Schumacher College and Dartington have launched an exciting new range of craft courses in September 2015, many offering the chance to learn from local makers.
From camping in the woods with outdoor films, cooking and making spoons at Spoon Camp to building your own tiny hut in the trees on the Relaxation Pod course – Dartington is the place to be for all things craft in the coming season.
The craft revolution, which is an expansion of Dartington’s long-running adult education programme, kicks off with a ten-week night class in contemporary woodwork with local Ashburton maker Ambrose Vevers on 9 September, who coined the phrase ‘make less sawdust and more wood shavings’ to describe his non-machine techniques that include steam bending and ‘spokeshaving’. Learn how to make your own wooden stool to take home.
Of the 16 courses this autumn, you can choose to make toast tongs, a cheese or bread board, a boot rack, coat hooks, stools, scarves, drawings, glazed pots and tiles, a relaxation pod, printed fabric, a deep button foot stool, knitted clothes for charity, baskets, willow mats/cooling trays/pot stands, buttons, rush bags and inlay tiles. Most courses will take place in the refurbished Chicken Shed at Schumacher College.
In November we will be celebrating Wovember- a whole month of weaving with courses run by weaving legends Hilary Burns and Linda Lemieux. Make foraging baskets, a rush sachel and and contemporary tableware with materials foraged locally, as well as your chance to make your own cleft hazel fencing for your garden with James Dyson. We will also be hosting a Knit-a-thon – a whole day knitting marathon with Social Fabric, lots of knit contests, quizzes and cakes!
A particular highlight is Spoon Camp from 1 to 4 October where you’ll get to carve your own spoon out of wood, watch films outdoors, eat and camp out in North Woods, Dartington, with the renowned Barn the Spoon (aka Barnaby Carder) who’s down from Hackney, London.
The new courses build on the highly respected craft education long offered by the Dartington Printmakers workshop and Mary Bartlett’s Bookbinding workshop (known for its internationally significant collection of type and examples of non-Western traditions of bookmaking).
Dartington’s tradition of craft dates back to the 1920s, as its founders Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst believed ‘progressive forms of education including the arts and craft to be the foundations of human flourishing’ with the ground-breaking Dartington Hall school’s classrooms ‘a farm, a garden, workshops, play grounds, woods and freedom’. Schumacher College and Dartington are now seeking to honour and regenerate this great tradition of craft on the estate, in keeping with Schumacher College’s innovative transformative education that aims to encourage our society to thrive within our planet’s ecological limits.
Craft learning programme manager, Lou Rainbow, says: ‘Many people fall into a pattern of over-consumption which has implications for the environment, and doesn’t leave us much happier. Why not step off the treadmill and make something by hand, something that you can treasure forever? What would you make – a bowl that you could eat from for the rest of your life, a spoon, a place to rest, a light to read by? How would you make these things – do you have the skills?’
If you’ve ideas you want to share for our craft programme, please contact Lou Rainbow on crafted@dartington.org or call her on 01803 84 7238.
HI I wanted dates for the canoe building course
Hi Paul – you can find the dates you need by clicking here. You can also see all the Crafted courses at any point by visiting the Crafted at Dartington homepage.
I’m trying to find details of the cheese making day on 23rd January, can you help?
Best wishes,
Polly
Hi Polly, I’m afraid the day is sold out (http://dartington.org/whats-on/event/?id=139398). To keep across future events please head to our events system – just click What’s On at the top of the page – and filter by ‘courses and classes’. Alternatively click ‘crafted @ Dartington’ in the What’s On menu for details on all courses. Hope this helps!