National Maker Directory

I have been a full time potter for nearly 30 years, mainly a repetition thrower, firing with gas, but in 2019 I fulfilled a long-held ambition and built a large wood-fired kiln. Now I feel I am at the beginning of a new and exciting journey.

I throw all my pots on the potters’ wheel. While they are all about function and, importantly, the enjoyment and ritual of use, I see each pot as an individual with its own idiosyncrasies to be embraced and admired. I use local clay, stone dust and wood ash to decorate and glaze the pots, and I’m coppicing and storing the Willow growing all around my pottery for fuel to fire the kiln. Increasingly my pots are taking on the tones and hues of my surroundings, set in the rural calm of the Brecon Beacons National Park. My work is inextricably linked to where it is born. No two pots are the same and all pieces shown here are unique.

For nearly 20 years I have been designing and making jewellery. My inspiration comes from my creativity and imagination, my love of architecture, abstract art and sculpture. I often think of my jewellery as small sculptures with clean lines and polished surfaces. My jewellery has a simple elegance which makes it easy to wear. Each unique piece […]

As a designer, maker and thinker; I am interested in value systems, with specific reference to architecture. I recognise a beauty in weathered, scratched and used surfaces within architecture. Initially stemming from aged agricultural architecture; and now looking into our relationships with architecture, through the markings and textures found within cities. I work to produce […]

I produce a wide range of domestic ware, one-off commemorative pieces and increasingly tiles, including murals to order.

All the work is functional and intended to enhance everyday life.

Nikki Browne has developed a range of ‘Sungates’ – innovative glass sculptures that define and enhance the surrounding landscape or interior space. With a hand-engineered steel core, each piece uses the time-honoured techniques of stained glass making but with a contemporary twist, juxtaposing hand knapped blue and green slate with the finest quality mouth blown glass to create a harmonious whole that encompasses both strength and fragility.

Nobuko graduated from Birmingham City University with a BA in Jewellery and Silversmithing in 2007. Since 2008, she has had a workshop to create her own collections in Birmingham, Jewellery Quarter. Her inspiration comes from her childhood such as toys and the things she used to collect.

Nobuko’s pieces become mementos of the past, informed by the things she used to treasure. This process has been a rich source of ideas. Her current work features connected small cubes. The idea behind this was born from a snake toy she used to own. With that feature she has created her Vertebrae Collection. Her second collection, Treads Collection, features thread like delicate intricacy and has a very lightweight construction. She continuously explores her life’s interests.

Nook and Crannie is Hannah Mason who makes charming wall hangings, cards and badges – a mixed media collection celebrating the act of story telling and imaginative adventures, focusing predominantly on children’s literature.

Taunton-based 2008 Middlesex University graduate Emma set up Olive Rose in 2015. The name is inspired by her daughters’ middle names. She has a self-confessed obsession with the manipulation of a line. Using a Victorian lace craft called “Tatting”, she is able to manipulate a single line of thread into a complex structure.

Inspired by a lifetime of working with wood, Olneya Knives makes beautiful handcrafted kitchen knives. Customers can choose from a selection of beautiful pre-made knives, or alternatively design their own perfect knife by selecting from a variety of design variables. We use excellent stainless steel blades and use the highest quality exotic hardwoods, as well as a variety of other materials to create distinctive and ergonomic designs.

I use traditional copper foil and lead techniques to create my lamps, panels, terrariums, tableware and jewellery. The copper foil technique I employ is the same as used by the Tiffany Studios in the late 19th century. However, I use it to create unique designs that fit any interior. It is a labour-intensive and slow process but the results make it worthwhile and I like the fact that I am keeping a little-known skill alive and combining art and artisan. I am inspired mainly by the style and ethos of the designers of the Arts & Crafts Movement and love the Art Deco and Art Nouveau periods particularly.

