A catalyst for change

The past year and a half has been a rollercoaster, to say the least. We all experienced the pandemic differently. But it would be safe to assume that for most of us, it has been an opportunity to reassess our priorities.

Graphic from the Straits Times

Do you recall the newspaper article that circulated last year about the top 5 non-essential jobs? 'Artist’ featured at the top of that list. It turns out the survey only asked 1,000 people, and the article was for a Singaporean newspaper. Not exactly representative, however it caused many of us to question how much the arts were valued in our society. After all, what would life have looked like last year without music, books, films, without anything creative to break up monotony? Suddenly, people everywhere seem to have a renewed appreciation for the arts. Potted plants and crafts. That’s how we occupied ourselves.

And a brave few actually went beyond experimenting with long-neglected hobbies. They made a real go of it, took to Instagram to showcase their work, and forged the career they had always dreamed of but hadn’t previously had the time to cultivate.

Performance by the UceLi Quartet to 2,292 potted plants at The Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona

It wasn’t just the arts that welcomed a revival, many other aspects of life were thriving in our absence. Waters became cleaner, wildlife prospered, the air became less polluted. In an unexpected way, life got better. The pandemic allowed us a glimpse of what life could be like, both good and bad. I do believe that it has made us all more thoughtful, caring and conscious of the impact of our actions beyond the here and now. Although for many things we had to resort to online shopping - at great cost to independent businesses, some of which were unable to recover - with gradual increases in freedom, many more people are choosing to support local traders. All of this is what New Brewery Arts has been striving for since the start: supporting local, independent makers, living sustainably, celebrating joy in creativity. And we are elated that it’s a responsibility people are now keen to share. Living well is far more attainable when you’re united.

I read a book recently that said “our world runs in lagging parallel to fiction.” Between the lessons we have learned over the pandemic, and shifts in attitudes, the innovation and creativity that continues to emerge, this period of tribulation may actually serve as the catalyst for a sustainable, creative, better future. 

We still have a way to go. Even with Freedom Day behind us, we need to practice caution and consideration. New Brewery Arts – as with many places – is experiencing reduced staff due to NHS pings. And while this is frustrating for the organisation and the public, as with everything else in life, there are silver linings where you choose to look for them. For the team at New Brewery Arts, we are all having to lend a hand elsewhere to ensure every aspect of the charity continues to run smoothly. We are learning new skills, discovering strengths we didn’t know we had, and realising what it is like to live in a colleague’s shoes. For you, it might be that you always attend a particular class with a particular friend, but this week they have to stay home. It may be that someone else takes their place, and just like that you’ve met someone new and made another life-long friend through a shared joy of crafts. 

It is important we all remain open-minded; remember what we have learned, and continue to grow. And together we can create a better society.  

Collaboration is no joke

It sounds like an art-world joke… “What do you get when an urban jewellery brand meets a rural craft organisation?…” It’s no joke, its what’s happening here this summer.

So we’re thinking about the creative importance of collaboration: what collaborating means for Tatty Devine and for New Brewery Arts and how we benefit from coming together.

Tatty Devine x Fawcett Society - 2019

We love the range, vibrancy and personality of Tatty Devine’s work. We love how they upturned and revolutionised an industry with pioneering techniques and an anarchic style; and how everything they produce is made by hand so that it is completely, authentically them. Tatty Devine have values and a voice. They have a lot of opinions and they aren’t shy about sharing them; they care about diversity, equality and empowerment. It’s this activism and passion that keeps Tatty Devine culturally relevant and growing in popularity.

They use their jewellery as a tool to give minority groups a voice. Causes particularly close to their heart are the feminist movement, LGBTQ+ community and EU relations. Tatty Devine have collaborated with brands like Venus Libido, Fawcett Society and WWF to campaign for women’s rights and environmental issues. Collaboration often takes the shape of creating a new and exclusive product line and donating any profits. Craft is a way for these organisations to show their support, to amplify a message and to get more people involved.  

Like Tatty Devine, New Brewery Arts believe that crafts are more than just a hobby, craft and creativity is at the heart of everything we do - and craft is a good thing for society as a whole. Since 1978 we have carved out a home for artists, craftspeople and enthusiasts so that treasured skills are retained, and craft has a place as a worthwhile and rewarding career. We work to ensure we all enjoy and value the benefits that come from creativity in our everyday lives - craft and creativity enhances our wellbeing, mental and physical health, as well as our community and conscious consumerism (buying craft) can reduce our impact on the planet.

For New Brewery Arts collaboration looks different. As a charity, New Brewery Arts share what we have to support our purpose (through creating opportunities for craft to take its place in society, and for society to be all the richer for it). We hope that our belief in the good creativity brings to society is shared with everyone we meet and work, and that everybody leaves New Brewery Arts with an increased appetite for creativity in their lives and in society as a whole.

