Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S. in Management) Naval Postgraduate School, June 1997. / Thesis advisors, Gail Fann Thomas, Alice Crawford. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-84). Also available online.

The thesis Guilds of tanners on Prachatice region. With special regard to Netolice The work deals with development of leather craft in the town of Netolice. In the introductory chapter are found chapters about craftmen who work with leather and problematic of guilds in our country, where is described literature used while making this work. Text is divided into five chapters which contain smaller subchapters. First part describes historical development of the town Netolice. Second chapter summarizes development of guild organizations in our land, their composition, administration and aspects until 1859. Representation of crafts and organizations associated with it are described in the third chapter. Penultimate part is dedicated to delimitation, division and history of tanning craft. The last chapter brings informations about the tanning guild in Netolice. The craft is divided on the basis of preserved documents when guild articles attracted great attention. After it work is devoted to development of guild based on nomative documents and guild accounts are disassembled. These contain informations summarized in the tables. In the end are summarized all acquired knowledge. Integral part of the work are also annexes containing images of article seals, guild books and federal list.

This thesis explores how women form, perceive and communicate their sense of identity by hand knitting for leisure. Leisure, defined here as time outside of work or caring responsibilities, was selected as the focus of this research because women have some choice over how they spend this time and express themselves. Writing on contemporary knitting has tended to frame knitting within political, artistic or commercial contexts (such as Black, 2005, 2012 and Elliot, 2015). This leaves a gap in our understanding of why women who knit for leisure do so. This is partially addressed by recent empirical research (for example Fields, 2014) that has studied social processes within knitting groups. However, research has devoted less attention to the wider motivations of women who knit alone or in groups. This is important if we consider that identity formation happens in a broader context, and may involve a constant interaction with people (Jenkins, 2004), objects and ideas, as is suggested by the findings of this study. The research employs a qualitative approach based on Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory by way of a staged design which aims to respond to the data and minimise the influence of preconceived ideas. This aim is particularly important given the historical and contemporary stereotypes associated with knitting, and my own background as a textile historian and maker. Application of social research methods also aims to further develop the role played by empirical research in the area of textile scholarship. Data was collected in three stages; a pilot study, questionnaires with women textile bloggers and the main research stage which consisted of semi-structured interviews with knitters living in Edinburgh. Interviewees were contacted by volunteer and snowball sampling. Content analysis was supported by QSR*NVivo and involved descriptive and theoretical coding in order to identify themes in the data. Analysis suggests knitting provides immediate social interaction and support. This could be associated with Jenkins’ (2004) proposition that identity is formed by ongoing social interaction. However, there is another dimension here as knitting also enables the solitary knitter to access interactions with ideas and other people through objects and the personal memories held within them as well as through online communities. Three key findings are that knitting presents a way to be creative, productive and social. Firstly, respondents describe knitting as a balance between challenge and perceived ability, as might be described as ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002 [1992]). Secondly, this meets a need for a leisure activity that produces a tangible manifestation of effort and skill. However, the process of knitting is also seen to be as important, if not more so, than the final product. This insight reinforces the usefulness of empirical study of the experience of making textiles, and reveals additional data than studying only the final object. Thirdly, knitting is presented as a means to access meaningful social interactions and a sense of belonging to a community whether or not the knitter is a member of a knitting group. Such interactions might be online or provide a sense of continuity with previous generations of knitters in their families or women in general. Knitters see this as a way of building social capital and support. Overall, findings suggest that identity formation and communication should be seen as a complex process that does not only involve direct social interactions but interaction with the idea of other knitters, past and present, and the practical experience of making.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:54:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NiltonXB.pdf: 2365105 bytes, checksum: 3426ea0c705ddc9463ef1ea5efa08d60 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-09-28 / In the Rio Grande do Norte, the craftsmanship is generating of economy, it involves a significant number of people and is diversified in its raw materials and particular type. As reference of the craft local, the ceramics supplied the primary necessities in the utilitarian domestic servants, acquired piety in the religious figures, were toy in infantile amusements and, finally, gained status of pure ornament. By its historical representation, the district of Santo Ant?nio do Potengi is considered the most important center of manufacture of craftpottery in the State. The work of the potters continues in that locality anchored between the familiar inheritance and the participation each more influential time of the public politics destined to the sector situation verified for visible alterations in the shape of the pottery from the decade of 1990 with the implantation of a cooperative destined to the collective production. We observe in this passage, that such actions in the measure where they objectify to structuralize conditions ideal to support the artisan making, do not benefit in significant way the social development them craftsmen. It is important not to lose of sight that exists some involved dimensions in this process and that these surpass the common interest for the object and the consequent economic connotation of its commercialization. They are knowledge that imply in the access to raw materials, in the peculiar of the formal aspects and productive methods, in the contextual relations organized to defend the survival of the activity / No Rio Grande do Norte, a atividade artesanal ? geradora de economia, envolve um n?mero significativo de pessoas e ? diversificada em suas mat?rias-primas e tipologias. Como refer?ncia do artesanato local, a cer?mica supriu as necessidades prim?rias nos utilit?rios dom?sticos, adquiriu fei??o devocional nas figuras religiosas, foi brinquedo nos divertimentos infantis e, por fim, ganhou status de puro ornamento. Por sua representatividade hist?rica, o distrito de Santo Ant?nio do Potengi ? considerado o mais importante centro de fabrica??o da cer?mica artesanal no Estado. O trabalho dos oleiros prossegue naquela localidade ancorado entre a heran?a familiar e a participa??o cada vez mais influente das pol?ticas p?blicas destinadas ao setor, situa??o verificada por vis?veis altera??es no feitio da lou?a, a?odadas a partir da d?cada de 1990, com a implanta??o de uma cooperativa destinada ? produ??o coletiva. Nesse percurso, observamos que tais a??es, na medida em que objetivam estruturar condi??es ideais para prover a sustentabilidade do fazer artesanal, n?o beneficiam de maneira significativa o desenvolvimento social dos artes?os. ? importante n?o perder de vista que existem v?rias dimens?es envolvidas nesse processo e que estas extrapolam o interesse comum pelo objeto e a conota??o econ?mica conseq?ente de sua comercializa??o. S?o conhecimentos que implicam a escolha ?s mat?rias-primas, as singularidades dos aspectos formais e m?todos produtivos, sobretudo as rela??es contextuais organizadas para defender a sobreviv?ncia da atividade