I make wall sculptures out of drift wood branches, ceramic bowls and platters wrapped in papier-mâché and ceramic collages that hint at a story. I love combining different textures to create very tactile pieces. My work is influenced by the weatherworn surfaces of the Manx landscape, the coastline, and my love of the sea, then wrapped with papier-mâché. The papier-mâché is a wrapping of love! It’s a memory of my sister and I, who with great care and glee unwrapped the Christmas decorations. These wonderful jewels had been so carefully folded in old newspaper ‘skins’, now my papier-mâché skins! My repeatedly worked surfaces of clay are under constant revision, referencing the endless remaking of the shoreline, then decorated with oxides, under glazes, glazes and gold lustre.

I hand-paint silk scarves with my own designs. Each scarf is unique. Inspiration comes from clouds, water, leaves, flowers, French balconies and abstract ideas. I was a self-taught acrylic landscape painter for many years, and diversified after being shown the technique. I am also experimenting with digitally screen printed scarves based on my pastel paintings.

I have been a professional silk painter & tutor for 17 years. I first came across silk painting whilst studying surface pattern design and got hooked on the technique and taught myself. I am an active member of the Guild of Silk Painters and Silk Painters International and teach a wide range of workshops on the subject.

I paint using the traditional resist technique, this is where the design is outlined on the silk using a resist medium called gutta, before being painted & fixed. My main subject areas are flowers, stylised buildings & landscapes.

I completed a fine art degree and MA at Manchester Metropolitan University over twenty years ago and have been teaching art while painting and making since then. I recently left teaching and moved to the Yorkshire Dales, where I am surrounded by a landscape that constantly inspires me. The changing light on fells and moorland catches my painter’s eyes and I find myself increasingly fascinated by the people and animals that inhabit and visit the area, the climbers, fell runners and cyclists who make use of the land. All ceramics are hand built and are glazed and fired multiple times to give the layered more painterly effect.

I first started working with clay three years ago and I am self-taught; I love the beauty and clarity of porcelain and I enjoy the freedom of hand-building my pieces one by one and seeing their shapes appear. I add gold and platinum lustres at the final firing stage, filling my work with depth, optimism […]

Working in porcelain from my studio in Hampshire I produce pieces both on the wheel and with hand building techniques. My current wheel-thrown work is functional tableware suitable for everyday use, decorated inside with my speckled glazes and finished outside with a hand drawn daisy chain motif.

My hand built work, including vases & tea lights, is more decorative with a variety of finishes – printing of pattern & words, simple pencil drawing & slip decoration.

Much of my work is inspired by a childhood punctuated with visits for ‘Tea’ with my Grandmother, everything looking as good as it tasted and always beautifully presented. I originally learnt my craft at evening classes in my local college, moved on to studying a couple of days a week with my tutor, finally moving in to my own studio during 2008.

Peris and Corr is a textile and screen printing company run by Dyfrig Peris and Jennie Corr who both have backgrounds in Fine Art. With a passion for great design, screen-printing and the environment, Peris and Corr was born.

All our products are designed and hand printed in our studio located in the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. We create a range of hand-made organic textile products and screen-printed greeting cards.

All our textile products are hand screen-printed using Permaset Inks that are solvent free water-based inks. All our textile products are made with organic cotton and / or hemp unless otherwise stated.

The joy of carving is that it is difficult. You can’t stick a piece back on and you are always constricted by the size of the block. This calls for ingenuity and a fluidity of expression that does not exist for me in other materials.

I use predominantly lime stones like Bath stone because I like the warm colours and Serpentine because you can polish it.

The carvings are sometimes cast into bronze or iron resin to make limited editions I do public and  bespoke commissions, show in galleries and have many pieces on Facebook.

My work invites the fingers to explore the nuances of grain. Starting with a locally sourced, sustainably cut “coppiced” tree, I cleave it using the ancient technology of the bodger. The pieces that emerge from this technique follow the undulating curves within the tree, and give my work a fluid, organic feel. My interest lies […]