Peak District Artisans are again heading to Buxton for their flagship Art at the Crescent exhibition, one of a number the group are running this year.
The exhibition features an exciting collection of contemporary artworks from some of the best professional artists, designer makers and artisans in the Peak, all together in the stunning Assembly Rooms at the Crescent hotel with the artists in attendance.
Peak District Artisans was founded by Deborah Devonshire, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, in 1991. The Duchess established the group to unite and promote talented contemporary professional artisans from a range of disciplines in the Derbyshire Peak District region.
The exhibition takes place at the fabulous Crescent Photo: Getty
Artists to look out for
Louise Edwards
Louise learnt how to print using lino cutting from a young age and is completely self-taught. With a background in painting, the use of colour has inspired her work and enabled her to capture the feeling of foliage, berries animals and flowers native to the Staffordshire moorlands.
Amanda Graham
Amanda uses recycled precious metals including silver and gold, also using vitreous enamel to create unique pieces. No piece can be reproduced exactly due to the techniques used. Amanda has exhibited widely in Derbyshire and sells work in Haarlem Gallery, Wirksworth, where her studio is based.
Diana’s work focuses on her love of trees and their connection to their environment. Inspired by treelore mythology and folklore, Diana paints from pigments derived from the earth.
Sarah arrived from Trinidad in 2019. She uses acrylics to create vibrant abstract images depicting changing seasons and difference in light across the landscape. Originally working in watercolour, Sarah credits the more abstract path her work has taken to the change in her environment with her move to the UK.
Ingrid uses mixed media to create narrative work, inspired by memories and places which tell a story. Ingrid’s storytelling through her work is inspired by the changing colours and atmosphere of the Peak District, where she lives and works.
Mark is one of the most renowned pointillist painters in the UK. The result of his talent is highly imaginative unique pieces which invite the viewer to look closely into the painting and discover different elements of brush stroke, colour and layering within.
Anita is a weaver and basket maker who uses natural fibres, including dandelion stems, daffodils, iris and crocus leaves. Having a background in graphic design, Anita’s baskets and weaves are informed by her skill in design and functionality.
Craig Longmuir
Craig impressed judges on Sky’s Landscape Artist of the Year and works in oils from direct observation using thin washes of paint, impasto techniques to create thick layers trough layered brushstrokes then often using the end of the paint brush to sgraffito through the layers.
Emily Murch
Emily is a self-taught weaver predominantly inspired by colour – choosing her palette from her selection of hand dyed yarn. The natural world and Emily’s local environment form the basis of the colour choices used for each individual piece.
Ian Patrick Palmer
Ian began sculpting in metal in his early teens, growing up among the industrial landscape defined by iron works and steel mills. Living in Spain for 20 years Ian developed a love of sculpting in olive wood which, on his return to England, led to a joining of wood and metal.
Thomas Petit
Thomas is a glass blower who makes handblown stoppered bottles bowls, paperweights and vases.
Thomas is currently based in Lower Lumsdale, where he rents his studio from another glassblower and regularly exhibits and sells his work nationwide.
Pam Smart
Pam produces vibrant paintings which reflect her love of the local architecture of Buxton, her hometown. Recently, Pam won the Buxton Spa Prize People’s Choice Award for her painting of the Cavendish Arcade.
Greta Vilidaite
Greta began painting in oils after feeling burnt out in academia where she worked in neuroscience research. Winning the Search Press award for her painting Mother and Calf encouraged Greta to begin painting full time. This led to exhibiting widely and appearing in The Artist magazine exhibition.
Günther Walker
Günther’s analogue photography was inspired by his late grandfather’s love of cameras from the 1930s. After his grandfather was killed during WWII, his grandmother buried his Leica camera to protect it from occupying forces. Once safe, the camera was retrieved and Günther’s grandmother continued to use it before passing it onto Günther.
Philip is a ceramicist based in South Derbyshire with over 40 years’ experience working with clay. His practice varies depending on the season. Philip sells his work through the Round House Gallery in Foston, Derbyshire, which he co-founded with his wife.
COLLABORATIONS
Peak District Artisans has a long history of collaborative working between artists, leading to formal collaborations between artists generally of different disciplines, with the objective to skill share.
A recent collaboration between a basket maker and a 2D artist will form part of many collaborations exhibited in venues this year.
The Lawrencefield collaboration
Ingrid Katarina Karlsson
I got involved with the new concept of PDA collaborations in 2024. I had seen images from a new member, Anita Lomas which spoke to me and my northern Swedish heritage and heart.
I saw bark vessels similar to those my mother learnt to make years ago from silver birch trees and roots. Meeting Anita at her studio was inspiring and a plan evolved in which we homed in on Lawrencefield, a disused quarry near Bole Hill, with a rock wall and pool and hundreds of silver birch trees.
Anita started working on a kind of stitched basket base for a structure best described as a wide tube, reflecting images from Lawrencefield in mixed media. I wanted to explore Anita’s techniques and materials, so opted for willow bark to create the birch tree trunks.
We’ve created something unusual and special which (in our own view) really works as a piece of art, negotiating difficulties and hurdles along the way, which makes the end result more rewarding.
The collaboration has been exciting, brought me out my comfort zone, and made me appreciate the intricate techniques applied by Anita.
Anita Lomas
The email arrived asking PDA members to consider working in collaboration. I was surprised and delighted when Ingrid contacted me.
The process started with excitement, a flurry of positivity, turning into slow progress and ponder, but returning to ‘Wow did we really create this?’.
Lawrencefield is a place familiar to Ingrid; a place of calm, beauty and reflection. We wanted to capture the changing seasons, the meandering pathways amongst the trees, the sense of being in nature.
The basketry base is hand sewn in layers, depicting the layers below and emerging from the ground, whilst representing the natural colour change through the seasons – starting with the soft colour of red-hot poker leaves, flowing into copper of the daylily leaves, then yellowing crocosmia leaves and brightness of golden daffodil leaves, before a sense of summer with the green of Iris sibirica leaves, which flow into the landscape above.
The hand stitched technique is new to me and required patience. It’s a slow craft, and much larger than my usual work. Ingrid’s artwork brings the piece to life, it’s breathtaking and wonderful. Working with Ingrid has elevated my understanding of process, how to communicate and adapt from a single-minded creative focus. It opens the creative mind into new territory – a scary place, but such an awakening place too.
Art at the Crescent takes place July 19-20 at The Assembly Rooms, Crescent Hotel, Buxton, between 10am-5pm and is free to attend.
peakdistrictartisans.co.uk
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