This text is the result of a research project which began in summer 2015. I spent the past two years visiting various laboratories concerned with questions of life: the Pelling Lab, SymbioticA, the Chooi Lab and the HumAnimaLab. My methods have been highly immersive and at the edges of autoethnography. I have navigated gestures and a cellular anthropology to gain a better understanding of the relations at play within the laboratories I have grown with and learned from. Interconnected moving livings is what I stumbled upon in these spaces of scientific, artistic and, most importantly, embodied exploration. By characterizing these specific biotechnological relations and mediations which are in processes of articulation, I explore the notion of crafting. I draw from the literatures of the anthropology of life, anthropology of craft as well as from craft theory to speak of concurrent laboratory livings as engaging in a crafting with livings.

No abstract available / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

Bangladesh is the most densely populated country with 1188 people per square kilometers. It has a total population of 160 million people and among which more than 16 million people lives in the capital, and that makes it one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Consequently there are huge needs for high rise housing to accommodate all those people or otherwise shift them to other place. But our country, at present, does not have enough resource to build up a newer city so that they can solve accommodation, infrastructure and unemployment problems. Thus, the only option is privatization of the housing which also has started in our country and this scenario is appearing to be more devastating. These buildings does not respect nor reflect our culture, history, society, religion, norms, behavior or community. Additionally, these housing units at final level of finishing are out of reach for the low and middle income people even though it was intended to be built for the low income group. Urban poor is a problem and an also an opportunity for this City. They are actively taking part in the economy and they are the server of the 4th class services of the society. But they don’t have proper place to live and facilities to lead their life style. Thus they sometimes choose different path of life leaving behind community values. However, they have lots of potential in the city and can easily make them useful to contribute to the culture and the society of the city. With a better place to live that will support their life style, they can easily become the keeper of their culture and crafts. With proper housing they can produce income and support their families. We can easily rely on their craftsmanship to retain our culture. Architecture should be sustainable and for all. So I have decided to work on the housing for mid and low income group so that they can stay and serve the city. It’s not only the design strategy but also the complete systematic process so that it can ensure that the end user can afford it. Our country is rich in culture, festivals, history and religion. So the design process should be sophisticated and ingenious to keep it in place. Also in our country still it’s a common scenario that most of the house wives doesn’t add to any income for the family. From my perspective a sustainable design can make that happen too. Thereafter my thesis intends to develop an architectural solution that can revive this city of Dhaka through ideas sustainable for the city and dweller as well as systemize the infrastructure to manipulate their passive income strategy and ensure a healthy communal and social life for them.

Holograms are a newer form of digital media. Digital media is changing traditional arts. They are also shaping how people play. How holograms have influenced play and crafting is not well understood. This project used dollhouses to examine how crafting a digital dollhouse relates to crafting a tangible dollhouse. Further, the project examined how playing in both dollhouses compares. Two dollhouses were created by the author/craftsperson. She reflects on her craft practices, relating her two experiences. Adult play testers describe their play experience in the holographic dollhouse and tangible dollhouse. The author’s experience creating is analyzed through its material, social and playful aspects. She found each dollhouses had both material and immaterial qualities. She preferred playing alone in the dollhouses and found the creation process of the dollhouses was both play and work at the same time. The play testers’ experience was also examined through material, social and playful characteristics. Their responses to the survey indicated that grasping objects was difficult in both dollhouses. They reported that they would have preferred to play alone in the dollhouses and that both dollhouses felt playful. An area of potential research that was uncovered involved a question of ownership of the dollhouse and how this may have changed the results of the study.