Win/Win!

This is a post written by Jane Vernon, who exhibits her pottery & silk scarves at By Local, the perspective of someone who has been involved from early days, and knows whereof she speaks!

I’ve been involved in By Local whenever I can since it began because, quite simply, it’s a win-win venture.  I sell through other shops, farmers markets, craft shows, exhibitions and from home but By Local is way ahead as my favourite.  What makes the difference?

For the maker, By Local feels like your home town.  You know your way around, you understand what’s going on and generally feel at ease and amongst your own people.  Because we are all makers, we understand each other’s lifestyles, problems, successes, discoveries, let-downs and excitements.  We can ask each other for advice about our work knowing that the answer will be informed by experience that a non-maker simply doesn’t have.

The crucial element in this is that Rosie, the manager, is a maker too.  She, along with her team of supervisors and the general body of makers, always has a sympathetic and creative approach to everyone’s products and displays because as well as having many years’ experience in arts retail work, as an artist she understands what each of us is trying to do.  While sometimes hiding her own light under a bushel, she’s always ready to encourage the rest of us and treats everyone’s work as something of value.  This is not always our experience and it is to be treasured. 

There is camaraderie in By Local.  Most of the time we are all working away in our own studios and this can feel a bit isolated.  Now with the By Local ‘gang’, many of us are in touch by phone, email or on Facebook (as well as occasional social get-togethers) and can bounce ideas off each other as if there was someone working in the room next door.  It’s a great thing to be part of.

For win-win there have to be two parties, and the other side here is the customer.  If you’re someone who likes to buy artwork and hand-made items then in the past your main option was craft shows and exhibitions.  These are great opportunities to buy and often to meet the people making the work, but they are one-off events and may not coincide with when you need to buy something.  Now with By Local our work is available seven days a week.  This means you can add arts and crafts to your normal shopping whenever you’re in town.

When you come to By Local you are always served by someone whose products are on display.  Not only does this mean we are particularly well-informed about the products but it also gives you the opportunity to discuss possible orders and commissions.  You can follow us on Twitter or Facebook where Michele will often tell you who is working in the shop that day so if there is someone in particular you would like to meet, you can find out when they’ll be available.  Michele will also keep you up to date with new products from time to time.

New products by existing makers and new makers to the shop are also announced in our customer newsletter, along with news of special events and competitions.  You can sign up for the newsletter when you come into the shop or email us and ask to be put on our mailing list.  Also our website, www.by-local.co.uk, has a news section and essential information about the shop as well as individual pages about all our makers.  Not just an arts and crafts shop but an up-to-date local arts and crafts resource as well.

By Local is a unique and very special shopping venue for customers and a unique and very special selling venue for makers.  Win-win!

Jane Vernon
Pottery, textiles & cards

Hope you enjoyed this insiders view of By Local!

Shop rearrangement!

Here is Justyna Designs' luscious chair sitting in our shop, inviting you to collapse into it! Sadly, the footstool has been put a bit far away to put your feet up, too! Doesn't it make you smile? It certainly lifts my spirits every time I walk into the shop - just trying to figure out how we could afford to get the caravan upholstered like this! As well as moving things around in that corner to make room for this fabulous 'sample', Rosie has brought in more display space near the counter, so you can now see Eva's work much more clearly.

Eva's work is truly spectacular, what she manages to do with felt and beads is inspiring, nad the complexity of her work makes me feel like a fraud!

 Next to Eva's display is that of our new jewellery exhibitor, Hilary Thompson, who makes her own lampwork glass beads, under the name of Spa Town Beads.

No picture can really do justice to Hilary's work - do come in and see it, the subtle colours and combinations are very pleasing and relaxed.

Jane Vernon, Ali Corder, Jackie Hawkins and others have also brought in new stock - isn't this lustre bowl by Jane stunning?

Just to be cheeky, I, too, have updated my display, including putting some of my older stock on a 'sale' shelf!

I'm not the only one with reduced price stock, so come in and pick up a bargain - maybe a future Christmas present to stash away!!

New exhibitors for Easter!

We have 2 new exhibitors, Hilary, who already exhibits at Gloucester Arts & Crafts Centre, near Gloucester Cathedral, and Justina Design.  I have no pictures of Justina's work yet, but keep an eye on our Twitter stream (@ By_Local) and Facebook page - I'll post some as soon as I can! In the mean time, check out her web site  http://www.justinadesign.co.uk/   to see her amazing patchwork upholstery - or better still, visit the shop, and sit in one of chairs! 

Hilary was born in Leeds, raised in Cheshire and is now living in the Cotswolds, in the beautiful spa town of Cheltenham, with her husband Jeff, children Chris and Ellen and their golden Cocker Spaniel, Charlie.

For many years she have had a keen interest in photography, calligraphy, flower arranging and, of course, jewellery.  Her main interests have now developed into jewellery design, beads, silver wirework and lampworked glass.

Read more about Hilary, and see more of her work on her web site :

http://www.spatownbeads.co.uk/

Easter!

Easter is nearly upon us! We have a positive avalanche of edible eggs and rabbits and heaven knows what else thrust at us in the shops! What if you want something more substantial, and permanent - and less fattening and unhealthy?! By Local has many delightful altenatives to offer you, to start with, these crochet or felt eggs from Kath Cooper, to hang in a window, or perhaps on a handbag or keyring?

Kath has also made these charming cosies, to keep your 'dippy' egg for breakfast warm - an all year round momento of a season of hope. Being a ceramicist, she's also made some ceramic eggs for your delectation!

Should your thoughts turn to the arrival of chicks, we have a few offerings to pay credit to our feathered friends new babies, too! Here's a charmer from Jackie Hawkins to dangle in the sunshine:

 Or you could offer a child an Easter cuddly with a diffrence, while being green & recycling with Eunice!

