Purbeck Artisan Yard
What do you get when you take a former fire station and builder’s yard and turn it over to artists and makers? Peter Rich found out.
Published in June ’19
The workshop space, where visitors can learn new skills or discover latent ones they didn’t know they had
If you were to try to distil down to a single sentence what it is that makes the Purbeck area special, it is an immensely difficult task. As an overview one could say that it’s an area of incredible beauty, granted, but it’s also an area of global geological significance, a place of immense biodiversity, with a rich history of the dates and kings variety, but also of military development, of commerce with the wider world, of traditional industry and artisanship, and with a significant connection with the arts.
Take all of that, then try to wrap it up in a single location and what you end up with is the Purbeck Artisan Yard in Wareham.
Nestled within the maze of lanes and residential roads behind the town’s main thoroughfare, lies Church Street. Opposite a terrace of Victorian cottages there is a slightly unprepossessing set of metal gates leading to a warehouse-type structure that was, for a time, the town’s fire station. Sitting atop a flat roof, you see a cheerful life-sized pig grinning down at you.
Congratulations, you have found the Purbeck Artisan Yard. The pig is not just an artwork, but also a clue to the provenance of this cross between an art market and a makers’ commune. The building is owned by James Waren, the man responsible for creating the Salt Pig, the multi award-winning, urban farm shop and restaurant.
It was James and his wife Becky who decided in early 2016 that they would apply the same principles (of local sourcing and extracting the best of Purbeck) to art and artisanship as they had with the food business.
James and Becky have a real passion for supporting local businesses and so creating the Artisan Yard was a perfect opportunity to do this in a massive, flexible space that was lying unwanted and unused. They set about coming up with a concept that would revitalise the building and give a little bit extra to Wareham.
A display of ceramics at the top of the stairway to the first floor
After what the couple euphemistically call ‘a bit of a clear out,’ the yard was ready and James and Becky got in touch with local artists, crafters, producers and upcyclers to join the team.
One of the principles on which the Artisan Yard is run is one of cooperation, almost of a collective.
All the artists, makers and upcyclers take it in turn to run the yard so, as they put it ‘we are open seven days a week and, each time you come in, you get to meet one of the makers.’
Upstairs is wholly devoted to exhibiting the work of the artists and makers and each has – if one thinks of it in terms of a parking structure – a full bay or part of a bay in which to display their artworks or wares to best effect.
Downstairs there are also a number of bays, but there is also one of the other key components to the Artisan Yard: an area where artists put on workshops to help locals and visitors connect with their own artistic impulses: to learn tips and techniques to create their own art work. In a further demonstration of the flexibility that the Artisan Yard offers, one doesn’t even have to be an existing tenant of the yard to put on a workshop, just a keen artist with a talent to share.
Jessamy Keily and some of her animal studies and marine inspired mandalas
This is just one example of the collaborative approach that runs through the whole operation. It’s a means of bringing art to the people, but also of bringing artists to the people’s attention, and in as cost-minimal a way as is possible.
If someone decides that they want to make their way as an artist, there can surely be few less painless ways of getting from just creating, to being able to have one’s creative output available to the public.
The Artisan Yard is open seven days a week for ten months of the year (and five days a week excepting Mondays and Tuesdays in January and February) from 10.00-4.00 in winter and 10.00-5.00 in summer. The principle that each of the bay’s creators takes a turn at manning the store makes each person’s work available to be bought and just as importantly seen, for a financial and time commitment that is a tiny fraction of what it would be to open one’s own storefront.
What would be inconceivable as a solo operation is accessible when part of the cooperative model.
So what kinds of things can one find in the Artisan Yard? Probably the easiest description is ‘a whole load of things you might not necessarily need for your day-to-day existence (although there is some of that too), but which will enrich your daily life nonetheless’.
There are fine artists, craftspeople, purveyors of vintage and retro clothes and homewares, original sculptures, pottery and stained glass, limited edition prints, greetings cards, posters… the whole panoply of decorative objects from abstract art to zoological studies. There’s upcycled furniture to original soft furnishings, representative photography to tote bags, wool for knitting to tea towels, living art to objets trouvés.
Things you may need for your home, but with an artistically upcycled twist
All of the artists draw inspiration from the Purbeck landscape. Some are inspired by its animals. From Lucy Tidbury’s smile-inducing Moo selfies, featuring local farm animals painted in the context of their having taken selfies in front of Purbeck landmarks, to Jessamy Keily’s ocean art, which gazes upwards towards the surface of the sea and explores the patterns made by marine life including her mesmerising fish mandalas.
There are the pop art creations of screen printer, Print and Repeat, the landscape oils and acrylics of Eddie Burrows, who takes inspiration from the local seascapes, the stunning glass creations of Kezmee Studio and the olfactorily stimulating and calming candles created at Milldown Farm.
Annie Lovelass went from being a senior manager at a large social housing provider to creating her own fine art landscapes, portraits, seascapes and still lives, and her work sits comfortably in the Artisan Yard with handmade handbags by Gilly.
Jo Burnell’s ceramics, which allude to the area’s wildlife, beautifully complement the likewise nature inspired stained glass creations of Gillian McCormick.
The earth-toned ceramics of Marion Field’s wonderfully shaped work, contrasts wonderfully with the crisp colours of Jo Porter’s screenprints and sharp linocuts.
Mark Page’s animal studies on white card, accent cheerfully with the reclaimed slate paintings of Abi H Parker Art.
Turn another corner and Beverly Evans’s textiles can be seen. Down at the end of the hall are Andy Knill’s Purbeck-inspired art.
There’s typographical design from Spring Tide in the same building as a French pop-up vintage shop sharing space with Maria Burns’s illustrations and interpretational art.
Things you never even knew existed, but which are strangely fascinating
There is, in short, something for pretty much everyone. While the high streets of England suffer as more and more commerce moves online, the occupation rate at the Artisan Yard is pretty close to full. This is not just because of the way in which things are organised, but also because there are some things you just cannot really appreciate online or just in print. A case in point is the moss and reclaimed material artworks of Naturally Rooted, which only truly come to life in the flesh.
The residents of the Artisan Yard change over time, as people move in and out of the area, but the essence of it has not really changed since it opened in April 2016.
Just like the directions to it from the high street, and indeed the area from which it draws a lot of its inspiration, the Purbeck Artisan Yard is not a particularly easy thing to summarise quickly, but then again this is not a drive-through burger joint. It is a place for aimless wandering and appreciating, for chatting about arts and crafts and perhaps even learning a new one, or being inspired to take the leap to being an artist.
From 25 May until the end of June, the Artisan Yard has a guest artist in the shape of photographer Clare Western. She describes her work as follows: ‘Through the medium of photography, my contemporary images reflect the natural shapes and patterns that are the “Essence of Purbeck”.’
As a metaphor for the work of the owners, makers, artists and craftspeople of the Purbeck Artisan Yard, there really couldn’t be a more appropriate exhibition.
www.purbeckartisanyard.co.uk
