On 19 June, the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (GNCCF) opens its doors in Newcastle for three days. For visitors, it’s a chance to see and buy beautiful, original hand-made work. For the makers and artists showing there, it means something more.
Independent makers in the North East don’t have many platforms at this level. There are some fabulous one-day markets and pop-up events, but a curated, contemporary, fair is different. It says this region has something worth paying attention to.
The organisers are a not-for-profit organisation that has been running the nationally acclaimed and award winning Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester since 2008, championing makers and artists in the North and cultivating new audiences of buyers and collectors in the North West. Over that time, they’ve showcased the work of more than 4500 makers, welcomed over 100,000 visitors, and generated more than £4 million in craft sales. Every exhibitor is selected by an independent panel of craft experts, and the organisation is supported by Arts Council England with public funding from the National Lottery. The organisers now want to do the same in the North East and they launched this new sister event last year. This isn’t a casual weekend market. It’s a seriously curated platform, and having it in Newcastle matters.
My work
I’ll be exhibiting my work at the fair. I take real botanicals, responsibly gathered or cultivated locally, and cast them into materials like plaster or concrete to create decorative bas-relief wall panels. Each piece preserves something living in a permanent form. It’s slow, hands-on work, and every piece is unique because every botanical is different.
I came to this practice after fifteen years as a professional photographer. I’d built a career in weddings and portraits, won awards and set up my own studio. Although I am not ready to give up photography I have felt ready for a different creative challenge. Botanical casting had been a hobby for several years and I practised obsessively. I made so many pieces that selling them seemed an obvious next step. I have now sold internationally and I’m studying for an MA in Creative Practice, using my own work as the project. It’s the hardest professional transition I’ve made, and I’m right in the middle of it.
Real work from real people
My story isn’t unusual. Plenty of makers in this region are doing exactly this: building a practice from scratch, working out how to make a living from what they create, trying to get visible in a market that doesn’t make it easy. Many of us are full-time self-employed. Most of us don’t have big marketing budgets or gallery representation. We rely heavily on word of mouth, social media, and events like the GNCCF to put our work in front of people who might connect with it.
What makes a fair like this different from scrolling past something online is the encounter. You can see the texture of a piece. You can ask the maker how it was made. You can hold something in your hands and feel the weight of the time that went into it. That’s not a small thing. In a world where so much is mass-produced and delivered next day, choosing to buy something made slowly, carefully, and with love by one person is meaningful in so many ways. Many of the makers and artists exhibiting also offer commissions, working with you to create something beautifully personal. I offer commissions to create memorial panels and panels from wedding flowers.
The North East has always had makers. What it hasn’t always had is the infrastructure to support them properly. A contemporary fair of this calibre helps build that infrastructure. It gives emerging artists a professional platform. It brings collectors and buyers into the region. It creates a space where makers can be taken seriously, not just appreciated but valued in real and material terms.
That support is needed more than ever. Independent makers are under genuine pressure. Costs are rising. Visibility is harder to achieve. The gap between making beautiful work and earning a sustainable living from it is wide, and it doesn’t close on its own. It closes when people show up, when they choose to spend their money with independent makers instead of high street chains or on cheap Chinese imports (which are often mass-produced copies of things makers and artists have put their heart and soul into), and when they tell someone else about the work they saw.
So if you’re in or near Newcastle on 19-21 June, come along to Sport Central at Northumbria University. You’ll find work you won’t see anywhere else, made by people who care deeply about what they do. And you’ll be doing something that matters for the creative community in this region. In addition to the actual fair, there is also a preview evening on Thursday the 18th which is open to the public for a first look and exclusive shopping.
Information about the exhibitors and tickets is available here.
