Crafted Vancouver opens the studio doors to finely crafted works and wares
Local and international makers, curators, designers, filmmakers, and more taking part in the festival that celebrates fine craftsmanship
Crafted Vancouver 2021 features more than 800 works in a range of media and materials, such as Onggi by Grace Han.
Crafted Vancouver runs online and in-person at various Metro Vancouver venues until May 25.
BEFORE COVID-19, whenever Carrie Ross travelled to different parts of the world, she would seek out craftspeople and go in search of artisans’ studios. She loves not only discovering finely crafted works but also hearing the stories and meeting the people behind them. It was this curiosity and appreciation that motivated her to create Crafted Vancouver, North America’s largest celebration of the hand-crafted world, from the traditional to the cutting-edge, lasting nearly a full month.
Since the onset of the pandemic, Ross’s travels have taken her even further afield, the craft aficionado touring exhibitions around the globe, online, from her own home. While last year’s festival had to be cancelled just weeks before it was set to open, Crafted Vancouver is back for 2021 in a mixed format, mostly virtual with some in-person events. And although its third edition is unfolding this year in a whole new way, the festival still has that reverence for craft at its very heart.
“I have always had a really deep appreciation for fine craftsmanship,” Ross tells Stir via Zoom. “I’m endlessly fascinated. It’s just a real joy to visit studios and to see the work and the dedication involved. Craft really binds us as a society; I feel it always has throughout history. It takes its twists and turns in our society and in its meaning, but it’s a really important aspect of our humanity.
“What drives me personally is to present this to the city, to encourage people to stop and take a look around: craft is everywhere,” the fest’s executive director says. “To acknowledge the people behind that work is so important. Some people dedicate their lives to creating; I find that such a wonderful thing.”
This year, more than 200 local and international makers, curators, designers, filmmakers, studios, galleries, shops, and collectives are taking part. Combined, they contribute more than 800 works for people discover in glass, metal, ceramic, plastic, textile, wood, and other media. There are in-person exhibitions throughout Metro Vancouver, as well as workshops, walking tours, and much more.
Just like the festival itself, its multifaceted Conversation Series aims to build public appreciation of outstanding craft-based work across the spectrum, from the tribal to the contemporary, by diverse established and emerging artists.
For the Conversation Series, Crafted Vancouver is collaborating with Isabelle Fish of Ontario’s Rue Pigalle for The Gallery Talks, which pairs artisans from Crafted Vancouver and Crafting a Difference (an alliance of five London-based contemporary craft and visual arts galleries that exhibited at SoShiro, a Georgian townhouse in the Marylebone district) for thoughtful discussions; she also leads Crafted Conversations, which give people a chance to visit a few master makers’ studios to view their work up close. (Talks can be booked individually and are free to attend.)
The flagship event Crafted Interiors—A Lifestyle Exhibition was all set to take place IRL at the Pipe Shop in North Vancouver. Due to pandemic restrictions, however, it has been transformed into a virtual exhibition, albeit one that’s no less stunning and now has the potential to reach a global audience. (Ross credits festival liaison Marion Couvreur and curator/designer Suzanne Ward, along with so many craftspeople, for bringing things together for filming.) Here’s where you can see outstanding hand-crafted furniture and other craft-based home objects, including accessories, décor, ceramics, and lighting. Among the artists and studios with work being featured are Caliper, Dahlhaus, Dougherty Glassworks, FFABB Home, Grace Han, In Element Designs, Lafleur Atelier, Propellor, Nicholas Purcell Furniture, Tafui Design, and Umbra & Lux. All of the work on the Crafted Interiors Virtual Tour is available for purchase directly from the maker.
On the international program is Make the World Again, curated by University of Melbourne research fellow Kevin Murray, a virtual tour of an exhibition of contemporary textile art produced by the Australian Tapestry Workshop. (The hope was to present this exhibition in 2020 and then in 2021; the festival still aims to have a physical showing next year.) Through tapestry weaving, embroidery, dyeing, screen printing and cloth weaving, 13 artists explore how textiles connect humans to each other and to nature.
Linger is a debut of new and reworked pieces as a part of Brent Comber Atelier in North Vancouver.
The REEL Crafted Film Festival, which was to have taken place at the Cinematheque, moves online to Festivee.com. Director Richard Lukacs has curated a lineup that features two Canadian premieres. (Duncan Parker’s Against the Grain, which is about Sebastaian Cox, a rock star among craft artists; and Yujiro Seki’s Carving the Divine, which delves into the modern practice of a Buddhist woodcarving called Busshi, stream on May 15.) (Free all-access passes to the film fest are available here.)
Embrace Your Curves Daybed by FFABB, Crafted Vancouver 2021.
Need more of a sense of the festival’s scope? Consider some of the other several highlights. Saskatoon-based artist Monique Martin exhibits hundreds of realistic paper dandelions in an immersive installation that carpets the floor of the Seymour Art Gallery in In Context is Everything.
Woven Together is one of the fest’s Window Displays, this one a collaborative artistic and educational exhibit that can be viewed from outside and inside the Silk Weaving Studio on Granville Island. The focus is a piece of handwoven silk, with a look at the number of cocoons, fibre, and skeins it took to weave; different weavers were inspired by and responded to what the one before them created. (Crafted Vancouver lists the featured artists as Anik Choiniere, Cathy Joyce, Kim McKenna, Darlene Ochotta, Lucia Piazzo, Diana Sanderson, and “10,000 unknown silkworms”.)
Garland magazine presents Art of Masks: The craft of protection. It’s a discussion about hand-made responses to the pandemic, as featured in the latest issue of The Journal of Modern Craft, curated by Caroline Kipp, curator of contemporary art at the George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum.
The Craft Council of B.C., VCC Jewellery Art & Design, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Make & Do, and Canadian Society of Decorative Arts are among the many other organizations that have events on this year’s program.
Beyond sharing enthusiasm for hand-crafted art, the fest also has a goal of getting people to support craftspeople and purchase their works and wares.
Ross points out that Crafted Vancouver does not take a commission from artists’ work. “It’s always been that way,” she says. “Festival attendees don’t have to go through us to purchase work. Crafted Vancouver is a platform for event partners, the creators and supporters of exceptional craft-based works, to present outstanding craftsmanship and creativity over 25 days each May. Although it’s a curated festival, everyone is invited to apply. The bottom line is bringing attention to the work.”
For more information, see Crafted Vancouver.
Poison Ring by Andy Cooperman, Crafted Vancouver 2018.
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