Hello,
I have been on a fantastic adventure to the South West of England visiting Bristol, the beautiful Bath, Wells, Glastonbury, and the wonderful Cheddar Gorge.
Bristol is an amazing city and I was so taken with the creative atmosphere. Bristol is BIG on art, design and crafts from streets covered in amazing art work (you just can’t call it graffiti) to little quaint streets with craft shops with studios.
In the heart of Bristol’s Christmas Steps Art Quarter is Blaze Studio a combined studios and craft boutique, there I met Hanne Rysgaard who was downstairs hard at work, before I disturbed her.
Hanne creates funky ceramic pieces by slip casting quirky objects to create fun contemporary home wares decorated with a mix of vintage and modern patterns and colours. I couldn’t resist not buying anything, but it was so hard to choose, as there was a mixture of milk related objects which I loved and I think I might order one, but I decided I would get a lovely tea light jar with a beautiful flower pattern around the side. Hanne Rysgaard shares the studio with a very talented textile artist, Kay Morgan who makes beautiful leather purses, corsages, and handbags in the upstairs studio. So glad I rang the bell, as it was really insightful to talk to an artist who is living the dream!
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| Blaze Studio |
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| Window Display |
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| My lovely purchase |
Another studio in the Art Quarter, I visited was ‘SNAP’ which is a printmaking co-operative run by eight resident artists with an art gallery upstairs, and studio space downstairs where they run screen printing workshops from. The gallery space was really quaint and the all work was amazing. I think my favourite work was by Freya Cumming who is a printmaker and Illustrator. Her shopping series of patterns are beautiful and really shows the perfect balance of narrative drawings and surface pattern which Cummings has perfected over the years. A really good place to visit!
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| My two prints from SNAP |
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| SNAP studio |
Well… part two of my trip to the South West is coming really soon, and also some other exciting news about new work.
Thanks for reading xx
