Design-Nation rounds off 2022 with yet another great cohort of new members. There’s lots to celebrate this festive season.
Our portfolio is enhanced by no less than 32 new talents, while two existing members move up to Full and Graduate membership as their careers progress. There’s a wide diversity of practices – 7 in textile & fibre arts, 5 in jewellery & metal, 2 in furniture & upholstery, 4 makers working with glass, mosaic, paper and bio-materials, and an impressive 16 in ceramics. We have 5 new Associates, 13 new Graduates and 16 Full members joining us.
We’re delighted to connect with so many skilled designers and makers across the UK. They are listed here North to South (like left to right but on the map), as a welcome break from the usual alphabetical hierarchy. Our story links each new full member to their own profile page here on our website; while Graduate and Associate members’ names link to their social media.
Full Members
Starting in Scotland, Emma Louise Wilson works in enamelled jewellery and metal in her Aberdeen Studio; Adele Howitt creates ceramics and architectural product in the studio she set up Hull; and in Manchester Ella Macintosh designs contemporary wares in pewter, and Nerissa Cargill Thompson’s mixed media practice is focused on textiles and sustainability. Nearby, in Stockport and Liverpool respectively, Tone von Krogh and Chris Turrell both work in ceramics, Tone making homeware inspired by her Nordic upbringing and Chris being focused on architecturally-inspired layered objects.
Further south Kim Colebrook is in Abergavenny, and like Robyn Hardyman in Oxford, is a ceramicist. Kim’s layered forms explore local geologies and Robyn makes minimal and pure porcelain vessels. In London Charlotte Wakefield creates one-off textiles for interiors under her brand Woven Form, Elsa Sarantidou is a jewellery with a love of bold golden textures, and Kerry Hastings makes organic forms in ceramics.
Alexandra Barto trades as Clay by Design, creating moon jar informed vessels, and like nature-inspired mosaic artist Denise Jaques, maker of tactile glass Laura Quinn, and alchemical ceramicist Nicola Martin, is based in Surrey. (Look out too for Laura Quinn in our story about new QEST Scholarships.) Our final Full member in this cohort is jeweller Lindsey Mann in Salisbury, who adores colour and print.
Graduate Members
All 13 of our new Graduates are based in England. In Nottinghamshire Denise Coupland works with textiles and handmade silk paper, and Holly White makes ceramics. Susie Stanway’s Studio Stanway creates contemporary upholstery in Buckinghamshire and Christoph Kurzmann of Christoph Studio makes furniture in Oxford. (Christoph featured in this year’s Green Grads and used discarded furniture from his Oxford college for a very clever re-make project.)
In London no less than four ceramicists join us – Barbara Sulzberger, Belinda Murray, Claudette Forbes, and Isi Rodriguez, who is also a 2022 Green Grad.
In textiles, Deb King is a London-based weaver, Georgie Gerrard in Surrey is exploring the new world of bio materials, and Ksenia Semirova works in embroidery in Hove. In next door Brighton is Maisie Rennie-Carter, creating textile prints on deadstock & remnants, and in the SouthWest our Graduates are joined by ceramicist Suzi Humphries in Cornwall.
Associate Members
Wise Fig jewellery is Fiona Haines’ trading name in Merseyside, and across the country Karen Whiterod works in paper with her brand Balanced-Earth in Norfolk. In Oxfordshire Penny Maltby sculpts in straw and Suri Poulos handbuilds ceramics. Our fifth new Associate is Hastings-based Jane Sarre whose sculpture is also in ceramics.
We are delighted to round the year off with such an exciting array of creative practitioners and look forward to the next stages of their individual journeys in the new year.
