The Loewe Craft Prize 2018: a celebration of the artisan

Jennifer Lee’s iconic ceramic vessels are exceptionally rare. Making only around 12 (16 at the most) pieces a year, everything is done by hand. Each pot takes on average two to five weeks to make, and before even beginning that hand-building process, Lee personally colours all the clay.

Using ancient traditional techniques, each piece is made from basic elemental materials - clay, water and oxides – and worked by hand, pinching and coiling, using wooden, bamboo or metal hand tools, some of which are also handmade. After finishing, Lee then dries the vessel slowly, adding another three weeks.

Refreshingly in today’s fast-everything society, patience is an essential virtue for those looking to create, collect or invest in craft. This is made abundantly clear in the line-up of this year’s Loewe Craft Prize, opening later this week at London’s Design Museum to coincide with London Craft Week. Lee, as one of the finalists, will be showcasing her work alongside the best of the best of the world’s contemporary craftspeople.

The exhibition comprises 30 shortlisted works, and features pieces by finalists from across the globe. From ceramics such as Lee’s, to jewellery, textiles, woodwork, glass, metalwork, furniture, papercraft and lacquer, this is a multi-generational, multinational snapshot of excellence in craft today.

Launched by the Loewe Foundation in 2016, with the aim of celebrating excellence, artistic merit and newness in modern craftsmanship, Loewe offers a €50,000 prize to one winner, chosen by a panel of experts from close to 1,900 submissions.

The initiative was conceived by Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson, who cites Loewe’s own beginnings as a collective craft workshop in 1846 as a driving force: “Craft is the essence of Loewe,” says Anderson. “As a house, we are about craft in the purest sense of the word. That is where our modernity lies, and it will always be relevant.”

Ryuhei Sako, another finalist, is based in Hiroshima and makes his pieces using Mokume-gane, a Japanese metal technique dating back to the 17th century. First very thin different coloured alloyed metal sheets are layered and bonded.

The layers are then cut into or drilled and reworked. A successful lamination takes a very skilled artist. “I saw the work of Norio Tamagawa – a living national treasure in Japan, and I was inspired to take up the Mokume-gane technique,” says Sako.

“Mokume-gane has recently been used for jewellery, but forged metal works are rare,” he adds. It takes about a month to make a piece such as the one exhibited as part of the Loewe Prize, and Sako is keen that when others see it, they too might be inspired to take up the tools.

“There are few worldwide craft awards,” says Sako. “I think that it is very important for people around the world to know wonderful craft works.” Lee, already a well-established artist, agrees that such initiatives are important.

“It’s fantastic that the Loewe Foundation are increasing public awareness to the importance of craft,” she says. “They are raising the profile of craft and the significance of making original objects by hand in an age where more and more seems to be reliant on digital and mechanical manufacture.”

Lee’s exhibit uses clay that she originally coloured 30 years ago, a decision she attributes to her discovery that coloured clay mixes can alter over time. “The driving force behind my work is primarily my interaction with the materials in my studio,” she says.

“For over 40 years I’ve developed methods of colouring clay by mixing metal oxides into the clay before handbuilding,” Lee adds. “Colour runs through the pot - form and colour are integrated. Since the 1980s I’ve been developing a colour palette through constant experimentation with oxides. I’m interested in the way oxides interact with each other as colour migrates from one band to another.”

Now in its second year, the standards in craft are higher than ever, says Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, executive secretary of the Loewe Craft Prize Experts Panel. “The standard of applicants impressively high across every category,” she reflects. “Our chosen works reflect an almost alchemical manipulation of each medium’s possibilities and reward those who have mastered traditional skills in order to transform them for the contemporary age.”

As for the winner? We’ll have to exercise patience until that’s announced.

The exhibition runs from 4 May to 17 June; designmuseum.org