It’s New Designers time! Advice for emerging makers
The end of May and beginning of June are a flurry of activity for emerging makers. Deadlines and Degree shows, the end of one chapter and the looking forward to what is to come. And this week it’s the turn of New Designers – potentially one of the most important stepping stones out into the world.
Introducing the Makers & Tools project
The Makers & Tools project came about out of conversations with makers. Just before Christmas, I was asked by a magazine to interview contemporary craft makers about their relationships to their tools. I selected six emerging makers, working in different materials and with different approaches, whose work intrigued me. In one interview, the maker told me how at the start of the academic year, she and her fellow MA students were asked to bring in tools for a tool swap, a kind of ‘get to know you’ activity. I asked her if she knew what happened to the tool she gave away, whether the other student ended up using it; she didn’t know. And out of that small element of our conversation, the idea for Makers & Tools grew.