To celebrate the 250th issue of Crafts, the magazine asked a group of makers, writers, gallery owners and collectors to nominate a moment that changed the field of making.
The American Craft Museum changes its name (2002)
For me an important moment is the moment that craft became a dirty word: the other c-word! In America the evidence for this is tangible; the changing of the name of the American Craft Museum in New York to the Museum of Arts & Design in 2002 (mind you, I love the acronym MAD). And in 2003 the dropping of the word ‘craft’ from California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, making it simply the California College of the Arts. Maybe the seminal moment was in 2005 when Lacey Jane Roberts (a grad student from CCA) knitted the words ‘& Crafts’ in bright orange yarn and installed them in their former place at the end of the ‘California College of Arts’ sign, so that it read ‘California College of Arts & Crafts’ again.
Freddie Robins, artist