The Misshapes exhibition exists because of collaboration - conceived by Tatty Devine, designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio, produced by Crafts Council. All these partners share a passion for hand-made crafts and for creativity. Everyone came together to bring our respective skills, strengths, resources and platforms to create something special. This exhibition is here in Cirencester because of our shared values of a belief that craft, creativity and making things by hand is worthwhile.

On the surface it is an unlikely collaboration, Tatty Devine embody urban and contemporary, New Brewery Arts are rural and less ‘avant-garde’, and that’s what excited us and made us want to host the exhibition. But we get rewarded when we collaborate, something of the other partners brushes off. Misshapes is unlike our recent exhibitions - and the Tatty Devine aesthetic, brand and attitude has attracted new faces to New Brewery Arts. We’ve seen and welcomed a diverse audience to Misshapes. By opening ourselves up to something different, we’ve not only brought excitement to regular visitors, but reached and welcomed a new, diverse audience. The approach Tatty Devine brings to the hand-made makes a trip to New Brewery Arts a richer experience for all - a worth while collaboration.

Misshapes continues until the 4th September.

Top 10 things for people under 20

I’ve been working in the craft shop on Saturdays on and off for a couple years, having started off doing a week of work experience in year 9. I’m now at the end of year 12, doing an A Level in art, and looking to continue art into university next year, and to gain more experience in art in the real world, I’m doing a couple days work shadowing to see how New Brewery Arts functions as an organisation. Since I’ve had a fair amount of experience with New Brewery Arts, I’ve put together a list of what I find the most engaging here, and what I think other people my age would enjoy the most. I often find that people my age who have an interest in art steer clear of art organisations like New Brewery Arts as they think there’s nothing for them here and tend to overlook really good opportunities because of that. With that in mind, this is my list of my favourite things in New Brewery Arts for people under 20.

Hopefully, you find these as interesting as I do and consider paying a visit or booking a course. I think it's really important to encourage younger artists to interact with the art already being created and develop their own art by doing so. We as a generation will shape the future of art, which is vital now more than ever as art has surfaced as an even more crucial part of human wellbeing, especially during lockdown, and equipping young people to be in the best position possible to create and inspire will ensure we can make our voices heard through our art and contribute to a better life for everyone in the future.

1- Tracey Elphick in Studio 1 is a talented mixed media painter who combines acrylic paints and inks with collage to create busy paintings, often landscapes of the local area or beautiful places further afield. She also creates smaller still life oil paintings usually of food or birds. I love her use of excitement and colour as it comes across and fresh and different, and I think this would be really appealing to young artists, as it entirely lacks the boredom associated with a lot of traditional art.

2 - Louise and Colin Hawkins are passionate professional glassmakers whose studio at New Brewery Arts is open from Monday to Saturday most weeks. Their process is entirely nonstandard to traditional art forms, extremely exciting to watch, and perfect for a young artist looking to connect with alternative art forms. They perfectly showcase how glass can be used to create interesting and unique pieces, and entirely subverts the expectation of the medium to just be used for practical objects like cups or vases. This is one of the many studios that demonstrate the range of options for creating personal art.

3 - Daniella Wilson-Dunne works with stained glass in Studio 5. Her studio is open 6 days a week, although times vary. She also uses nonstandard mediums and creates beautiful pieces, especially her more personal pieces which often include wildlife or the female form. Her process is very gradual and spans over multiple days, but the end products are breath-taking and a perfect example of creating images in different ways to create unique atmospheres, and would be perfect for anyone who is currently primarily a painter or anything similar and is looking to expand their options.

4 - Anyone interested in fashion and wearable art may want to visit Studio 9, belonging to jewellery designer Hayley Kruger, who is a professional in the jewellery industry and has worked in many aspects of the industry over 17 years. Her designs are iconic and have featured on Vogue.com, Tatler, Stylist and Glamour magazine, and have also been seen at the V&A Museum, London Jewellery Week and Fashion Week. I have always been really interested in jewellery making, and make my own jewellery, so I love Hayler Kruger’s work as it represents how far you are actually capable of going in that field.

5 - Misshapes, the Making of Tatty Devine is an exhibition open until the 5th of September in the gallery, and is full of loud, fun and complex jewellery, which I find interesting due to its eccentric nature and how complex it is despite for the most part being entirely acrylic. It displays a wide range of Tatty Devine’s work over the years, from conception in the mid 1990’s to today and is a great way of seeing how other artists have managed to progress. The exhibition is a monument to self-expression, DIY, and personality in art, which I feel especially resonates with younger generations of artists.

6 - The Japanese Ink Painting workshop held on the 16th of August is one of many workshops designed specifically to connect teenagers aged 13-17 with their creativity. I like this one particularly as it’s a very distinct style of painting, however I haven’t seen it being made accessible to people anywhere else. Ink painting, especially in this style is really therapeutic and uses simple techniques to create impressive looking pieces, and because of that is accessible to a range of abilities. This makes it a really good way to expand your skills easily and relatively stress free.

