Next Thursday sees the official opening of the new Crafts Council at Designyard retail gallery in Temple Bar, Dublin. Perhaps not before its time, the Crafts Council has decided to move its HQ gallery from the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre to the epicentre of creative initiative in the maturing South Bank, home to trendy interiors store Haus and a new indoor market.
This first-floor gallery promises to house the keenest selection of Irish designed craft and interiorware in the country.
The Crafts Council and Designyard are calling it a strategic alliance and indeed one can see how moving from their quiet, second-floor gallery at Powerscourt is a good move for the Crafts Council (its administrative headquarters has just moved to Kilkenny) - but how will it benefit the independently-run Designyard, which, after four years in the business, was just reaching break-even?
"We are both non-profit-making bodies with very similar objectives, so the alliance was a natural one," says Danae Kindness, chief executive of Designyard.
The purpose-built Designyard premises at 12, East Essex Street, includes a ground-floor jewellery gallery, the new, first-floor Crafts Council gallery and a second-floor commissioning gallery - which has been an essential element of Designyard's success to date.
The principal aim of the Crafts Council was to increase sales of Irish craft, says its chief executive, Leslie Reed. "In recent consumer research, it emerged that modern Irish buyers are primarily interested in the design and quality of craft goods. The Crafts Council's role in this new alliance is to help small companies meet the increased demands of discerning customers."
Together, the Crafts Council and Designyard hope to create the mood of a department store of quality craft and design - a sort of one-stop store for the discriminating customer. The installation of a new wooden staircase in a more prominent position than its spiral predecessor, will, they hope, draw customers up through the jewellery to the first-floor gallery.
"One of the difficulties with Irish craft in the global market of places such as Habitat, Foko and Haus is that we have to differentiate between the act of buying a piece of Irish craft from buying something produced on a mass scale," Danae Kindness stresses. "We find that people buy Irish craft because it reflects something of themselves in their homes."
One way in which this new collaborative venture will highlight this somewhat elusive connection between buyer and maker is through a series of conversations between designer/makers and the individuals who buy their work.
For example, the opening show at the Crafts Council at Designyard gallery features the work of ceramicist, Cormac Boydell. A large board within the gallery space shows Boydell in conversation with cookery writer, Darina Allen, who owns some of his work. Entitled "The Maker And Collector Connect", this photographic exhibit also includes snippits of their conversation about Boydell's work. Future shows will include a focus on textile-maker Mel Bradley in conversation with fashion designer, John Rocha.
The addition of this more artistic element to the display at the gallery perhaps also presents the work more as art than craft, blurring further that dividing-line between the work of artists and craft maker/designers.
In the increasingly competitive marketplace, Kindness also sees the need for Irish designer/makers to concentrate on what they do best - creating designs. "I believe that manufacturing is not necessarily the key to the future and that Irish designers can design for clever economic production," she says.
To facilitate this, Designyard and the Crafts Council are developing specific initiatives such as a lighting project in which Irish designers are producing a range of lights at competitive prices. There is also a plan to encourage jewellery designers who usually work in silver to expand into gold.
The opening of the new Crafts Council at Designyard gallery coincides with a new show at Designyard's jewellery gallery where the work of two Dutch artists, Froukje Idsardi and Trudi van Schaik will be for sale.
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 10 a.m.5.30 p.m. (Closed to the public during the official opening