The Crafts Study Centre continues to add to its object and archive collections through donations, bequests and purchases. All potential additions to the collection are reviewed by the Centre’s Acquisitions Committee, which meets approximately twice a year, and are considered against the collecting priorities set out in the Collections Development Policy.

Acquisition highlights October 2024-September 2025

Iwa by Ranti Bam: A significant work from the ceramic artist Ranti Bam, the third commission of the Contemporary Art Society’s Griffin Award. Iwa was made in the Ceramics and Glass workshops on the UCA campus after three days exploring the CSC collections in its Research Room. The work is hand-built from slabs that have been impressed with painted slip motifs influenced by Enid Marx’s hand-block printed samples in the CSC colllection. For more details click here. Now on show as part of Fluidity and Inscription (until May 2026).

Blue Heaven and Silent Night by Mary Farmer: Two exceptional peices by the radical textile artist Mary Farmer family, purchased with funding from the Patricia Baines Trust. For more details click here. Follows the retrospective exhibition at the CSC Mary Farmer: A Life in Tapestry (May - September 2024).

Tom Perkins and Gaynor Goffe pieces: Calligraphy, cut lettering, sketches, roughs and other archival items. Two pieces are on show as part of Fluidity and Inscription (until May 2026): Goffe’s Night’s Darkness Yields, and a letter-cut slate alphabet by Perkins.