It’s a truism that this is something of a moment for craft.  From the Great Pottery Throw Down (returning to screens tonight) to Tate St. Ives’ century of studio ceramics; from east end spoon carvers to west end galleries; and from global luxury to the open source economies of Fab Labs and makerspaces – everyone’s jumping on the craft brand wagon.

In the last two years, we’ve seen the introduction of London Craft Week, the launch of the UK’s first craft film festival – returning this May for a second edition – and even a Woman’s Hour Craft Prize (open to people of all genders) showing at the V&A in the autumn.  Internationally, craft is making a splash at art and design fairs from Basel to Miami, with the Art Newspaper proclaiming that ‘craft is cool’, an unthinkable sentiment a few years ago. Then there’s the wave of publications from how-to guides to sociologist Richard Sennett’s seminal The Craftsman, and from surveys of the new digital making to surveys of East London’s craft scene.   

If all this has you curious about the state of fine craft, then this week brings the chance to see some 500 leading makers at Collect, the international art fair for contemporary objects.  Presented by the Crafts Council, Collect brings to London 37 of the world’s top galleries showing the kind of virtuoso ceramics, glass, textiles and jewellery that shatter preconceptions of the homespun.

Collect sets out to transform perceptions of what craft is and can be.  Alongside the main stands – galleries from the US, Korea, Japan, France, Denmark and more - Collect Open, the fair’s project space, offers artists the chance to present larger scale, experimental work, whilst this year for the first time selected exhibiting galleries will present installations in the fair’s new Spotlight booths.

With fourteen exceptional makers, selected by Faye Toogood – including embroiderer Richard McVetis, ceramist Claire Curneen, and Soojin Kang returning with more of her sculptural tapestry –  Collect Open highlights are many.  Look out for Shelley James’ glass sculpture exploring five-fold symmetry inspired by her collaborations with mathematicians, and London-based Danish ceramist Malene Hartmann Rasmussen’s installation Troldeskoven (‘In the Troll Wood’).

Among the Spotlights are X-ray textiles by Perrier-Jouët Arts Salon Prize winner Rita Parnicky, and two intriguing sound installations – one from silversmith Adi Toch, the other by ceramist Safia Hijos showing with Belgian gallery WCC-BF.  Gallery maison parisienne shines its Spotlight on Simone Pheulpin, an artist well known in Europe, less so in the UK.  Pheulpin’s works defy the eye: appearing to be ceramic or carved wood, they are in fact formed in intricately manipulated fabric fixed with an invisible multitude of pins.

If you’re intrigued by just how Pheulpin and others achieve their extraordinary results, then the Collect talks programme, free to fairgoers, will unveil some of the secrets of the world’s finest makers.  One talk each day focuses on a specific material, whilst in other events, panelists will unpack the notion of connoisseurship, examine the rise of craft on TV, and tackle the place of ceramics in contemporary art.

Collect also offers the opportunity to view two new exhibitions from the Crafts Council before they set off on tour around the country.  Julie Cope’s Grand Tour features two Grayson Perry tapestries designed for The House for Essex, telling the life story of Perry’s fictional everywoman.  These works, the latest additions to the Crafts Council’s national Collection, are accompanied by an audio recording by Perry of his funny, poignant The Ballad of Julie Cope.

Showtime, the second of these exhibitions, presents posters from the Crafts Council’s 45-year exhibition history.  Designed by some of the greats of graphic design, from David King to a slew of Pentagram partners, and set alongside objects from the exhibitions, the posters, striking in themselves, reveal the evolving relationship between 2D and 3D design.

For decades ‘craft’ was something of a dirty word in art and design. Concept was king; skill relegated to a begrudging admiration for ‘artisanship’ at best.   Notoriously, Grayson Perry observed that craftspeople were sequestered (often by choice) in a lagoon, cut off from the main tides of art.

Now, the art world is waking up to craft.  Both Perry and Edmund de Waal, a very different ceramist but another of the handful of makers known to a wider public, are represented by major international galleries, whilst younger artists - Aaron Angell and Jesse Wine, to name just two – are championing ceramics and being championed in turn by the critics.

Ironically, this recognition comes just at a time when craft education is under siege. Some 50% of university craft courses closed in five years, whilst amid the general attrition of arts in schools, Design and Technology has suffered the most.

At the Crafts Council, alongside bringing craft to the public through our exhibitions and shows, we spend energy and effort challenging the erosion of art in education, giving young people the chance to discover their skills through our education programme, and championing the importance of creative, practical skills, not only for the craft stars of the future, but for everyone. If this matters to you, get behind our manifesto, Our Future is in the Making.

Collect, which launched in 2003, was way ahead of its time.  Now everyone else is catching up.  But craft is more than the latest art world trend:  Making connects us to ourselves, to each other and to the world around us. If you want to see a glimpse of the future of craft, make your way to the Saatchi Gallery for Collect this week.  

Annie Warburton, Creative Director, Crafts Council
Collect, 2-6 February, Saatchi Gallery.