These geese are a treat, and give new life to a hand embroidered table cloth!  If you have to indulge in chocolate, how about a beautiful and useful dish, filled with mini eggs? This one by Tara Davidson would be perfect.

We have lots of Easter inspiration, here's a selection on our counter, with our lovely founder & Boss, Rosie, working hard in the background!

Happy Easter to you all, have a brilliant weekend, an excellent start to the season of growth and new life!

Spring is sprung! (almost!)

 

The weekend just gone has given us an encouraging taste of coming spring!  It's gone a bit grey again, now, but the shop is full of encouraging reminders of the joys to come - these hares, by Penny Gaj, available as cards or prints, are a timely reminder that March is only a couple of days away, and the 'Mad March hares' will soon be boxing! Did you know, it's actually feisty lady hares telling pushy males where to stick their unwelcome advances?!  I think they should be a feminist icon!

We are already seeing the lambs in the fields, of course, they seem to arrive earlier each year, and their effervescent joy in life is enchantingly infectious!  Not everyone can get out to see them 'in the wool', perhaps you know someone who can't and would enjoy this card by Bev Perry as a tangible taste of spring?

 Bev also has this delightful card of ducklings, and the water ways will soon be full of these little balls of fluff, too.  A very British sign of Spring, much missed by many expats I know, are the bluebells in the woods.

This picture of Trudi's seems to me to completely capture the essence of Spring, as we know it in Britain. Our climate gives us a Spring like no other, and we should be grateful for its delicate beauty, it's a unique national treasure!  One of our new exhibitors, Nicolas Waters, is also an artist with a perceptive eye for the natural world.

This picture by Nicolas makes me think of spring in the Orkney Isles, where I lived for a time, and the spring air is filled with the bubbling calls of curlews and the 'tee-auch' of lapwings.

Finally, 1st March is St David's Day, which, as a Welsh girl, always feels like the start of Spring to me! So, this is the perfect flower to be wearing on Thursday!  Happy Spring, everyone!

New faces!

All change this weekend! From today we have 2 new artists in the shop, I'll start with the awesome Nicolas Waters! In his own words . . . . Born 1947 – Brought up Lancs, Yorks, Lincs. Finally settled down aged 50 to a career as a linguist having for many years careered as a non-linguist around England, then the continent, in search of proximity to mountains and wild places - the only places where you can hear yourself think. Discovered oil-painting upon opening a Christmas present of paint tubes in 2004, thus simultaneously discovering the ultimate way to communicate.

I can’t remember how many years I’ve been daring myself out onto our wildest uplands, knowing on each occasion that  I’ll end up hurrying across those dark and blustery sky-lines like a man pursued by demons, aware that something absolutely immense and ancient is already out there, presumably working on some never -ending project.

What’s more, despite the overwhelming majesty of that ‘Presence’, I sometimes feel that it is not entirely benign. Everywhere I find walls that have crumbled, or barns that have collapsed and turned as black-hearted as the clouds that stalk overhead, and from time to time I come across some soft young rabbit inexplicably disassembled into a spray of tiny, fine teeth, a ribcage and scattered fur, or the wreckage of a heavy-coated sheep that has mysteriously ’been tipped over’ in the marsh to soak quietly under, legs up.

 I am driven to respect the innocent courage of the creatures that inhabit these unvisited places, living with the fogs and frosts, the wind-blown sleet, the silent, heavy snow, and the days of steady rain.  And they must wait out every black night, whether in unbroken silence, or blasted by the storm. I love them all for bearing it so patiently, and, deep down, I think I covet their animal durability.

So in fact I don’t think I set out to paint landscapes for their beauty at all. Each composition is really an attempt to capture and convey an awareness and respect for that ‘Presence’, as well as my love and respect for the creatures in it, who know no other world.

Two dreadfully over-looked art movements of the very late 1800s contain at least five geniuses at portraying the moods I would love to portray; The Hague School [Holland], particularly Anton Mauve,  Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch and Jacob Maris; The Itinerants [Russian: The Peredvizhniki] especially Isaak Levitan and Ivan Shishkin. They are truly worth looking up; there was a lot more than Impressionism going on at that time.

Perhaps, paradoxically, by presenting only the wild world, my efforts really amount to one long howl; I’m begging homo-sapiens to remember the whole, natural planet, to regain his fear, love and respect for it, and not to sleep-walk any further into a homo-centric,  urban-centred, vehicle-dependent, tarmac-based, grass-phobic, silicon-nourished, screen-focussed, data-fixated,  learning-phobic, commercially-manipulated, gratification-fed, sensation-driven, resource-ravenous,  unsustainable... virtual world.

We also have another artist exhibiting from today, but so far, i have little information about her - however, here's a taster!

Her name is Jenny Westbrook, and her work is very different from anyone else we have in the shop at present, hope you come in and enjoy it!

Quick! Before it's gone!

Here at By Local we operate in 6 week sessions, so that new sellers can have a trial to see if we work for them, and so regulars can have a break. The current 6 week session ends next weekend, the 19th of February, and 2 of our exhibitors are leaving us for a while, so if you like their work, grab it while you can, because we don't know when they'll be back!

Sue Tiedeman will be leaving us for awhile, so if you like her work, grab it while you can!

Also leaving us for a time is Sharon, with her wonderful range of 'Herbylicious' soaps, creams, scrubs etc. Her Eczema cream is very effective - I can vouch for that personally! She also has a wide range of herbal remedies, all rooted in a long history of herbal medecine.

They may be back with us later, but nothing is certain in this life, so come in and ensure your supplies before Sunday 19th February!