Aunty Social at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, 13-16 October 2022
We’re heading to the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair at Victoria Baths in Manchester this October to tell craft lovers about our new shop and to showcase some fabulous Fylde Coast artists.
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If you would like to sell your work at our new venue, please visit our New Supplier form for more information and to get in touch.
Meet the Artists
There’s a wealth of creative talent on the Fylde Coast and we’re proud to introduce you to three artists who take inspiration from our remarkable seaside environment.
Joseph Travis
I grew up by the seaside in the 1980s in a fishing town that had seen its trade wane. As a child, I didn’t go away on holiday. We used to spend our days on the beach, catching crabs, building sand castles and breathing the sea air.
My ceramic work takes me directly onto the beach itself, collecting materials, flotsam and jetsam as well as shells, seaweed and anything else that is combustible. I also use weeds that I find such as mare’s tail which is a voracious weed that takes over any space if left unchecked but fired within a saggar, it leaves amazing silica markings on the clay and glaze.
I fire all my ceramic work in saggars inside my tiny 45-litre plug-in electric kiln. It is fired to stoneware temperatures until all the combustible material and ash fuse with the ceramic surfaces. Because the ash is trapped within the vessel and is burning out as it fires, it produces surfaces similar to wood firing, with flashes of pink and patches of black as the iron in the clay is heavily reduced.
Lisa Wigham
A collection of handmade prints – created by the alchemy of etching.
Lisa begins this process by walking and drawing in woodland and sand dunes around Blackpool, where the wild weather and bright skies restore spirits and promise hope.
Lisa engraves these sketches into metal using non-toxic environmentally friendly processes, before inking up and hand printing limited editions of up to 20 pieces. She uses a Victorian Iron Press and you can see the indentations of the metal in the paper she uses. These etchings are printed on archival quality handmade paper.
This ‘Endangered Craft’ work includes traditional Sign Painting with Gold Leaf on glass, which accompanies this collection. This skill is currently on the Heritage Crafts Association’s 2021 Red List as it is at risk of dying out in the succeeding generation. Lisa’s response is to make and share ‘Endangered Crafts’ collectables for peoples’ homes, interior design projects and propagate skills in workshops she runs supported by an Arts Council of England Project Grant.
Lisa has exhibited these prints at Kings College, Cambridge, Harris Museum, Preston, Supercollider, Blackpool and the Wrexham International Print Biennale.
- Lisa Wigham - artist website
- Contact and sales
Tina Dempsey
I have been in a relationship with the coast all my life, but the events of 2021 pinned me to my coastal location with nothing but time to encourage closer investigation. Daily visits brought about the realisation that help within this landscape, deep time sits upon the surface. Epic stories of creation, destruction and evolution are revealed and concealed with every tide.
My work is of the sea. Being on the edge creates a space where the present falls away and layers of time are exposed for investigation. Walking and wandering along the coast, colour, texture and pattern are collected along with all manner of flotsam, jetsam and geological specimens. Building my understanding of the coastal landscape and nurturing my connection with it.
Collected artefacts open up new narratives of the natural and geological landscape, informing the drawings, paintings and prints that shape my multi-layered, sculptural collages and installations.
Archives of paper charting my practice mix and meld to form sedimentary works where each layer holds its own story and invites the viewer to experience the coast through my eyes.
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