synchronise catalogue

SynchroniseC

reating Craft C

ollaborations09 M

arch - 02 June 2013

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www.nationalcraftanddesign.org.uk

Synchronise: Creating Craft CollaborationsIn 2012, Design Factory set its membership a challenge - to team up with another maker or group of makers to produce a new collaborative body of work to be exhibited in the organisation’s inaugural exhibition at The National Centre for Craft & Design.

Synchronise is more than an exhibition; it acts as a catalyst for new ways of working and skill sharing. Six months ago partnerships were formed to investigate collaboration and how this could inform the creative development of the participating makers. Discussion, experimentation, development of ideas and the production of finished artworks have culminated in this vibrant and thought-provoking exhibition.

Some makers have worked together using a mixture of their own unique skills to create a combined piece for the show whilst others have bravely ‘swapped’ materials or sources of inspiration in order to learn from one another’s practical methods. A number of makers have used the project as an opportunity to experiment with new scales of work and some have gained practical and intellectual knowledge to further develop their own practice.

Each of the 20 participating members embraced the challenge of ‘Synchronise’ and we are excited to bring you this exhibition of brand new work which stems from the various interpretations of ‘collaboration’.

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www.designfactory.org.uk

Design FactoryIn partnership with The National Centre for Craft & Design, Design Factory is proud to present Synchronise: Creating Craft Collaborations.

This is the latest in a series of exhibitions that showcases the work of Design Factory members. The exhibitors taking part in Synchronise are established and highly regarded designer makers from Design Factory’s Fellow and Flair membership levels. They are experts in their field with proven track records and a wealth of experience of exhibiting and selling work in the UK and internationally.

Since 2005 Design Factory has been leading the way in developing exceptional craft and design talent in the East Midlands and beyond. We promote artistic integrity, raise the standard of craft and design and commercially support and develop designer/makers to help them achieve their ambitions.

Our renowned membership is synonymous with high quality, creativity and innovation. Tailored to emerging, new, mid-career and established makers, we offer six levels of subscription to support professional development through each membership level.

Visit our website for more details about the designer/makers we represent and for further information about membership.

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For more details of these and other members of Design Factory visitwww.designfactory.org.uk

Ruth Singer & Alys Power

Alys Power

Jewellery made using materials which are reclaimed, reused, reinvented and recycled. Base materials are mixed with found objects, sterling silver and semi-precious stones to create unique jewellery and accessories. The work explores the challenges of turning base and ‘scrap’ metals and other discarded articles into objects of beauty and value. Working with notions of nostalgia and forgotten memories Alys investigates and invents the stories and character in her materials. Often narrative, stamped words and phrases are used to expand on ideas and as decorative elements. Small found objects and pieces of reclaimed and vintage jewellery are frequently used.

Ruth Singer

Ruth is a textile artist with a long-standing interest in sustainability and the re-use of old materials. Ruth’s first career was working in museums, specialising in historic textiles and this continues to influence her work as a maker. She creates one-off pieces and collectible objects with a sense of history. Ruth has written three sewing books, Sew It Up, Sew Eco and Fabric Manipulation, 150 Creative Sewing Techniques, which is published in 2013. She also runs Ruth Singer Studio, a craft workshop venue in Leicester city centre where she teaches classes for absolute beginners, advanced fabric manipulation workshops and runs parties and special events.

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www.ruthsinger.comwww.alyspower.co.uk

This project has been a brilliant experience and has revitalised my attitude to my work.

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Clare Gage & JC Middlebrook

JC Middlebrook

Jayne Childs is the designer-maker behind J.C. Middlebrook, creating beautiful lace in Nottingham since 2010. Driven by the lace-making heritage of her home town – Nottingham was once known as the lace capital of the UK – Jayne is inspired to produce original decorative gifts and wearable lace for the 21st century. Jayne comes from a long line of seamstresses and was taught to sew by her mother on her grandmother’s old treadle machine. She now combines her years of practical experience with the latest digital technology to create unique contemporary lace.

Clare Gage

The inspiration for the Clare Gage ceramic range comes from her life-long love of textiles. Whilst studying Clare found a new love for weaving and it formed a partnership with a childhood passion for ceramics. Her designs start life as fabric pieces hand woven by Clare and transformed into bespoke moulds which are used to create inspiring porcelain versions of the textile pieces. The cup collection was the beginning of the Clare Gage story and stems from a real affection for the quintessentially English tradition of afternoon tea. The range has grown to include a charming selection of vases, tableware and most recently lace inspired jewellery.

