Craft and the Creative Economy examines the place of craft and making in the contemporary cultural economy, with a distinctive focus on the ways in which this creative sector is growing exponentially as a result of online shopfronts and home-based micro-enterprise, 'mumpreneurialism' and downshifting, and renewed demand for the handmade.

This critical, international and interdisciplinary edited collection investigates the new normal of work and employment, presenting research on the experience of the workers themselves. The collection explores the formation of contemporary worker subjects, and the privilege or disadvantage in play around gender, class, age and national location within the global workforce. Organised around the three areas of: creative working, digital working lives, and transitions and transformations, its fifteen chapters examine in detail the emerging norms of work and work activities in a range of occupations and locations. It also investigates the coping strategies adopted by workers to manage novel difficulties and life circumstances, and their understandings of the possibilities, trajectories, mobilities, identities and potential rewards of their work situations. This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences, including students and academics of the sociology of work and labor history, and those interested in understanding the implications of the 'new normal' of work and employment.

This book builds upon the ground-breaking work already undertaken by the author filling the absence of research into the significance, character and value of creative industries beyond major urban centres. What has emerged in this work is the specific centrality of place, time and the natural environment to the creative practice of those who have chosen or found themselves operating outside the mainstream of urban creative milieus. Unlike any existing book in the market, Locating Cultural Work uniquely examines creative workers in terms of three interlinked concerns: the wider history of creativity and place in the UK since the Industrial Revolution (in particular the Romantics and the Arts and Craft Movement, especially as manifest in the Lake District and Cotswolds); the emotional-affective-drivers of creativity and place; and, the relationship between rural and regional cultural industries, tourism and environmental awareness.

Craft Economies provides a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary craft production, situating practices of amateur and professional making within a wider creative economy. Contributors address a diverse range of practices, sites and forms of making in a wide range of regional and national contexts, from floristry to ceramics and from crochet to coding. The volume considers the role of digital practices of making and the impact of the maker's movement as part of larger trends around customization, on-demand production, and the possibilities of 3D printing and digital manufacturing.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of 'doing what you love' continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US and the UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways. Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Dendrogeomorphology Beginnings and Futures: A Personal Reminiscence My early forays into dendrogeomorphology occurred long before I even knew what that word meant. I was working as a young geoscientist in the 1960s and early 1970s on a problem with slope movements and deformed vegetation. At the same time, unknown to me, Jouko Alestalo in Finland was doing something similar. Both of us had seen that trees which produced annual growth rings were reacting to g- morphic processes resulting in changes in their internal and external growth p- terns. Dendroclimatology was an already well established field, but the reactions of trees to other environmental processes were far less well understood in the 1960s. It was Alestalo (1971) who first used the term, dendrogeomorphology. In the early 1970s, I could see that active slope-movement processes were affecting the growth of trees in diverse ways at certain localities. I wanted to learn more about those processes and try to extract a long-term chronology of movement from the highly diverse ring patterns.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

This critical, international and interdisciplinary edited collection investigates the new normal of work and employment, presenting research on the experience of the workers themselves. The collection explores the formation of contemporary worker subjects, and the privilege or disadvantage in play around gender, class, age and national location within the global workforce. Organised around the three areas of: creative working, digital working lives, and transitions and transformations, its fifteen chapters examine in detail the emerging norms of work and work activities in a range of occupations and locations. It also investigates the coping strategies adopted by workers to manage novel difficulties and life circumstances, and their understandings of the possibilities, trajectories, mobilities, identities and potential rewards of their work situations. This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences, including students and academics of the sociology of work and labor history, and those interested in understanding the implications of the 'new normal' of work and employment.

Craft and the Creative Economy examines the place of craft and making in the contemporary cultural economy, with a distinctive focus on the ways in which this creative sector is growing exponentially as a result of online shopfronts and home-based micro-enterprise, 'mumpreneurialism' and downshifting, and renewed demand for the handmade.

Dendrogeomorphology Beginnings and Futures: A Personal Reminiscence My early forays into dendrogeomorphology occurred long before I even knew what that word meant. I was working as a young geoscientist in the 1960s and early 1970s on a problem with slope movements and deformed vegetation. At the same time, unknown to me, Jouko Alestalo in Finland was doing something similar. Both of us had seen that trees which produced annual growth rings were reacting to g- morphic processes resulting in changes in their internal and external growth p- terns. Dendroclimatology was an already well established field, but the reactions of trees to other environmental processes were far less well understood in the 1960s. It was Alestalo (1971) who first used the term, dendrogeomorphology. In the early 1970s, I could see that active slope-movement processes were affecting the growth of trees in diverse ways at certain localities. I wanted to learn more about those processes and try to extract a long-term chronology of movement from the highly diverse ring patterns.