7 - Recently, I’ve seen far more young people become interested in creating whimsical, escapist art over realism and traditional styles, so I think the Enchanted Forests in Watercolour workshop on the 19th of August would really help anyone looking to follow that style by teaching them how to effectively create whimsical atmospheres. It is another workshop that aids in expanding skills, but I think it would be appealing to younger people because of the subject matter. This workshop would allow young artists to pursue subject matter that they are passionate about in a way that they can transfer to art as a profession, and because of that would be really worthwhile.

8 - Mandalas are often drawn by young artists as doodles, as repeated patterns and growing a design from the centre out. Drawing like this can be is very relaxing, so If you want to develop your art abilities for your own personal use Mandalas in Pastel workshop on the 27th of August may be for you. Because of this I think this workshop would be really beneficial to the majority of young people, but especially those who find comfort in art, as being good at creating relaxing art would improve both the benefit of the creative process and also the end result.

9 - Looking at the work of others and discovering their processes is always a beneficial exercise that I’m constantly encouraged to do by my art teacher, who I agree with entirely. If you’ve always wanted to create art like world-renowned artists, the Drawing like Picasso workshop on the 20th of August, the Frida Kahlo inspired Self Portrait workshop on the 26th of August and the two Dynamic Abstraction workshops on the 23rd and 24th (inspired by Robert Delaunay and Jackson Pollock) would be ideal. Not only would you be able to learn the techniques and creative styles of art icons, you would also be able to enhance your own abilities and explore your own personal style. It would also allow you to create a varied range of work, or just to try out one new style, entirely depending on what you want to achieve. These courses would be perfect for anyone trying to expand their skill set or just have fun in creating art.

10 - Finally, the craft shop. The shop is a really good way to get a first look at a range of artists, and despite at first appearing to be mostly crockery and ornaments has a surprising amount of things that appeal to younger people. My personal favourites are the jewellery, which always has a really varied stock and at the moment includes pieces from Tatty Devine to pair with the exhibition, David Meredith’s bronze animal figures, the various chicken bowls and dishes by Uffington Pottery, the fox in the red jumper by Gwen Vaughan, and other animal figures by various artists. It’s well worth seeing what other artists are making, especially if you are thinking of being a professional artist yourself.

Considered Craft

Craft for your planet campaign by Friends of the Earth

Today I saw a Facebook post from Friends of the Earth about their new fundraising campaign which asks people to ‘Craft for your planet’. Scrolling through the comments there was much negativity to this campaign, even a feeling it is ill-judged - and the reason for this negativity? How can using precious resources to make more ‘stuff’ help the planet?

Crafting and making, by its very nature, is alchemy, it transforms one thing into another. Craft transforms mud, minerals and rocks into ceramics, glass or jewellery. Craft uses resources such as water, chemicals and energy to enable this process. Craft creates more things in the world.

The responsibility to take better care of our environment is shared by the craft sector. It is possible to craft considerately, to create without squandering resources to do so, and more and more craftspeople are deliberately considering the impact of their making on the environment.

Some are taking big steps. Last month jeweller Emma Aitchison ended use of gold plate, her decision took into account the chemicals used, the impact of extracting gold for plating and the process of plating itself, as well as the difficulty in recycling gold plated jewellery (you can read about it here). Crafts Magazine recently looked at the environmental impact of ceramics (Crafts issue 284: The Change Makers September/October 2020), and at makers working to clean up ceramics. Artist Alice Fox harnesses natural processes and works with found, gathered and grown materials, and Jane Bevan uses natural and found materials, which she collects on her daily walks in the ancient woodland near her home in Derbyshire, Jane gathers and uses materials such as thorns, bark, seeds, feathers and acorn cups.

Pine needle bowl by Jane Bevan - Image from @janebevan01 on Instagram

Such big steps can be too big for many makers, but there are small steps we can all take. We asked some of the craftspeople we work with about their actions towards a better, more considered craft practice, and there was a huge range of deliberate actions taking place; from using green energy to heat studios and fire kilns to recycling materials to the point of zero waste. Of course there is more that can be done, but the first step has to be even thinking through the materials and resources used in a craft practice.

So what can we do as an organisation? At New Brewery Arts we too use green electricity throughout our buildings and studios, our accommodation was built with low energy use at its core. We can also consider the materials used in our classes and work to find out the impact of their production (extraction, manufacturing etc.) and disposal. We can ask makers about their choices and promote the positive actions many are taking to reduce their environmental impact.

We play a part as consumers too and we need to better consumers. We can ask the craftspeople and the shops that sell their work how materials are sourced. We can buy differently; for example commissioning a piece means it is made without generating waste in the form of ‘speculative’ products that may not sell. And we should all keep in mind Vivienne Westwood’s words (I have quoted them here before) when we are deciding what to buy, and “buy less, choose well, make it last.”

By choosing craft that considers its impact we ‘Craft for our planet’.