Items20The creator’s order
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The potter's hand (2013)Published 1 Jan 2013Josiah Wedgwood's immense Frog Service commission gives ceramic ambition a production problem: materials must be obtained and an extraordinary quantity of skilled work delivered. Wilson follows family and commercial expansion as well as the celebrated maker. The sourcing of clay draws the story…0 - 2
The lady and the unicorn (2003)★ 7.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2003A commission for six tapestries travels from a patron's wishes through a painter's design to the skill of Brussels weavers. That chain makes authorship a practical question: the finished thing depends on people whose contributions are easy to overlook. Chevalier keeps attraction and household power…0 - 3
A month in the country (1980)★ 8.9/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1980Tom Birkin earns his living uncovering a medieval wall painting in a Yorkshire church. The patient return to the same surface gives his summer a structure that his damaged private life lacks. Carr makes restoration a form of skilled attention, with satisfaction measured in what can be recovered and…0 - 4
A Single Thread (2019)★ 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2019Violet Speedwell joins the women embroidering kneelers for Winchester Cathedral and has to become useful through learning. Paid work, money worries and family obligations compete with her time among the broderers. The gradual competence is the reward: she acquires a practice and a place in a…0 - 5
The Master (2004)★ 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2004Henry James's disappointment after a theatrical failure opens a quieter examination of how a writer arranges a working life. Tóibín connects professional choices to memory, visits and relationships that provide material but also make demands of their own. Creative privacy has costs for the people…0 - 6
The last painting of Sara de Vos (2016)Published 1 Jan 2016A seventeenth-century painting and a twentieth-century copy connect makers whose skill is valued in very different ways. The meticulous fake makes the practical knowledge behind an image central to the suspense. Smith links the work of looking and reproducing to questions about whose name a…0 - 7
The Blazing World (2014)Published 1 Jan 2014Harriet Burden presents her installations through male collaborators to test what changes when the maker appears to be a man. Each exhibition makes credit and control part of the work itself, with consequences for the partnerships supporting it. Hustvedt's disputed archive of voices means no single…0i - 8
The horse's mouth (1944)Published 1 Jan 1944Gulley Jimson needs food, paint, space and opportunities to work, and is willing to make himself other people's problem to obtain them. Cary's comic painter turns artistic vocation into a constant practical scramble. His energy is entertaining, while his destructiveness keeps the romance of the…0 - 9
The masterpiece (1950)Published 1 Jan 1950Claude Lantier's pursuit of a painting he cannot satisfactorily finish makes revision increasingly costly to his household and sense of himself. Zola gives artistic ambition a community, a market and a long accumulation of failed attempts. The failure is the point of interest here, with effort…0 - 10
The Goldfinch (2013)★ 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2013Hobie's furniture restoration gives this sprawling art-centred novel a patient working rhythm. In the workshop, care for a damaged object becomes both a skill to learn and a way of relating to Theo. That attention provides a useful measure against the money, secrecy and unstable valuations…0
