The Contemporary Craft Festival 2018…Best in Show of shows! (Part 1)

It seems unbelievable that a week has already passed since the opening night of this year’s Contemporary Craft Festival here in our hometown of Bovey Tracey in Devon. As with every year, we were excited to catch up with all our maker friends, we were in awe of their incredible work, the town was buzzing with energy, and we were both elated and exhausted by the extraordinary Festival experience!

Now it’s all gone and we’ve had a couple of days to rest (and to avoid the onset of the ‘Bovey Blues’), we’ve enjoyed looking back at some of our pictures of our makers’ displays. This year we were mainly based in our beautiful yurt exhibiting a collection from our Risk Makers project (more of this in part 2 of our blog tomorrow). This meant that we didn’t have as much time in the main marquees as usual, but we did manage to zoom around early each morning to take some snaps to share with you. We saw exquisitely made furniture, colourful glass, joyful ceramics, imaginative and playful jewellery, beautifully textured textiles and so much more, all made by individual makers…

Lindsey Mann Jewellery

A joint stand of Tone von Krogh’s ceramics and Dionne Swift’s textiles.

Teresa Dunne Textiles – we were so proud that Teresa won the Best Maker in the South West Award!

Peter Lanyon Furniture

Virginia Graham Ceramics

Liz Cooksey

byAliceWood Leather

Mizuki Takahashi Jewellery

Alice Heaton Glass. AAH Design

Suzanne Breakwell Paper Sculpture

Ruth Green Design

Justine Allison Ceramics

Lynsey Walters Jewellery

Anya Keeley Mixed Media

Hannah Dowding Furniture

Penny Little Ceramics

Little Burrow Designs

Fern Robinson Jewellery

Kate Evans Ceramics

The Festival was a true celebration of the rich, creative talent of the UK, and a lot of fun too….the makers’ ceilidh dance was a hoot, the wide variety of food stands kept everyone spoilt for choice and very well fed, there were activities for children, workshops, demonstrations, a mobile craft film cinema and the brilliantly hilarious Pottery Throwdown. Our director Katie took part and the challenge was to make a teapot in 10 minutes. It poured, but with that spout, this was made for tea in a hurry or for those who like it weak…

We’re very happy to announce that the winner of our Best New Business Award was presented to jeweller Lucy Spink. We’re looking forward to welcoming her and her beautiful work on madebyhandonline very soon.

Thank you as always to Sarah, Nina, Kate, Fran and all the team at The Contemporary Craft Festival for putting on such a show – definitely winner of the award of Best in Show of shows!

That’s all for now. Tomorrow we’ll share our Risk Maker project pics with you…