A person welding metal, creating bright sparks, on a workshop space with tools and equipment nearby. The image was taken at the Welding Space Studio, Plymouth, UK.
A person welding metal, creating bright sparks, on a workshop space with tools and equipment nearby. The image was taken at the Welding Space Studio, Plymouth, UK.

Welcome to Object Art Lab…

They say maintaining a creative practice is important for wellbeing, self-development and just plain creating for the sake of making.

Returning to the origins of handmade marks and objects has never been more essential, especially as automation increasingly controls industrial, domestic, and creative processes.

At Object Art Lab, I meet creative people venturing, practising, and teaching in the craft and arts trade-space, and I discover why 'handmade’ is very much here to stay.

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A white book titled "Natural Materials & Creative Processes" with a blue shale spoon photograph on the cover.

Case study: Natural Materials & Creative Processes (2016)

After a personal investigation into materials in 2016, I became obsessed with design and making, particularly regarding creative folk who had carved out a life and profession from craft and artistry.

Sewers, shapers, carvers, welders, painters, and sculptors: these skills seem threatened by our increasingly easy-fix culture. They say all good things take time, and it's clear that, when you look, handmade objects hold more soul in their fabric than their mass-produced counterparts.

AI is making huge changes to the design landscape and if your not onboard you’re probably going to get left behind, so how will the relationship between handmade and artificial intelligence show up on the digital design roadmap? Has imperfection always been the connection to beautiful objects?

This is the basis of Object Art Lab, seeking the soul and the stories behind the creative processes. There’s more to come in this section and I’ll be interviewing a range of creatives pushing their craft in a rapidly changing world.

A close-up view of the top of a soapstone avocado, with a pewter pip.
Close-up of a white, oval-shaped decorative ceramic sculpture with a hollow center, placed on a marble base in a workshop setting.
Close-up of a rough, weathered piece of shale.
A ceramic bowl made from polluted clay taken from post industrial mining land in Cornwall.
Close-up of a limestone primitive bird form.
A small metal spoon with a rounded bowl and a slightly tarnished handle against a white background.
A rapidly painted section of a fishhead.
A large pewter casted organic form.
Abstract black and white painting of a post industrial workhouse.
A composite form made from two different ground materials.