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www.claregage.comwww.jcmiddlebrook.co.uk

It’s fantastic to be given an opportunity to design outside of my current range and work collaboratively with another designer whose work I love.

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Katie Almond & Milly Moore

Milly Moore

Milly has been designing and making jewellery since setting up her studio in the year 2000. Milly’s original cast silver icons are symbolic representations of the human themes of love, protection and the eternal flow of life, inspired by an interest in cultural traditions and imagery and a desire to mark and celebrate poignant moments and events. Each piece is hand made and unique. Natural pearls and rough-cut gemstones are sourced from around the world and are selected for their colour, lustre and innate imperfect beauty. The result is a joyful, wearable and life-affirming collection of elegant and original jewellery.

Katie Almond

Katie produces hand-painted decorative porcelain jugs, cups, cake stands and brooches using a variety of slip casting and hand-building techniques. Each piece is essentially a canvas for decoration and collage as Katie combines drawings with found ephemera. Katie is inspired by nostalgia, old paper ephemera, vintage textiles and a love of drawing. Her collection uses elements from a different era alongside her own drawings, text and collage. Katie focuses on pattern and detail using mixed media to collage and juxtapose the found and made. The pieces that Katie creates are unique, one-offs that explore a variety of nostalgic themes.

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www.katiealmond.co.ukwww.millymoore.co.uk

I think it is good to step out of your comfort zone as a maker and take on a new brief while learning new skills from each other.

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Kate McBride & Anna Collette Hunt

Anna Collette Hunt

Anna works with ceramics to create objects of contemporary fine craft that rekindle a forgotten, childlike sense of curiosity and delight. Viewers are compelled to investigate, as they search for the hidden elements and text on the vessels, or investigate the glazed illustrations with their hands. The scenes and compositions captured upon the surfaces speak of historic grandeur and past traditions whilst on closer inspection whisper darker sentiments delicately into your ear. The curiously odd ceramics radiate Anna’s preoccupation with historic houses for their excessive decoration, opulence, and obsessive natural history collections and specimens.

Kate McBride

Kate’s work and designs are based on collage and the bringing together of ideas within clay. She makes unique and quirky porcelain tea services, cake stands and varying sized figures which, if you look carefully, all tell a story. The style of work incorporates several pieces of porcelain, which are cleverly positioned together. Ironically Kate’s work looks ‘beautifully broken’, it is a statement of society’s attitude today and our ‘throw away society.’ Kate’s initial ideas are skil-fully created to produce fabulous tongue in cheek pieces of work, which are beautiful to look at and also very entertaining.

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www.katemcbride.co.ukwww.annacollettehunt.com

I have learned the importance and necessity of tea and cake on the finest plates to be incorporated into one’s daily working routine!

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Gillian Lee Smith & Gizella K Warburton

Gizella K Warburton

Gizella’s work explores an intuitive response to linear, textural and light detail within landscape and surface. Abstract compositions evolve through the tactile and contemplative process of drawing with paper, cloth and thread.Responding directly to material, marks, relationships of surface and tone, emotional resonance...forms an elemental part of creating work. Recent developments include works on slate grounds, and the introduction of collograph prints as an element of the drawn surfaces and the exploration of this in three dimensional forms.

Gillian Lee Smith

Gillian’s work is primarily focussed on narrative and storytelling whether that be working in paint or textiles or clay. Gillian is drawn to our individual stories, the things that make us unique; the emotions within, whether they are hidden or revealed to others. Each of us has a collection of stories, whether they are life changing experiences or lots of little moments and memories that make up our history, some get lost along the way, some are carried with us throughout our lives – remnants; fragments that are bound up and kept in our consciousness.

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www.gillianleesmith.comwww.gizellakwarburton.co.uk

It has been fascinating to observe and discover where our making is similar or completely different. The discussion about this has been enriching and has given us insights into our own particular aesthetic responses and nature of our practice.

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Jan Garside & Ruth Singer

Ruth Singer

Ruth Singer’s work is inspired by historic textiles, museum objects, personal heritage, memory and stories. She uses natural and sustainable textiles, paper and found materials combined with hand-worked construction techniques such as pleating, gathering and appliqué as well as hand embroidery and print. Ruth’s work is heavily influenced by her history degree and first career working in museums and many of her favourite techniques are based on her own research into historic textiles. Ruth has created commissions for Derby Museums inspired by African objects and Shire Hall Gallery based on photographs of Victorian women criminals.

