Uncovering Craft

In his large-scale paintings of biblical scenes, produced mostly in the first quarter of the twentieth century, British artist Stanley Spencer reimagined his hometown of Cookham as “a village in Heaven”, inserting friends and neighbours into a celestial context. For James Fox, seeing the works in person was a monumental event; an entry point for understanding the role of visual art as a vital tool for communication. “I really didn’t want to go, I had no interest at that point,” he recalls of his first visit, aged eight, to the Stanley Spencer Gallery. “But I stood in front of this painting and I just burst into tears because of how extraordinary it was. That's when I caught the bug.”

Already creatively minded, spending large amounts of time on his own, “hunched over a piece of paper drawing birds, flowers, superheroes and cricket players”, the trip to Cookham marked an important shift, informing a later teenage ambition of becoming a professional artist. Convinced, however, that his skills didn’t match those of his peers, James sought counsel from a teacher, and subsequently arrived at art history. “I've always been compelled by storytelling, and history is a vital discipline that’s full of amazing stories,” he notes. Today, he is a celebrated broadcaster (he returned to Spencer’s work, not for the first time, in his BAFTA-nominated BBC series British Masters in 2011), author, and Director of Studies in History of Art at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (his alma mater).

“It is a lot of plates to spin at any given time, but all of them are underpinned by the same conviction: that making matters, creativity matters – to individuals, to communities, to our country as a whole, and we need to advocate for it,” says James, reflecting on how the arenas of broadcasting, publishing and academia feed into one another. Since 2023, he has also been involved with the Hugo Burge Foundation, initially as a trustee and currently as Creative Director; he attributes the passionate endorsements for the creative arts that pepper our conversation to this relationship with the charity sector. “I’ve come to see how financial and governmental support has been shrivelling and receding – practical arts colleges disappearing, arts charities closing, community groups folding, artists giving up – and what a tragedy that is.”

“Culture, and creativity, is not some nice, optional extra,” he continues, “it is absolutely integral to society.” His most recent project, the book Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades, further demonstrates this sincere but ultimately hopeful take on the situation, serving as an act of preservation that champions craftspeople around the country. “It had been in my body for a decade at least,” he shares of the genesis behind his second trade book (his first, The World According to Colour, was published in 2021, while he has authored several academic works). “Three years ago, I started to become aware of the fact that many crafts were disappearing, but that there was also a growing need as a result of Covid-19.”

Like many people during the lockdown, James pursued various creative practices in 2020, making sense of the mood by returning to his childhood activities. “I made something by hand every single day; drawings, paintings – lots of the paintings are actually up [in the house],” he explains over Zoom, at one point removing an abstract landscape from the wall so I can inspect it via the computer’s camera (the cup he’s drinking from was another product of the pandemic, he points out, made by his own hand at a ceramics class he attended when things reopened). “Manipulating a physical material, doing something with your hands that isn't scrolling through a phone, can be immensely rewarding, grounding and stabilising, psychologically,” he observes. Craftland was an alternative vehicle.

“The thing that motivated this book, ultimately, is the fact that we’re living through an industrial revolution right now, a revolution of tech and AI that is already changing the way we live and work,” he offers. “It seemed a good time to look back at older ways of working and making, partly to chronicle them before they potentially disappear, and partly to see what we can learn.” James spent a year and a half travelling around the British Isles, spending days at a time in various communities, meeting thatchers (Wester Ross), watchmakers (Isle of Man) and coopers (County Antrim). “The first thing I realised is that every part of this country has its genius,” he says. “We tend to romanticise craft, but I found the most extraordinary things being conducted in retail parks and industrial estates, spare bedrooms and converted garages.”

In one of the book’s opening passages, he acknowledges the debate that surrounds the related terminology, namely referring to craft as “a slippery term”, and he expands on this over Zoom. “People disagree about its meaning; some think craft is a traditional thing, some think it can equally apply to modern practices. Some people I interviewed don't like the term, associating it with hobbies and pastimes, as opposed to professional practice. For me, craft describes something very broad: anyone who thinks with their hands and strives for excellence for its own sake has the potential to be a craftsperson. It's not just about traditional media – there is a craft to coding, graphic design, film editing. It's a living tradition.”

“We often create this distinction between art and craft, but that’s nonsense,” he adds. “The reality is that human beings are makers of things – we have always made paintings, sculptures, pots, baskets, clothes, houses… It’s a great spectrum of human creativity, I'm interested in all of it.” When we speak, the last copies of the book have reached their craftsperson, and James shares that the reception has been wholly supportive; one woman in particular responded as he had at the Stanley Spencer Gallery all those years ago, overwhelmed with seeing herself on the page. For his part, James says the experience has been the most rewarding of his professional life. “And I count many of those people as friends now. This book is theirs, and I'm their greatest fan.”

James wears the Finn Donegal Wool Sweater in Bordeaux with the Norv Denim Tapered Trousers.

Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades by James Fox
is published by Penguin.

Words by Zoe Whitfield.

Photography by Aniella Weinberger.