Exploring Contemporary Craft

The craft of craft, the art of craft - here in Canada we're just starting to really talk about these things. In March 1999, Jean Johnson, who runs Toronto's Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, organized a wildly successful symposium on the state of craft in Canada. Curators, writers, critics, academics and craftspeople spoke about all aspects of craft: history, practice, theory, criticism. Taken together, these papers create a clear picture of the vibrant crafts scene in Canada.

The symposium was a groundbreaking event, a first in Canada, offering to the crafts community a new depth of consideration. The book, too, is a Canadian first, and it will allow a dialogue about the academic side of the craft movement to continue.

Each of the book's three sections, History, Theory and Critical Writing, contains a keynote paper and essays by experts in each field, including Mark Kingwell writing 'On Style, ' Blake Gopnik on 'Reviewing Craft Exhibitions for the Art Pages, ' and Robin Metcalfe addressing 'Teacup Readings: Contextualizing Craft in the Art Gallery.'