Crafts Alive update
We are excited to share more information about our upcoming exhibition at Crafts Alive 2025, Victoria Works Studios exhibition is entitled BLOOM;
BLOOM is a site-specific installation composed of individual pieces of work by 17 artists from Victoria Works Studios. It sits within the broader CRAFTS Alive festival and, in responding to the view of Rodmarton Manor’s garden and the landscape beyond that unfolds beneath the window, speaks to the over arching ‘Flowers and the Maker’ theme of this year’s CRAFTS Alive. It is sited in the attic room at Rodmarton, this is a behind-the-scenes place inhabited by behind-the-scenes people – domestic staff, children, perhaps some of the artisans involved in the making of the house – and their presence can still be powerfully felt in the furniture and objects. Much of the work the artists are making seeks to conjure these hidden lives, bringing them into the spotlight and asking us to consider how they bloomed within these walls.
Curator
Charlotte Abrahams
Participating artists
Emma Cooper-Key, artist & artisan
Katerina Gibb, upholsterer
Ruth Hickson, illustrator & printer
Emily Johnson, ‘Lampshade Rebellion’
Sam Lucas, artist working predominantly in clay
Lizzie Mabley, printmaker & fabric designer
Mandy Coppes Martin, visual artist
Rachel McDonnell, painter
Teresa Poole, mixed media artist
Sadie Rowlands, mosaic artist
Rebecca Simmons, ceramicist
Lucian Taylor, silversmith & jeweller
Saira Todd, art psychotherapist & natural fibre artist
Stuart Voaden, artist
Jill Watton, multi-disciplinary artist
Jane Wright, mixed media artist & lacemaker