Drawing upon field work and interviews with cultural workers in the UK and Australia, this book examines the cultural work experiences of rural, regional and remotely located creative practitioners, and how this sits within local economies and communities.

Craft Economies provides a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary craft production, situating practices of amateur and professional making within a wider creative economy. Contributors address a diverse range of practices, sites and forms of making in a wide range of regional and national contexts, from floristry to ceramics and from crochet to coding. The volume considers the role of digital practices of making and the impact of the maker's movement as part of larger trends around customisation, on-demand production, and the possibilities of 3D printing and digital manufacturing.

An easy read with clear examples and engaging stories, this book is a treat for leaders who are interested in totally transforming the way they work. Luckman and Flory help leaders and organizations shift from a solutions mindset to a problem-solving culture that results in flow and growth where everyone in the organization can become a winner. Anand V. Tanikella, Vice President R&D, Abrasives Worldwide, Saint-Gobain Luckman and Flory explain how to create a platform for change and a culture of meaningful continuous improvement through what they call "Problem Solving for Complexity." This approach is about engaging everybody in the organization to improve every aspect of how work gets done. Read this book if you want to be a real change leader, not just the person who goes around talking about the need for change. Robert Kessiakoff, Coach/Consultant, Partner LTGe, Sweden [This book] describes how the leader, through changing his or her own behaviors and practices, can transform an organization that is slow to adapt into one that solves problems organically. The book is an important read for leaders and managers at all levels. Peter Ward, Senior Associate Dean for Academics, Richard M. Ross Chair in Management, Professor of Management Sciences, Director, Center for Operational Excellence, Ohio State University Organizational transformation is difficult, and despite expensive continuous improvement programs, most change efforts fail. This pattern, James E. Luckman and Olga Flory argue, is due to the fact that most change efforts start with senior leaders assigning an external or internal consulting group to attempt to drive change from the top down. Leaders today can no longer roll out solutions in the hopes of seeing better results. What they can do is play an active role in helping to transform their organization from "blanket solutions" thinking to learning how to solve complex business problems in a rapidly changing world. Drawing upon decades of leadership experience and years of research with executives across many different industries, Luckman and Flory make a persuasive case that most companies have not been able to stay ahead in what is an increasingly turbulent business environment because they simply have not made the cultural changes required to do so. In discussing how to facilitate this culture change, the authors share a model for leadership designed to guide an organization to extraordinary new levels of performance by focusing on three key areas: building a framework for problem-solving, encouraging respectful communication, and accelerating the pace at which the organization learns. The result is more energized team members who are dedicated to their daily work in an organization that is better positioned to achieve operational excellence. Readers will also find powerful stories from executives who have effectively changed their approach to leadership, all of which serve to inspire more leaders to take the leap and become "problem-solvers for complexity." Transforming Leader Paradigms is a book about strengthening every organization's capacity to solve complex business problems. But, more importantly, it's about what leaders must change in themselves to help their team members solve problems methodically, start to look at the world differently using complexity theory, and understand what it means to create real value for customers. For leaders who are willing to examine their own behaviors, this book is a welcome change from the steady stream of business books on the market that emphasize charismatic and/or heroic leadership as the key to achievement and success.

Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna (a city in modern–day Turkey) in the days of the early church. He was a disciple of the apostle John. He was martyred in his eighties for refusing to burn incense to the Roman emperor. David Luckman’s new biography in the Trail Blazer series shows readers how this brave man’s faith was the most important thing to him.

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of 'doing what you love' continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US and the UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways. Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

John Wycliffe was someone who wanted everyone to have access to the Bible, not just the rich, powerful and well–educated. He was a Catholic priest who wasn’t happy with the way things were being done in the Church, and is considered an important forerunner of the English Reformation. David Luckman brings this giant of church history to life in this gripping addition to the Trail Blazer series.

Sometimes we want our heroes to have no faults. We want them to do the right thing, standing tall, with no stain on their life or character. But everyone makes mistakes. The life of Thomas Cranmer shows that God uses failures in his church for his own glory. He moved amongst Kings and Queens, influencing the throne of England and the centre of national power. But he lived at a time when the power of the monarch was absolute and sometimes the decisions you made were a matter of life and death. Thomas Cranmer's life is perhaps best known for a decision he made that he later regretted and deeply repented of. But his final legacy is the truth that he held on to the last.

Craft Communities addresses the social groups, old and new, which have developed around craft production and consumption, exploring the social and cultural impact of contemporary practices of making. Addressing a wide range of crafting practice, from yarnbombs to Shetlands shawls, brassware to paper crafting, in a variety of regional and national contexts, the contributors consider how craft practices operate collectively in the home, communities, businesses, workshops, schools, social enterprises, and online. It further identifies how social media has emerged as a key driver of the 'Third Wave' of craft. From Etsy to Instagram, Twitter to Pinterest, online communities of the handmade are changing the way people buy and sell, make and meet.