Craft development under strain

Expectations that craft development organisations can build sustainable business models on the back of commissions from trading activity, whilst at the same time being champions of artform development, are placing a burden on them that is not replicated in other parts of the visual arts, according to a new report. ‘Mixture Matters’, which explores the business challenges and opportunities facing craft development organisations, finds that there is limited cross-over between contemporary work commissioned as part of artform development and work intended for sale in a craft shop or gallery. As a result, the objectives and business models for these different types of activities need to be considered separately, before “knitting it all together into a single business model for an organisation”.

The report was commissioned by the Catalyst Craft Consortium – Liverpool’s Bluecoat Display Centre; Birmingham’s Craftspace; Devon Guild; Manchester Craft & Design Centre; and Smiths Row in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk – which was funded under Arts Council England’s Catalyst scheme supporting smaller organisations to build fundraising capacity. A financial analysis of these organisations, comparing them with the wider UK visual arts sector, has found that they generate relatively high levels of earned income using strong entrepreneurial skills, and have lower than average levels of grant dependency. But their potential to develop income streams is largely dependent on the extent to which they can generate building-based income from a café, shop or space hire. The report finds that there may be potential for them to connect craft into other public sector activities through cultural commissioning, but while consumers and makers are familiar trading partners, “fewer public sector clients are familiar with buying in craft skills to deliver education, health and social services outcomes”.

According to report author Sarah Thelwall, “small organisations with limited staff resources are likely to continue to struggle to carve out sufficient time to spend on strategic sector development simply because of the volume of immediate demands on their time and the lack of people in a team to do the firefighting”. She sees this as something that contemporary craft development organisations should be aiming for: “to achieve a critical mass of strategic thinkers and harness their combined intelligence and insight.”