Urban Makers at Old Spitalfields — Wednesday 25 November

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

• 

  Crackle & Glaze

  Ceramics

  I chase crazing on purpose. My glazes are formulated to craze finely, and after the second firing I rub in a tea and oxide wash so the whole surface shows a delicate web. I throw bottle vases, wide fruit bowls, and a tall carafe with two beakers that ends up on people's bedside tables. A white stoneware body keeps the crackle legible. Interiors get a stable liner glaze, so everything stays watertight and properly usable rather than decorative.

  website@crackleandglaze

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  Crumb & Cranny

  Food & drink

  I bake with a sourdough starter I have kept alive for nine years and a stone-milled flour from a farm in Suffolk.

  website@crumbandcranny

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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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  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. Those sketches become drypoint prints, scratched straight into perspex with a needle so the burr holds the ink and gives a velvety line. Each plate only yields fifteen good impressions before the burr flattens. The subjects are night workers, empty stops and the strange blue light of an out-of-service depot. I print on Sundays and sell what I have.

  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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  Slow Grown Plants

  Plants & florals

  I grow herbs and vegetable plants from seed in a lean-to greenhouse and sell them as young plants for windowsills and balconies.

  website@slowgrownplants

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  Sunday Metals

  Jewellery

  I run a bench in a shared workshop and make in weekly batches, which is where the name comes from. The range is deliberately small: three ring profiles, two hoop sizes and a pendant, all in recycled silver, all available with a stamped word inside. I stamp letter by letter with steel punches, so the spacing is never machine-perfect. It is affordable, sturdy jewellery, the kind you put on and forget about. Repairs are free for the first two years, no questions asked.

  website@sundaymetals

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  Two Left Thumbs

  Ceramics

  I am entirely self-taught and my pots look it, cheerfully.

  website@twoleftthumbs