This essay was commissioned by The Glasgow School of Art in partnership with the Centre for Contemporary Arts as part of the AHRC-funded project 'The Glasgow Miracle: Material Alternative Histories' led by Dr Francis McKee. The project was established in January 2012 to open up previously inaccessible archive material to assist research and critical reflection on the development of visual art in Glasgow since the late 1970s. As part of the project a website by artist/designers Sarah Tripp and Zeynep Ardman has been commissioned which will act as a database of archive material, provide digitised examples of highlights from the archives, including an illustrated timeline of images of The Third Eye Centre and CCA exhibition and event histories. A key aim of the project is to open up possibilities for further research along with contributing to debate on the subject of contemporary art in Scotland. On the basis of my PhD research, which dealt with this period of art and artist's writing in Scotland, and which drew on archival material related to some of the sources currently being catalogued by this project, the research team (Dr Francis McKee, artist Ross Sinclair, archivist Susannah Waters and research assistant Carrie Skinner) invited me to write an essay on the relationship between art criticism and what they refer to as 'the phenomenon known as the 'Glasgow Miracle'.