Urban Makers at Old Spitalfields — Wednesday 2 September

About this event

Where

Good to know

Meet the makers

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  Concrete Botanicals

  Print & illustration

  I make botanical studies of weeds. Buddleia out of a railway wall, ragwort on a verge, the fig tree that has taken over a car park near me. They are drawn in coloured pencil from life, which means a lot of standing about in high-vis looking suspicious, then reproduced as giclée prints on textured cotton paper. Each print names the plant in Latin and gives the street where I found it. I sell them loose or mounted in reclaimed frames.

  website@concretebotanicals

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  Grogged

  Ceramics

  I use heavily grogged clay, the coarse stuff meant for sculpture, and throw it anyway.

  website@groggedceramics

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  Koji & Co

  Food & drink

  I grow koji on barley in an incubator I built from a broken wine fridge, then use it to make miso, shio koji and a fermented chilli paste.

  website@kojiandco

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  Lost Wax Lane

  Jewellery

  I carve wax models under a magnifying lamp, which is how I lose whole afternoons.

  website@lostwaxlane

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  Moth & Moon Jewellery

  Jewellery

  My work is all lunar phases and moth wings, cut from silver sheet and given a satin brush finish.

  website@mothandmoonjewellery

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  Nightshift Etching

  Print & illustration

  I drive a night bus four evenings a week and draw everything I see from the cab in a pocket sketchbook at the terminus.

  website@nightshiftetching

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  Pigeon Post Prints

  Print & illustration

  I draw the birds nobody paints. Pigeons on bollards, gulls raiding a chicken shop bin, parakeets in a plane tree. It starts as ink and brush on paper, then I screen print the drawings by hand in three or four colours on heavy stock. I pull every print myself in a shared studio, so an edition takes a whole weekend. Alongside the prints I sell postcards and a risograph zine of drawings I made on the overground, which is where most of this began.

  website@pigeonpostprints

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  The Marbled Edge

  Stationery

  I marble paper on a tray of thickened water, floating paint on the surface and combing it into patterns before laying a sheet on top to lift the image.

  website@themarblededge

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  Two Left Thumbs

  Ceramics

  I am entirely self-taught and my pots look it, cheerfully. I hand-build with coils and slabs, so there are wobbly mugs, lopsided planters and jugs with ears for handles, then I paint them with underglaze faces and stripes. It is all earthenware, fired twice, and properly glossy. Most of my customers are buying a gift and want something that makes somebody laugh when they unwrap it. I keep prices deliberately low, because being playful should not mean being precious.

  website@twoleftthumbs

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  Wednesday Woodblock

  Print & illustration

  I print mokuhanga, Japanese water-based woodblock, using cherry plywood, rice paste and a baren rubbed by hand. There is no press involved at all. Each colour is a separate block, registered with cut notches, and a print with six colours means six carvings and six passes. The ink sinks into the paper rather than sitting on it, so the surface stays matt and soft. My images are quiet: rain on water, folded laundry, a bowl of plums. Editions of twenty, printed in one sitting.

  website@wednesdaywoodblock

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  Wildseed Jewellery

  Jewellery

  Enamel is my material.

  website@wildseedjewellery