Jan Garside

Jan Garside is a textile artist who creates bespoke hand dyed and hand woven textiles for domestic and corporate environments. She has exhibited widely; venues include the V&A, Origin, Grand Designs, 100% Design and L’Atelier Gallery in Paris. She has been a selected member of the Crafts Councils prestigious Next Move Scheme and a recipient of ACE funding. Jan is particularly interested in the nature of light and surface quality. Her gossamer-like hangings radiate an incandescent, dreamlike quality as they move and change with the light displaying multiple translucent layers. Jan likes the idea of making something original which begins with one thread and grows into the visual expression of an idea.

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www.jangarside.comwww.ruthsinger.com

This project has given me the confidence to experiment with different techniques in my work and develop a strong research-focus which I have already used in another commission.

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Ann Povey & Peter Moss

Peter Moss

“This exhibition has required me to carefully review past practice. The scale of one of the ceramic elements has required careful technical management. Firing large work is fraught with difficulty; material selection together with firing and kiln operation must be correctly controlled. Some cracking occurred but simple repairs were effective and glazing and surface decoration came together in a series of coloured surfaces which are typical of much of my previous ceramics. I remain committed to my craft practice and am still prepared to take chances and then carefully reflect upon the eventual outcomes.”

Ann Povey

“Hand making can be deeply alluring and enlightening. You can become involved with the tactile elements of the materials, build an intimate relationship with the form and create a piece of work that contains all your ideas, notions and thoughts at a very personal level. The demands of the materials themselves can often dictate a certain way forward and it is the experience of those demands that I relish. Working with clay, glass and metals allows me many opportunities to consider and reconsider my design intentions, and experience the reactions of the materials to extreme heat that forces them to do what i have asked of them.”

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www.annpovey.comwww.petermoss.me.uk

Through this collaboration I have challenged myself to create a completely new body of work. I am convinced that this will benefit my own practice.

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Milly Moore & Suet Yi Yip

Suet Yi Yip

“Ceramics and I… are bonded by destiny. It is holding my love for a simple and quiet life.” Suet Yi explores beauty and simplicity from her love of the countryside and enjoys transforming her drawings into 3D objects using wood and clay. Her inspiration comes from the beauty of wild flowers, falling leaves, autumn trees and resting birds which draw her to create a little world of nature. She enjoys the inner peace and tranquillity of creating with clay. From her playful plates to her minimalist birds and trees, there is a sensibility as delicate as the materials.

Milly Moore

Milly has been designing and making jewellery since the year 2000. Her creative approach is intuitive; evolving without force, and with an appreciation that spontaneity of composition, mark and design lend to the spirit and beauty of the piece. The possibilities given by this instinctive approach result in joyful surprises and soulful jewellery. Milly uses simple traditional silversmithing methods to give the metal smooth edges and softly textured surfaces. Her original cast silver icons are symbolic representations of the human themes of love, protection and the eternal flow of life.

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www.millymoore.co.ukwww.suetyiceramics.co.uk

We worked well together, each appreciating and trusting the judgement of the other, allowing the design to become shaped by a curious and pleasing natural evolution.

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Karen Atherley & Kate McBride

Kate McBride

Kate’s work and designs are based on collage and the bringing together of ideas within clay. She makes unique and quirky porcelain tea services, cake stands and varying sized figures which, if you look carefully, all tell a story. The unique tea services give the impression of being elegant and pretty from a distance, except as you move closer to the objects they appear awkward and uncomfortable. The figures are based on myths and legends, which are then combined with modern issues and humour consequently developing into amusing ceramic cartoons. Kate’s initial ideas are skilfully created to produce fabulous and beautiful tongue in cheek pieces of work.

Karen Atherley

Karen’s pots are vividly coloured and decorated with flowing mainly female figurative nudes and faces wrapped around a diverse range of vases, bowls, cups/saucers and plates. Karen’s unique figurative style portrays curvy fleshy figures influenced by Greek antiquity and the colours of the Impressionists. She uses bright ceramic slips painted onto white earthenware and glazed with transparent glaze to give a lustrous finish. Floral and decorative transfers are then applied in between the painted figures. Karen’s main aim is to produce a decorative humourous object that has a practical use as well as being eye catching.

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www.karenatherleyceramics.comwww.katemcbride.co.uk

The skills I have learnt for my future practise is how to bring my 2dimensional work much more into my 3 dimensional work and also to feel free with a brush and more at ease with a computer.

