Craft and the Creative Economy examines the place of craft and making in the contemporary cultural economy, with a distinctive focus on the ways in which this creative sector is growing exponentially as a result of online shopfronts and home-based micro-enterprise, 'mumpreneurialism' and downshifting, and renewed demand for the handmade.

Craft is resurgent. More people are buying craft; more money is being spent on craft products than ever before. This book centres craft as a creative industry, illuminating the experiences of those working in and around craft, particularly people from marginalised groups. Shining a light on inequalities around craft work, the author examines the lived experiences of women makers of colour in the professional craft sector. Experiences of racism and microaggressions at all stages of their craft career are analysed. The author draws on innovative empirical research carried out in the UK and Australia, two countries where the resurgence in craft is apparent, yet professional craft practice is dominated by the white and relatively privileged. In interrogating hierarchies of expertise and cultural value in craft, the author employs case studies from community crafts and social enterprises. The result is a book of interest to scholars at the intersections of the creative and cultural industries, the creative economy and inequalities at work.

Craft Economies provides a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary craft production, situating practices of amateur and professional making within a wider creative economy. Contributors address a diverse range of practices, sites and forms of making in a wide range of regional and national contexts, from floristry to ceramics and from crochet to coding. The volume considers the role of digital practices of making and the impact of the maker's movement as part of larger trends around customisation, on-demand production, and the possibilities of 3D printing and digital manufacturing.

This special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy sets out to address two related questions. Firstly, how can cultural policy address the complexities of creative processes and people? Secondly, to what extent can cultural policy be seen as a 'creative' process and how might such an approach to cultural policy play out in practice? This book was originally published as a special issue of International Journal of Cultural Policy.

In this collection of nine essays some of the preeminent art historians in the United States consider the relationship between art and craft, between the creative idea and its realization, in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. The essays, all previously unpublished, are devoted to the pictorial arts and are accompanied by nearly 150 illustrations. Examining works by such artists as Michelangelo, Titian, Volterrano, Giovanni di Paolo, and Annibale Carracci (along with aspects of the artists' creative processes, work habits, and aesthetic convictions), the essayists explore the ways in which art was conceived and produced at a time when collaboration with pupils, assistants, or independent masters was an accepted part of the artistic process. The consensus of the contributors amounts to a revision, or at least a qualification, of Bernard Berenson's interpretation of the emergent Renaissance ideal of individual "genius" as a measure of original artistic achievement: we must accord greater influence to the collaborative, appropriative conventions and practices of the craft workshop, which persisted into and beyond the Renaissance from its origins in the Middle Ages. Consequently, we must acknowledge the sometimes rather ordinary beginnings of some of the world's great works of art--an admission, say the contributors, that will open new avenues of study and enhance our understanding of the complex connections between invention and execution. With one exception, these essays were delivered as lectures in conjunction with the exhibition The Artists and Artisans of Florence: Works from the Horne Museum hosted by the Georgia Museum of Art in the fall of 1992.

In this exciting new book Angela McRobbie charts the ‘euphoric’ moment of the new creative economy, as it rose to prominence in the UK during the Blair years, and considers it from the perspective of contemporary experience of economic austerity and uncertainty about work and employment. McRobbie makes some bold arguments about the staging of creative economy as a mode of ‘labour reform’; she proposes that the dispositif of creativity is a fine-tuned instrument for acclimatising the expanded, youthful urban middle classes to a future of work without the raft of entitlements and security which previous generations had struggled to win through the post-war period of social democratic government. Adopting a cultural studies perspective, McRobbie re-considers resistance as ‘line of flight’ and shows what is at stake in the new politics of culture and creativity. She incisively analyses ‘project working’ as the embodiment of the future of work and poses the question as to how people who come together on this basis can envisage developing stronger and more protective organisations and associations. Scattered throughout the book are excerpts from interviews with artists, stylists, fashion designers, policy-makers, and social entrepreneurs.

"To explain the logic of these arrangements, the author draws on the analytical resources of industrial economics and the theory of contracts. He addresses the winner-take-all character of many creative activities that brings wealth and renown to some artists while dooming others to frustration; why the "option" form of contract is so prevalent; and why even savvy producers get sucked into making "ten-ton turkeys," such as Heaven's Gate."--BOOK JACKET.