OLD CRAFTS, NEW ENERGY
LAST YEAR, when the cutting-edge Frieze London art fair included a special section dedicated to female weavers in its programme, one thing was clear: craft, long dismissed by the art world as folksy and inferior, was finally in a league of its own. Certainly investment in craft is now big business – in its recent report The Market for Craft, the Crafts Council estimated it to be worth £3 billion in the UK.
What’s surprising, perhaps, about this boom in old techniques is the demographic attracted to them. ‘The biggest growth in the craft-buying market is the under 35s. As their tastes and