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Debbie Bryan & Ashi Marwaha

Ashi Marwaha

The architectural geometry of India and Islamic decorative pattern inspires Ashi’s work. As a student, Ashi recognised how strongly the process of repetition, form and geometry inform our lives. Notions which continue to influence her work, evolving jewellery with intricate detail, with a touch of the luxurious. Silver has been Ashi’s metal of choice, allowing subtle details and contrasts within the patterns and designs. The work is all made by Ashi and materials, as far as possible, ethically sourced. Any work that needs to be out-sourced is only ever done in the UK. Ashi also works to commission.

Debbie Bryan

Debbie is an award winning designer maker of heritage and nostalgia inspired fashion accessories. With a specialist interest in research and development of knit processes and hand casting, Debbie’s collections are forward-looking in terms of process, materials and design. Since establishing her creative practice in 2005 Debbie has exhibited her scarf & brooch collections in the UK, France, USA, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong & New Zealand and successfully sold to specialist independent retailers and gallery shops in the UK, USA, Spain, Italy & France. In 2009 Debbie opened her own contemporary craft & gift shop; Debbie Bryan Studio & Shop in the Lace Market area of Nottingham.

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www.debbiebryan.co.ukwww.ashimarwaha.com

It was good to see how my collaborative partner worked - structured and organised, and yet her work seems so fluid. Mine is the exact opposite. Maybe the disciplined and structured way she works will rub off!

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Phiona Richards, Samantha Robinson &

Samantha Robinson

Working with a subtle combination of ceramics, metals and textiles to produce an exciting and creative take on commonplace objects. Inspired by the ‘everyday ordinary’ things such as tags, keys and clothing labels she draws attention to detail that is often overlooked. The processes involved are slip casting, hand building, soldering, stitch and embossing.

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From this experience I have learnt that I need to allow myself more breathing space to enjoy each new idea before I put time aside to develop the work into an acceptable end piece.

“ “Phiona Richards

From a ‘make do and mend’ mentality, Phiona is drawn to books near the end of their existence and transforms them into pleasing tactile structures. Although her book sculptures appear to be fragile and delicate, they are quite robust and interaction becomes a therapeutic experience on many sensory levels.

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www.designfactory.org.ukwww.designfactory.org.uk

Sharyn Dunn

Sharyn Dunn

Sharyn describes herself as a sculptor of paper and she currently designs and produces various types of work. Amongst her collection are lighting, installations, lamp shades and chandeliers for both residential and commercial environments. These are produced from various papers, modern day parchments and fine polymers which are cut, hand folded and manipulated into position. The installations are purpose built and mounted with lighting specific to its environment encouraging the viewer to move around and interact with the work. Lamps and shades are produced in a selection of sizes and styles and can be made to measure if required.

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www.rarenotions.co.uk www.samantha-robinson.co.uk www.sharyndunn.com

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Bringing together and supportingthe very best designer/makersin the UK.

Get involved… let us helpyou create a bigger future.

2013 Membership application deadlines:1st April1st August1st December


be inspired...

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www.nationalcraftanddesign.org.uk

‘A Vos Mailles’08 June - 25 August 2013In 2011 a group of Design Factory members were invited to exhibit their work in central Paris with Atelier D’art de France. To reciprocate, The National Centre for Craft & Design will soon be hosting ‘A Vos Mailles’, an intriguing exhibition by Atelier D’art de France.

A Vos Mailles (Your Stitches) brings together 4 French artists working in crochet; Agnes Sebyleau, Cecile Dachary, Peirre Bernard and Helen Angetelli along with the work of photographer Nicole Dufour, documenting and contextualising the artists’ work.

The artists have interpreted the exhibition theme ‘textiles and the body’ in a variety of ways. Pieces include large scale textiles involved in physical performance; work based on the internal and external forms of the human body as well as objects to be worn or experienced by our bodies. ‘Rosa’ by Hélène Angeletti, a huge voluptuous pink knitted form will cover a large part of the gallery floor. Other more intricate works will hang from the ceiling and walls to create an intriguing environment, whilst the contrast between material and subject matter evoke comfort and discomfort simultaneously.

coming

soon...

www.designfactory.org.ukwww.nationalcraftanddesign.org.uk

DF9995RT_3.13

A collaborative partnership can hold keys that unlock many doors. These keys open the door of working in isolation, the door of generosity that another maker shows in sharing skills and ideas and the door of enlightenment as to the wealth of talent possessed by another maker.

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