Meet the Residents
Victoria Works is the creative home of over 20 residents. These include artists, jewellers, ceramicists, craft makers and many other talented, small business owners.
Gourd and Horse
Akiyama Naoko is the founder of Gourd and Horse. A ceramicist and sculptor, she presents a range of playful and functional handcrafted ceramic works. Yarn bowls for knitting-bees, orchid pots for green-fingers and tableware for food-lovers. Aki creates beautiful forms by hand throwing, modelling, casting and building, as well as inlaying. Her pieces are finished with fine, translucent glazes.
W: www.gourdandhorse.com
E: studio@gourdandhorse.com
INS: @gourdandhorse
Britt Willoughby Dyer
Britt Willoughby Dyer studied a degree in photography at Nottingham Trent University. She began her career as a PR photographer and grew naturally towards being a garden\floral photographer. Britt has a unique eye for composition and her photography focuses on gardens, flora, and nature. Her work has been featured in Gardens Illustrated, House and Garden, Garden Design Journal and Rakes Progress amongst others.
W: www.brittwilloughbydyer.com M: 07764 938468 INS: @brittwilldyer
FB: Britt Willoughby Dyer Photography
Jill Watton
Jill Watton makes wheel thrown ceramics in stoneware and porcelain. They are functional everyday objects that convey her love of throwing. Surface quality and the natural beauty of the materials are allowed to take centre stage on the simple undecorated forms. During the making process forms may be altered and multiple glaze firings explore the properties of clay and glaze.
M: 07891 249900 E: jillwatton@hotmail.com FB: @JillWattonCeramics
Katerina Gibb
Katernia Gibb upholsters decorative and fine furniture by hand, using traditional techniques: hand stretched webbing, hand tied springs and hand stitched seats. She uses traditional tools and natural materials: jute webbing, horsehair stuffing, hessian, linen twine and unbleached calico. Katerina works to commission, restoring well-loved upholstered pieces to their original condition. She also runs upholstery classes where traditional techniques are taught in a relaxed and friendly environment.email: katerina@theupholsteress.comwebsite: www.theupholsteress.com
Lily Cheetham
Lily Cheetham runs Archetype Fine Art Services which offers a range of fine art services including Bespoke Conservation Framing, Artist Studio Support, Fabrication and Exhibition Installation. Most recent work has included a project framing 3,200 pictures for Tate Britain.
W: www.archetypefineart.com E: enquiries@archetypefineart.com FB: @archetypefineart
Sadie Rowlands
Sadie Rowlands is a Mosaic artist, she trained as a Graphic Designer but discovered mosaics when her children were very young. She works with traditional mosaic materials and also recycled china to produce a wide range of work. As well as working on her own portfolio, Sadie also enjoys teaching people the skills and joy of mosaic to create their own pieces and develop their artistic talents.
E: smrowlands21@hotmail.com FB: @sadiesworkshops
Saira Todd
Saira Todd is an arts psychotherapist who trained at the Institute of Arts in Therapy and Education. She works one to one with adults, adolescents and children in private practice at the Victoria Works. She also works in schools, the NHS and the voluntary sector. Saira uses art making with paint, pastels, clay, sand tray, writing and roleplay to enable clients to explore psychological or emotional difficulties within a psychotherapeutic relationship.
M: 07808 173796 E: saira.todd@yahoo.co.uk W: www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/saira-todd www.umbrellatherapies.co.uk
Anna Simson
Anna Simson is a ceramist, making functional domestic ware as well as sculptoral pieces typically in stoneware. Her work is inspired by the wonderful shapes and colours seen in nature as well as those we live with in our own homes. The calming turquoise, dark marines and refreshing greens in the glazes she uses, are an influence from her childhood experiences of the changing Mediterranean sea.
M: 07970 224470
W: www.annasimsonceramics.com
Helen Taylor
Helen Taylor is a Textile Artist who "sculpts and paints" with wool. She uses natural and plant-dyed rare-breed sheep fleece in her needle-felted studies of the natural world, particularly wildlife found in the five valleys. Examples of her work can be seen online: www.facebook.com/taylored.felt and can also be viewed in her studio by appointment. Portraits of Pets can be commissioned. Helen tutors at needle-felting workshops she runs one Saturday per month in her studio.
