The Contemporary Craft Festival 2016 - Favourites Part 1

A couple of weekends ago I visited the Contemporary Craft Festival, in Bovey Tracey which I visited last year, and posted about here. Here are a collection of my favourite artists and designers and their work. You can find out more about the festival and all the artists here.

Ceramics

Kate Evans Ceramics 
Kate creates beautiful porcelain vases inspired by nature and plants, having a background in gardening.  I enjoyed the simplicity of her designs.

 

Elaine Bolt Ceramics
Elaine creates hand-thrown ceramic objects and vessels in porcelain, terracotta and mixed media. Her use of everyday and found objects in her work gives it a unique quality, as though it is telling a story.

Katherine Lees Ceramics

Katherine makes porcelain vessels and jewellery, and then she screen prints directly onto the clay surface. Katherine says: "The decoration adorning the surface of the vessels is inspired by the cabinets of curiosities popular in the Victorian Era. I am fascinated by the forms they contained and the way they were labelled and categorised." Her work really reminds me of old ceramic medicine bottle that you sometimes find at flea markets, but much more refined and beautiful. 

Printmaking

Robin Mackenzie

Robin is an illustrator and printmaker whose work I greatly admire! I love woodcut printing and how the medium gives a pleasant old-fashioned feel, mostly because the techniques and materials are the same ones that have been used for centuries. Robin's colourful reduction linoprints depict everything from scenic countryside to industrial cityscapes.

 

Jess Davies

Jess is a talented printmaker and member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen who uses a variety of printmaking techniques such as Lino printing and Etching. You can see the landscape of the Devon countryside has much influence on Jess' work.

Lucy Gell

Another artist who uses a variety of printmaking techniques is Lucy Gell, who creates humourous and fun animal prints. Some of Lucy's techniques include Collograph printing, Acid plate etching and Monoprinting. I really like the humourous style of Jess's work, it really made it stand out for me.

Richard Shimell

Richard uses lino or soft flooring material to create his prints. I really admire the detail and texture within his work, I think it is quite difficult to get such detail with lino prints! I always end up chopping through bits that I wanted haha. Richard lives on the edge of Dartmoor and the influence of the surroundings is clearly evident within his work.

 

 

The Contemporary Craft Festival 2015

On Saturday I visited The Contemporary Craft Festival in Bovey Tracey, Devon. The weather was lovely and there were so many beautiful items by some talented designers and makers. Here is a rundown of some of my favourites:

Suzanne Breakwell

I loved Suzanne's adorable sculptures of birds and animals, you can tell that she really loves her subject, which is the natural world & all its glorious flora & fauna. Her pieces are constructed from wire, paper mache, pages from books and cotton rag papers.

Liz Willis Jewellery
Liz makes beautiful jewellery using tiny knots in silk thread, over gold and silver wire.

Emma Cocker
Emma creates fabric sculptures, characters & illustrations using knitting and stitching, combining antique, vintage and reclaimed textiles, and British wool. So cute!

 

Helen Round

Helen uses traditional hand screen printing techniques to create limited edition collections from her sketchbook drawings inspired by the Cornish landscape. She prints on to linen and hemp, and then carefully stitches to create beautiful pieces for you and your home. Also a very nice lady!

Benton's Menagerie

Tracey Benton sculpts these wonderful British birds and beasts by hand from 100% wool.

Emily Kidson

Emily uses old samples of colourful laminate (formica) to make this unique and imaginitive jewellery.

 

Vinegar and brown paper

Andy Poplar designs and etches onto all sorts of different glassware, including vintage items, apothecary bottles and laboratory glass.

Olive Rose

Emma of Olive Rose uses a Victorian lace craft called “Tatting” to manipulate a single line of thread into a complex structure, creating some unique jewellery.

Helaina Sharpley

Helaina creates 2d and 3d wirework pieces which feature all sorts of things from kitchenalia to iconic architecture, I was really impressed by her unique technique.

Miriam Jones

Miriam uses different types of wood which she sources and recycles and turns into beautiful bowls and other items, adding colourful cotton thread, which symbolises the concept of make do and mend.

Emily Notman

Emily creates a great range of fabric items, on her work: "I create bespoke textile installations and accessories mixing media and building up tactile delicate surfaces. I work and rework my pieces with paint, dyes, bleach and ink, burning and layering until finishing it with hand stitch."

The Store Hus

I was really impressed with this pair of printmakers, whose designs are simple yet bold and eye catching. They have produced range of hand printed practical and decorative items for the home.