This season we are excited to welcome lots of new faces to our Craft & Art Fair. With artists and crafters from across the county sharing their work ranging from ceramics, textiles, wood-carving, printing and more, there will be something unique that will make a perfect gift.
Whether you come to all our fairs, or have never been before, make sure you pop in on Saturday 31 October, 11am-4pm, and check out the fantastic talent on show. We guarantee there’ll be something you haven’t seen before such as some of the incredible work of our tutors. Not content with just sharing their skills and expertise as tutors on our creative courses, we’re looking forward to welcoming some of our tutor team as exhibitors at our fair as they showcase their own work.
This year we will also be using out Gallery 1 space to extend our craft fair and welcome in a whole host of new artists to share their work. Let’s have a look at some of the artists and crafters who will be joining us:
Su France: Printmaker
A Lincolnshire-based printmaker whose work celebrates nature’s quiet details through sustainable techniques.
Inspired by woodland discoveries and cycles of decay, she creates intricate prints using botanical materials and earth pigments. Her muted, textured work embraces kintsugi’s philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection.
Sophie Cook: Cyanotypes
Sophie works with an early form of photography, cyanotype, that she learnt to use during her Art Foundation Diploma in Nottingham. Since then she has become an Environmental Science graduate and trained horticulturist, disciplines which inform her artwork.
Each piece is an original botanical cyanotype, created using natural material Sophie has grown or collected in Derbyshire. The work grows out of a detailed exploration of the botanical features of the plants. She uses metallic gold gilding paint to highlight the form of the plants.
Feltables by Lauren
“Feltables is my little corner of the world where wool, creativity and a slightly odd sense of humour come together. I create handmade needle-felted animals, characters and curious little creatures, with a particular fondness for turning a fluffy ball of wool into something with a personality of its own. I never quite know what I’m going to make next, which is why my stall tends to be an eclectic mix of woodland creatures, pets, birds and plenty of whimsical nonsense!” – Lauren
Andy Dickinson: Graphic Prints
Scrambler23, Aka Andy Dickinson, is an artist living in the heart of England, fueled by a chaotic cocktail of horror films, heavy metal, and comic books. Raised on a diet of lego bricks, punk rock, and motorcycle exhaust fumes, their work is where graphic novels crash into rock ‘n’ roll at full throttle. It’s loud, it’s visual, and it doesn’t apologise. And it makes great gifts for the anarchic film fans in your life.
Christine Pearson: Jeweller
Christine Pearson, a regular at our Craft & Art Fairs, creates all of her beautiful enamel work in her workshop in Leicester. Working in copper and silver to make her jewellery, she also makes enamelled copper dishes and enamelled artworks on steel. Fired in a kiln, to temperatures around 800*C, each piece is unique.
Free and pay-what-you-can entry for all with free parking at the university car park next door, and all-day access to our exhibition. All areas are pushchair and wheelchair accessible, we have lift and external ramp access to the first floor and lower ground floor galleries, accessible toilets and a changing places bathroom, quieter spaces if the fair is a little overwhelming and assistance dogs are very welcome (just ask if they’d like some water while visiting).
Saturday 31 October, 11am – 4pm, book your tickets by clicking here.