M: 07528 857598 Email: hctaylor2002@aol.com
Lucian Taylor
Lucian Taylor’s playful skeuomorphic pieces revel in the contradictory, yet intriguing results of fusing the precise aesthetic of computer aided design with the tacit uncertainties of traditional and not-so traditional hand techniques.
W: www.luciantaylor.co.uk
E: info@luciantaylor.co.uk
FB: @luciantaylorworksinmetal
Lizzie Mabley (My Blue Shed)
Lizzie is drawn to pattern, colour and repetition. This is conveyed in her textile designs. She draws her inspiration from nature, her garden and love of the coast. Lizzie always begins her designs using lino block prints which she then transfers to silk screens for a cleaner, more solid print that still tells the story of its handmade origin. Email: lizzie@myblueshed.co.uk
Instagram @myblueshed
Twitter @myblueshed
Facebook @lizzieblueshed
Website: www.myblueshed.co.uk
Rachel McDonnell
Rachel McDonnell is a landscape artist, and more, painting everything from the representational to the completely abstract, and working in whatever medium the work demands. She has produced work from the tiny to the monumental, and everything in between, and has had several solo exhibitions in London and Belfast. She welcomes commissions and visitors to her studio in Victoria Works.
M: 07860 572968 W: www.rachelmcdonnell.com
Zoe Watts
Zoe Watts is a silversmith and jeweller, working with traditional techniques to create beautiful, tangible pieces that express a fascination with elemental beauty. Bespoke commissions include designing and making unique wedding and engagement rings.
W: www.zoewattsdesigns.co.uk FB: ZoeWattsSilversmith E: zoe@zoewattsdesigns.co.uk
Emily Cowen
Emily Cowen is a seamstress and shoemaker. Drawing inspiration from texture and form in her dressmaking, she is now turning her hand to footwear, using her pattern-cutting skills to make unique creations. Emily is also one of the founders of Doris & Tate which makes gorgeous, recycled bunting with unwanted fabrics, brought back to life to buy or to hire for functions and events.
W: www.DorisandTate.co.uk
FB: @thefeatheredgeshoes
Diana Evers
Diana Evers is a multi media artist with a background in dance, choreography, psychology, psychotherapy, and education. Besides her individual work, she has a particular interest in the social aspect of creativity development and participatory art. Diana is leading two on-going participatory projects at an international level: “In Context” and “Ouroboros”. To find out more about these exciting projects, her other work and creative workshops, you are welcome to contact her anytime.
E: diana.evers@me.com W: www.dianaevers.com
Nick Grellier
Nick Grellier makes work across drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, stitch and assemblage. Using low value, often deteriorating or found materials and low tech methods she embraces the possibility of failure and ’not-knowing’ to investigate productive thinking. (Mis)remembered histories, a daily drawing habit and insomnia inform her varied approach.
Email: art@nicolagrellier.co.uk
www.nicolagrellier.co.uk
INS: nick_grellier
Lucia Leyfield
Lucia Leyfield is an illustrator and hand lettering artist. She loves creating illustrative art with a hand lettered typography bias and works traditionally with watercolour, gouache, pen and ink.
Word heavy illustrations, illustrated maps, pen and ink drawings, info graphics, hand lettered diagrams, developing bespoke and experimental hand lettering for logos are a speciality.
Email: lucia@wildink.co.uk
Instagram: @wildinklettering
Website: www.wildink.co.uk
Pascale Stanley
Pascale Stanley is a jewellery designer. Wire is Pascale's material of choice for creating mini masterpieces; carefully shaping, hammering and weaving wire to craft beautiful sculptural jewellery. Her collections consist of earrings, pendants and rings made from high quality sterling and fine silver, often featuring semi-precious stones. The jewellery is handcrafted at Pascale's workshop in Stroud, where she creates delicate yet bold pieces that make a statement.
W: www.pascalestanley.co.uk E: jewellery@pascalestanley.co.uk
Rebecca Simmons
Rebecca Simmons has an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea college of Art and Design and is currently Head of Art at Wynstones School. She is a ceramicist and painter exploring the affinities between clay and paint.