Eiry Rock is a promising young talent from the region. After travelling from Wales to the East Midlands to study at Loughborough University School of Art & Design, she has remained in the region finding employment with a bespoke joinery and furniture company and developing her own design practice.

We first brought you news of furniture designer Eiry Rock, in the Spring 08 edition of the Hub Magazine. Eiry had recently been awarded the Hub Innovation Award at Lustre, the East Midland’s premier contemporary craft market. In addition to a cash prize, Eiry was offered an exhibition space at the Hub and she has since been developing new work in preparation for this showcase.

Rock’s designs have since received much praise within the design field. This spring she was selected for the prestigious international design event Salon Satellite held in Milan, and her designs will also be showcased in the London Design Festival as part of 100% Design held at Earls Court this September.

Rock creates charming designs, which address the relationship objects share with each other and their dependency upon each other. She says ‘I have focused my attention on creating a visual balance within a useable end-product, which would not be visually or functionally complete without all components in place’.

Eiry's web site>

Guitars is a jointly curated exhibition by the Hub and the distinguished musician, Gordon Giltrap. The show will celebrate the development of all forms of British guitars from the 1940s onwards. The exhibition will include classical, electric, semi-acoustic, steel string, gypsy, jazz and arch top guitars, plus others that may arise during the research stage. The exhibition will emphasise three main stages in guitar production from the design to manufacture and eventual performance. Elements of the guitars production e.g. strings will also feature as part of the show. The education element of the exhibition will be complimented by an artist in residence and performances throughout the duration of the exhibition. Over twenty-five guitar makers have already agreed to participate in the exhibition and a number will also have periods in residence and some of their work will be for sale.

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Bringing together the work of seven international artists 10,000 Butterflies showcases the beautiful and varied ways in which colour and form can combine in contemporary porcelain. From vessels, wall pieces and bowls to china sculptures and installations, porcelain moves away from the traditional, muted palette to adopt vibrant colours and eccentric forms, drawing on its global heritage and adding a truly contemporary twist.

Conceptual artist Caroline Yi Cheng draws her inspiration from the making of ancient Chinese costume. Her two pieces are a male and female garment covered with thousands of tiny porcelain butterflies, all hand made by the craftsmen from Jingdezhen province in China. The pieces represent a bridge between the contemporary conceptual approach to porcelain
and its origins that are believed to
be in China.

The fascinating sculptural still lives of Pauline Wiertz are based on the ideas of 18th century Dutch still life painting whilst Mia E. Görannson explores the nature of changing seasons by casting bone china into sculptural forms creating organic sculptures of ethereal appearance. Inspired by African and Mexican woven baskets, Mieke Everaet returns to the most universal sculptural form — the bowl. Henk Wolvers on the contrary ventures into abstraction with his grid-like wall pieces and painted vessels created from very fine threads of pigmented porcelain. The large scale pieces by up and coming artist Aneta Regel Deleu combine bold colours and totally abstract forms whilst acclaimed porcelain artist Felicity Aylieff focuses on large, hand-build vessels.

Organised by the Flow Gallery

Class of 2008 is the Hub’s annual exhibition sampling the latest, most exciting work by recent art and design University graduates from across the UK. Ranging from furniture, product and graphic design, to an innovative take on glass, textiles and jewellery, the exhibition promises to surprise and animate with its youthful, experimental and eco-conscious approach.

Amongst the work of fifteen new craft and design professionals, is that of Kelly Klein and Helen Bickford, recent graduates of the University of Lincoln. Their piece ‘Nightwatchman’ is a ‘new chair made of old chairs’ designed to stop night security staff from falling asleep - and to be good for their backs. Danny Isaac’s kitchenware series poke fun at gender stereotypes with a series of cooking utensils made from elements from the workshop environment. Textile artist Debbie Smyth will be exhibiting a striking large scale wall piece, a ‘painting’
of electricity pylons, which is made
out of a myriad of strings and pins. The artist states: ‘The piece speaks of the fragility yet immense suspense found in the ‘real’ electricity pylons, and is designed to play with the subject of light and shadow.’

Designer-Makers in the exhibition include Elizabeth Adebayo, Helen Bickford, Antonia Chiappe, Ella Clocksin, Louise Graham, Graham Hearfield, Sarah Hinton, Hitomi Ifuku, Daniel Isaacs, Kelly Klein, Rachael Lusmore, Alexander MacMaster, Laura McKinley, Debbie Smyth, Eleni Thoma, Ann-Louise Tingelof and Jamie Ward.

Shelley Darlington is a recent graduate from the MMU (Manchester Metropolitan University) School of Art and Design. Her work was specially selected from her graduate degree show by the Hub team, for the fresh and challenging ideas found within her knitwear collection.

Shelley’s practice as a knitwear designer is informed by the ‘Slow’ movement, a phenomena which has developed as a critical response to aspects of 21st Century living such as our increasingly fast lifestyles and our unsustainable consumer culture. Slowness encourages makers and consumers to consider methods of production and consumption in relation to sustainability.

Created as a backlash to today’s throwaway society, Shelley’s collection is made from Milgrom cotton, a sustainable product sourced and produced entirely in the Northwest of the UK by a small team of seamstresses, and is hand produced on a Santagostino knitting machine. Quality, individuality, preservation of traditional skills and the production
of minimal wastage sit at the heart
of Shelley’s design ethos. The designer hopes that through producing individual and better-made clothes, this will ‘give the wearer more satisfaction out of the garment and encourage them to keep and cherish them forever’.