Urban Makers at Old Spitalfields — Wednesday 23 September

About this event

Where

Good to know

Meet the makers

• 

  Clay & Canvas

  Ceramics

  I throw everything on a small wheel in a railway arch, mostly in a speckled stoneware that fires to a warm oatmeal. My range is built around daily things: deep breakfast bowls, tumblers that sit right in the hand, jugs for milk or for wildflowers. I mix my own glazes from oxides and wood ash, so every batch shifts slightly. I also paint slip decoration freehand, which is where the canvas half of the name comes from. Markets are where I test new shapes before they reach the shop.

  website@clayandcanvas

• 

  Crackle & Glaze

  Ceramics

  I chase crazing on purpose.

  website@crackleandglaze

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  Endgrain & Co

  Woodwork

  My speciality is end-grain butcher's blocks, where the wood is cut into cubes and glued standing up so the knife goes between the fibres rather than across them.

  website@endgrainandco

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  Kiln Formed

  Glass

  I fuse and slump glass in a kiln rather than blowing it, so my work is flat: dishes, coasters, small wall panels and jewellery.

  website@kilnformed

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  Kilnfolk

  Ceramics

  I run a small community kiln and make my own work around teaching evenings. The range is tableware for sharing: sectioned plates, deep curry bowls, and a wide serving dish with a rolled rim you can grip with oven gloves. I throw in a warm terracotta-flecked stoneware and use bright food-safe glazes, turmeric yellow, chilli red, a green like curry leaf. It is meant to look right with the food my family actually cooks. Most market customers build a set piece by piece.

  website@kilnfolk

• 

  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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  Nettle & Gold

  Jewellery

  I use keum-boo, an old Korean technique where fine gold foil is fused onto silver with heat and burnishing rather than glue or plating. It gives a warm gold that will never wear off. My shapes are simple discs, pebbles and long bars, hung on chain I make link by link. The gold goes on in irregular patches, like lichen on stone. Each earring in a pair is close but not identical, which I say clearly, because a few people want them matched.

  website@nettleandgold

• 

  Peculiar Pies

  Food & drink

  I make hand-raised pies with a hot water crust, moulded around a wooden dolly rather than baked in a tin, so they stand up on their own and have that thick shattering pastry. Fillings are pork and sage, a spiced mutton, and a mushroom and stout one for the vegetarians which took me a year to get right. Meat comes from a butcher in Kent who tells me the farm. Everything is baked the morning of a market and sold at room temperature with a pot of mustard.

  website@peculiarpies

• 

  Slipstone Studio

  Ceramics

  I make functional tableware for people who cook a lot.

  website@slipstonestudio

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  Stained & Salvaged

  Glass

  I work in copper foil, the finer technique where each glass piece is wrapped in adhesive copper tape and soldered, so the lines can be much thinner than lead allows.

  website@stainedandsalvaged