Submitted by: Sydney Luther, Gallery Assistant
Happy New Year! If you’ve been receiving our newsletters, updates from our executive director, or the invitation to our newest exhibition, you may have read something about or seen the logo for Craft Year 2015. Craft Year is a national year-long initiative put on by The Canadian Crafts Federation (CCF) and the Saskatchewan Craft Council is excited to be involved.
The Canadian Crafts Federation is a national arts organization which represents the entire Canadian fine craft sector and the provincial and territorial Craft Councils across Canada. The CCF’s purpose is to promote and advance Canadian craft nationally and internationally to benefit all craftspeople, as well as the Canadian community. They held the first Craft Year in 2007, where over 700 events took place nationally. The CCF hopes to continue this positive trend with Craft Year 2015.
As described on the Craft Year website, “Craft Year is a year-long, nation-wide festival aimed at promoting craft as a key player in Canadian Culture.” The CCF has asked all involved parties, which includes all the provincial Craft Councils in Canada, to register any craft related event to their website to be considered a part of this festival. These events can include craft exhibitions, fairs, book launches, open houses, conferences, workshops, competitions, publications, community events and more. Here at the SCC, we have registered all three of our annual markets – Waterfront Craft Art Market, Saskatchewan Handcraft Festival, and Wintergreen Fine Craft Market – as well as all of the exhibitions in our Affinity Gallery in the upcoming year, the first of which is Our Prairie in Fibre, which opens January 16, 2015. We are also planning several exciting Craft Year events to take place over the course of 2015!
You can be involved too! Individuals can register their activities, to be featured on the Craft Year 2015 website alongside our events. There are two ways in which anyone can participate: you can re-brand your already planned events for 2015 with the Craft Year logo, which can be found here, or you can create new activities or events designed specifically for Craft Year, or you could do both. Register your events here to be featured on the Craft Year 2015 website.
Stay tuned to hear more about the SCC’s involvement in Craft Year 2015 in the coming months!