thinking art side the blog: Staffordshire Contemporary Artist & Designer Fair 2013

Thursday 6 February 2014

Staffordshire Contemporary Artist & Designer Fair 2013

The weekend of the 30th Nov/1st Dec saw the second Staffordshire Contemporary Artist and Designer Fair at the Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek. Last year, our first event, was a great success and this year superceded that with over 1000 visitors over the weekend. As last year all work was selected by me! Totally self indulgent; choosing artists from Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Cheshire whose work I like! Work selected was seen by visiting galleries and designer fairs across the counties such as the Wirksworth Arts Trail weekend, Little Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, Manchester Craft & Design Centre, Great Northern Contemporary Art Fair, Unit Twelve, Totally Locally Sunday Supplement market, and general research on the internet. Also word had got out from last year and we had artists enquiring about entry - a great result. The response from the public and the artists was really great. Our students sold lots of work as did the artists - great weekend - hard work but worth it.

Photos below show the event.

The set up:

8.00am Saturday morning - the artists begin to arrive and the transformation from function room to designer fair begins....

The public arrive:

will anyone come....Yes! over 1000 over the weekend. it looked fantastic...The work was fantastic - lots of great comments about what 'high quality work was there'...'very professional'...'contemporary design not just 'craft''...'a great event for Leek'...felt very chuffed!