Best in class: 8 craft graduates to watch
Crafts magazine has found rich pickings among this year's cohort of makers. Here are the standouts
Hana Minowa
During one of the 2020 lockdowns, Hana Minowa began collecting grasses and leaves, which she wove into baskets in the confines of her bedroom. ‘I was interested in how natural materials are raw, fragile and short-lived – until they are put in contact with a person’s hands and preserved or crafted into something sturdy, refined and embellished,’ she says.
Such foraging became central to her graduate collection, which takes inspiration from prehistoric Japanese craft from the Jōmon period. The BA Fashion Design with Knitwear graduate from London’s Central Saint Martins used discarded materials like hemp, jute, lotus roots, seagrass and palm leaves to create her sculptural looks.
Scott Smith
Boorachie – a Scottish term for a collection of objects – is a group of vessels and spoons by Scott Smith that recall the craggy coastline of north-east Scotland, where the Glasgow School of Art student spent much of his time over the last year. The Silversmith & Jewellery BA graduate – who has a string of awards to his name – experimented with carving, raising and casting processes to create his geologically inspired pieces, relishing the meditative aspect of these crafts.
During lockdown, Smith began carving wooden spoons and when he was allowed to work in the metalwork studio once more, he took design cues from the resulting wood chips, casting these in bronze and silver to make textured handles for his sculptural utensils
The Hardy Tree, a ceramic piece by Edgar Ward
Edgar Ward
‘I have lived in Delhi, London and Paris and draw inspiration from sites within these ancient cities where the old and the new exist together,’ says Royal College of Art Ceramics & Glass MA graduate Edgar Ward. ‘I try to capture the sensations and textures of a place, leading the viewer’s eye through areas of descriptive modelling that morph into abstraction.’
Recent work reflects his London surroundings, such as The Hardy Tree: a swirling ceramic sculpture that takes cues from the tree in St Pancras Old Church burial ground that Victorian author Thomas Hardy famously encircled with gravestones.
Revolve Around X, a glass work by Jason McAnuff
Jason McAnuff
The sounds of waves lapping against rocks on a lake inspired the graduation project of Jason McAnuff, whose work flows from analogue to digital and back to analogue. ‘Revolve Around X is an investigation into the visual properties of sound, and how it can be digitally processed into a language of forms, revealing the geometric fluidity of a self-colliding waveform over time,’ explains the Plymouth College of Art Ceramics & Glass BA graduate.
He took audio from the lake and digitally transformed it into an animation of fluid forms, before using traditional glassblowing techniques to translate them into 3D.
Ralph Shuttleworth
For the final project of his Furniture Design BA at Nottingham Trent University, Ralph Shuttleworth created the Fraxinus table, a curvaceous statement piece measuring two-and-a-half metres. ‘It celebrates ash as a material through its undulating curves. Ash is fantastic: it creates flowing twists and bends due to its flexibility and strength.’
The work also comes with a serious message: ‘I aim to bring attention to the plight of British ash trees from ash dieback disease.’ Other designs include bentwood sculptures, and his Warped collection that harnesses the natural drying process to create turned wood vessels with organic undulations.
Disruption, a vessel made from porcelain, paper and clay by Jo Northedge
Jo Northedge
‘Completing a degree in lockdown had a lot of ups and downs,’ says Jo Northedge, a BA Three Dimensional Design graduate from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. ‘I wanted to balance the pain and confusion of the last year with the positives that disruption and change can provide and show the beauty of new perspectives, however hard-earned and unpredictable they can be.’
To do so, Northedge created Disruption, a series of vessels made from porcelain and paper clay, their classical forms erupting with shelllike forms that appear to grow and proliferate. In the process, she won the Visual Arts Scotland’s Graduate Showcase Award.
While Calm, a tapestry by Al Bates
Al Bates
The Glasgow-based maker designed her Curious While Calm collection as a soothing antidote to the anxiety induced by the pandemic. Al Bates, who graduated with a BA in Textile Design from Edinburgh College of Art, asked friends to send her photographs of home comforts and their favourite safe spaces during lockdown.
She abstracted these domestic references to design rugs, wall hangings and tapestries in a manner and colour palette that echoes the paintings of Ben Nicholson. She included botanical motifs to evoke the tranquil pleasures of lockdown walks, using weaving, knitting, tufting and felting techniques honed during confinement. It won Bates a Colour in Design Award at this summer’s New Designers exhibition.
Beyond the Binary Wave, a fashion collection by Millie Whitehead
Millie Whitehead
Beyond the Binary Wave is a collection by Millie Whitehead that defies conventional gender stereotypes. The London based maker, who graduated with a BA in hand embroidery from The Royal School of Needlework, has combined traditionally male and female motifs into the tailoring and adornment of each look.
Goldwork features heavily, as do pearls and Swarovski crystals, while monochrome colours give the pieces a hard edge. Whitehead references the term ‘gender fluidity’ by swathing her embroidery around the body like water. She believes that the fashion industry should abolish the idea of gender completely, to allow us to ‘express ourselves fully without hindrance’.
