My take on "Made London"

I went to the "Made London" craft show yesterday.

 I was a bit disappointed.  I was expecting a big show but it was smaller than the Bovey Tracey equivalent last summer and many of same exhibitors were there.

It felt very "crafty" - lots of jewellery and stuff you might find in gift shops and not a lot of thought-provoking works of  art.

Maybe I was expecting too much.   I'd been looking at some magnificent examples of glass and ceramic art in the Victoria and Albert Museum the previous afternoon so the bar had been set high.  And the Context of Practice course at college might be encouraging me to look for deeper meanings  than I had a right to expect at a craft show.

 It demonstrated the difference between craft and art and reminded me of my internal conflict - how in some ways I should be doing a course on sculpture rather than craft but how this might run counter to my primary goal of producing sculpture rather than studying it.

Here's some of the exhibits that stood out from the crowd from my point of view:

Line Gottfred Petersen
Line, from Denmark, makes blown glass objects with embossed surfaces.  She does this in two stages - holding steel mesh on the surface while sand-blasting and then polishing using pumice and the sort of powered brushes used by jewellers.

http://www.linegottfredpetersend.dk

Michael Abbott and Kim Ellwood
In addition to making jewellery they make some really cute sculptures in metal whose surfaces have been printed beforehand.

http://www.abbottandellwood.com

Sophie Woodrow
Makes amusing ceramic objects, all glazed white.  I particularly liked her Foxglove:

http://www.sophiewoodrow.co.uk

Samantha Donaldson
Samantha makes beautiful hot glass sculptures by blowing layered shapes in different colours and then cold working them.   I  had an interesting chat with her about how she organises things: she rents a whole studio for a week, produces lots of stuff which she then works on at home.  She's now also making jewellery from the off-cuts from this process.  Her pieces are now being sold in Selfridges.  My wife and I  bought one of her pieces at Bovey Tracey last summer.
http://www.samantha.donaldson@network.rca.ac.uk

Penny Green
Penny makes ceramic objects and gets some interesting surface decorations using unusual glazes and transfers.

http://www.pennygreenceramics.co.uk

Eleanor Lakelin
Eleanor turns wooden objects and then carves them.  I particularly liked her knobbly bowl:

http://www.eleanorlakelin.co.uk

Yu-Ping Lin
Lin makes fantastic textile jewellery which ends up reminding me of a kaleidoscope the way it can be modified and is always symmetrical.

http://www.yuxiart.com

Raewyn Harrison
Raewyn makes sets of glazed white boxes with transfer printing on them.

http://www.raewynharrison.com