No description available.

This doctoral dissertation provides a theoretical examination of amateur craft as a differential practice. Concepts drawn from an inter-disciplinary source base are used to define, characterise and elucidate features of amateur craft practice that have long been presumed superfluous and opposite to valorised ‘professional’ practice. I investigate the attraction, motivation and complexities that lie behind this widespread, yet largely understudied, phenomenon of modern culture. Studies of everyday life, social history, aesthetics, material culture, art criticism and craft theory help conceptualise the position of the amateur, and case studies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – including the paint-by-number mania in 1950s USA, suburban chicken keeping, and amateur railway modelling – serve to substantiate the theoretical claims made. The thesis is not comprehensive in its coverage of either a specific craft medium or a particular chronology or geography. Instead the thesis is divided into three thematic chapters: amateur surface intervention, amateur space, and amateur time. These chapters reveal some of the unexpected consequences of subjecting amateur practice to serious study. The examples demonstrate how amateur craft practice is differential within capitalism,dependant on its structures while simultaneously stretching, refracting, and quietly subverting them. As a reprieve or a supplement to an individual’s primary occupation, the constrained freedom of amateur craft practice fulfils an essential role within modern life, providing a temporary moment of autonomous control over labour-power in which the world can be shaped anew.

The purpose of this study is to bring together the information necessary to assess the Mixtec goldsmithing techniques and the designation of these techniques as a culmination of New World metallurgy. Historical and technological backgrounds are examined in depth.

An emergency is a speeded-up emergence, a state of change that accelerates beyond the control of the system in which it takes place and results in either death or necessary development, for an establishment of a new rhythm.     This work is an investigation on the limits and possibilities of contemporary corpus practices. My aim for it is to be reflective of my own ambivalence towards the field in which my silversmithing practice is situated, and to promote the urgency of collaborative craft, in traditional as well as contemporary contexts. This investigation has resulted in the collaborative corpus project Poetic Justice, together with Klara Brydewall Sandquist, promoting two separate feminist agendas, in order to elevate them both and underline their entanglement. One being to manifest and justify women’s anger, and the other to oppose the cult of the individual genius and suggest alternate possibilities in relation to historical corpus in the contemporary field of craft. It is also a way for us to highlight the urgency of supporting, elevating and celebrating each other’s practices and purposes, through a closely intertwined way of working that investigates where objects begin and end, in space as well as in time.

There is currently need for reform in art programs of all kinds, in regards to use of and focus on contemporary art and current practices. Teaching about art of our time and place enables students to understand and make connections to their world, and facilitates art making that is creative and relevant. This thesis describes theory and rationale for basing curriculum on contemporary art practices and presents a jewelry workshop, for all skill levels, that teaches contemporary art themes and practices. There are two units. The first teaches metal texturing, shaping and simple soldering skills while, focusing on art that deals with spectral and compensatory remembering themes. The second unit teaches bezel setting while focusing on alternative to the establishment art themes. The lessons in the workshop were also created using contemporary art teaching techniques and new principles and elements of design.

Experience of Antarctica is unique and overwhelming and the phenomenon of the landscape and knowledge of its history continues to inspire artists and writers. Since Antarctica's discovery and exploration both before and during the Heroic Age; explorers, expeditioners, artists and writers have attempted to record and visualise Antarctica. In1982 international Antarctic programmes started to assist artists to travel to Antarctica with the intention of providing perceptive interpretations no longer attached to science or exploration. This practice-led research is the first project where a jeweller has explored and interpreted a personal experience of Antarctica to produce souvenir and jewellery objects. These objects reveal new interpretations of Antarctica that engage with the viewer through the recognisable personal jewellery and souvenir object. This research has produced new contemporary souvenir and jewellery objects by interpreting both personal photographs and re-examining the historic stories, photographs and representations of Antarctica. The bibliographic investigations of historical jewellery and souvenirs provided specific examples of historical personal mementos that are now displayed in museums. This research analyses the meaning of historical examples of souvenirs and jewellery and examines the way in which photography has been manipulated and used on hard media. Through this analysis and examination of historical examples the research focuses on studio-based experimentation with enamelling and contemporary technologies to establish the links enamelling has had with micromosaics and miniature painting. This practice-led research investigates new and innovative ways to interpret these historical techniques and draw on the notion of the souvenir. Thinking through the processes used in this research and retelling the personal experience of Antarctica, contemporary technologies are used to reimagine historical examples of tourist jewellery and personal souvenirs presenting a further understanding of Antarctica's significance both culturally and environmentally. The research not only provides an addition to the diverse range of interpretations of Antarctica it also explores the area of enamelling in contemporary jewellery and object making by contributing to the current revival of the tradition both locally and internationally. This research offers new experiences and knowledge through the investigation, experimentation, manufacture and installation of enamelled objects.

A social etiquette has emerged around the consumption of food in the West which requires the use of cutlery – knife, fork and spoon. It is the spoon that is the subject of this thesis, a utensil so familiar as to have become almost invisible. The significance of the spoon should not be underestimated and it is employed in this study as a device to offer insight into material practices, examine theoretical issues in relation to design and explore the culture of representation that has developed around objects in the contemporary field of visual and material culture. In this sense this thesis can be seen as located in the blurred boundaries of art, craft and design and as constituting a text which contextualises and supports a collection of artefacts developed in the course of a 'practice led' Art and Design PhD. The spoon exists not only as an object whose usefulness transcends time but also in terms of a metaphorical singularity; as an idea with an infinite number of possible interpretations and material manifestations. This thesis originates in the idea of a reflective cross-disciplinary enquiry intended to explore fundamental questions around what the author defines as “spoonness”, articulating that which might otherwise be articulated through (and subsumed in) the making of the object itself. Significantly, by tracing the journey of the authors film „Emilie Eating Soup‟ together with the various objects, exhibitions and catalogues developed in the course of this research, this thesis also contributes to current critical discourse from the perspective of the practitioner - a voice that in the past has often been absent from academic discourse. It opens up the creative processes to scrutiny and further comment, and serves as a model of analysis to others in the field of material culture to aid reflection upon their own practice and generate new modes of innovation. A critical reflection upon the works subsequent reception at a series of prestigious international exhibitions and events is made throughout this thesis. These materials, together with this text, combine to represent the broad arc of this author‟s creative practice and collectively define the innovative nature of this PhD.