glass. My method for reinterpreting the characteristics of Chinese painting, including line quality, ink wash, composition and balance, embedded three-dimensionally within the framework of cast glass, also contributes new knowledge. Based on systematic research and analysis, the terms ‘casting’, ‘moulds’, ‘spontaneity’ and the ‘third dimension’ are examined and defined anew.