Cork Craft Month

Cork Craft Month is really taking off, with great interest from the whole craft sector...crafts people are opening their workshops and studios to the public, demonstrations and hands on "experiential workshops" are planned for August, shops are displaying work that has been made in Cork and Galleries are hosting exhibitions that showcase some of the best of Irish craft.

Across the County and in the City a real buzz is developing as individual crafts people and groups organise a variety of craft - related events and activities for the month of August. The fold out map and calendar of events will be ready for distribution by early July, posters, street signs and point of sale cards will be available for all studios, exhibitions, shops and galleries that are included in the Craft Month, linking all events across the region under the one banner.

Social networking through Facebook will keep you up to date with events, search in Groups for Cork Craft Month - August And don't forget to put your details up on the CAD website, the instructions are quite straightforward, give it a try!

Cork Craft Month

The previous Blog was posted last June, it might be worth re-reading for the history of CAD and how we got to this position....I was pleased to receive a lot of responses from craftspeople in Cork, detailing their plans for this year and hoping that our proposal to run a craft month in 2010 would be successful in attracting support.

I am happy to inform you that funding has been allocated and CAD will be running "Cork Craft Month" during August 2010.

The purpose of the craft month is to celebrate the rich diversity of craft produced in this region. We aim to do that by coordinating and promoting the events and activities that craftspeople regularly hold during the summer and bring them to a wider audience.

This region is well known for the quality and variety of its crafts , we hope to create opportunities for craftspeople to:

• showcase their work through open studios and craft trails
• offer masterclasses and short courses
• offer experiential events where families and/or children participate in making craft
• organise exhibitions, talks and seminars in craftshops, studios and galleries
• create craft areas in local farmers markets throughout August

You might be interested to know that this project is being funded by West Cork, South Cork and Cork City Enterprise Boards and the Arts Office of Cork County Council, with further funds to be confirmed from Crafts Council of Ireland, and the Arts Office of Cork City. Failte Ireland are offering support with marketing and promotion.

Whilst the budget is slightly less than we had requested and it arrived much later than we expected, we have sufficient resources to market and promote your events and to organise open studio trails and hopefully one exhibition/craft event. We aim to bring together all craft related events and activities in Cork and produce a fold- out map which shows when, where and what activities are taking place in Cork. The Map/ Listing will be distributed to Tourist Offices, Libraries, Hotels etc as well as being available on our website.

Next year as many of you already know, is designated "Year of Craft" in Ireland and the Crafts Council of Ireland hopes that some, if not all other counties will hold their own Craft Month throughout August. Our event is being seen as a "pilot" and we hope it will be a great success, it could become an annual event that will develop year on year.

You will be contacted very soon and asked for details of the events you are planning for August. The success of the Craft Month depends largely on your imaginative and exciting ideas, without the craftspeople "Cork Craft Month" would not be possible....

Lovecraft

Along with at least 3 other committee members, I have been involved with Cork Art and Design (previously known as Cork Craft Producers Forum) since 2002. I am delighted to report that after hundreds of meetings, 2 Feasibility Studies, 3 AGMs, countless emails, creation of a web site and printing of a brochure we now have the attention of all the agencies. In fairness we have had support from Cork County Arts Office and the Office of Community and Enterprise all along and financial support from all county and city enterprise boards for financing the feasibility study but we are now looking at the possibility of these agencies working together to help fund and support crafts activities all over the County and City, now that IS new.
The study concluded that Cork should have its own Crafts Officer. However given the difficult economic climate and moratorium on creating new posts, it does not look like we will be handed the funds for a crafts officer at this stage.
The CAD committee recently had a meeting with all the Ent Boards, City Arts Officer, County Arts Officer and Una Parsons of Crafts Council of Ireland. We put forward suggestions for county wide projects and received a favourable response. The agencies have agreed in principle to work together to jointly fund county - wide initiatives through CAD. We intend to include a Project Manager role in all projects in order to avoid the voluntary committee having to shoulder an enormous workload in order to pull this off.
We are proposing a craft month in August next year. CAD would take on the coordination, PR and marketing of all craft related activity in the County and City during the month of August 2010. We forsee printing a fold- out map with all events, exhibitions, open studios, galleries to visit, workshops, demonstrations, craft markets etc. as well as press advertising and web site development.
We would like to invite members of groups and networks as well as individual craftspeople to discuss ways in which they would like to get involved. we need to know if there is genuine interest in this project. By starting to plan now, we can ensure that the craft Month is a big success next summer and hopefully will become an annual fixture.
In order to make a big impresssion, we need to have a series of events across the County and in the City. Maybe a travelling exhibition, or a film screening or a craft trail around various workshops and studios...the possibilities are endless but we want your ideas... Individual groups can develop their own projects, apply for funding from Crafts Council, West Cork Development partnership, any of the Enterprise Boards in your area, the usual places but the difference will be that your event will be part of the Craft Month and will be promoted and marketed effectively.
CAD will be putting in a proposal to the agencies for funding for this project once we have had a positive response from Craftspeople, Guilds, networks, group and societies soplease get back to us with your plans for next summer as soon as possible!