Spinningfields Craft Fair

I'm normally dismissive of things like hand-made jewellery, crocheted birthday cards or wooden stencils.  Like ice skating or sword-swallowing, it's definitely not my kind of thing -- but I have no objection to other people enjoying it.

So why did I find myself at a the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair?  Well, it was the final stage of the Manchester trip and I decided to go in with an open mind.
The result?  Well, I was polarised.  Most of my prejudices were reinforced, walking past stall-after-stall of expensive artisan works.  Certain that every item took time & care to craft, I was harshly reminded that creative works can't please all of the people, all of the time.

However, a few items really stood out as something very special.  The first item to catch my eye was Holly Levell's "soft sculptures" of household food & drink.  The carefully sewn-together Monster Munch packets are really quite a delight to the soul, and show how you can take a charming new slant on something everyday.

This is something relevant to my Games Design work, as the notion of charm is a topic which will be explored as part of my research.

Next up is a visual spectacle: Jin Eui Kim has created a 3D ceramic form which uses "tonal bands" to accentuate ridged circles in these, well, erm ... not quite sure what they are, but I know I like them.

I'm sure there's some clever application of texture and displacement mapping for 3D modelling to be extracted from this work, but these are just so gosh darned captivating to look at that I'm going to leave that for another time.

Bruce Aitken's wooden clocks are quite special.  They are a lot more fragile-looking than they appear in the photo, mainly because the cogs are not solid -- there are all kind of gaps in places, which give the feeling that something will snap off.  This is accentuated by thin arms which are part of the latching mechanisms.

Again, making the cogs -- and the entire clock -- out of thin wood adds charm to them.

My last item is something I spotted outside the craft fair: the window display at the All Saints clothes store.  The window is stacked with anique sewing machines in an extremely attractive pattern.  Each is different, adding a detail which says something about the difficulty in putting this display together.  Quite special.
 

So, in conclusion, what have I learned from the experience?  Firstly, I've been reminded that when you aim for a target audience you're also likley to alienate other audiences.  Secondly, I've seen a number of things that will defeinitely help me to evaluate the meaning of 'charm' in design.

(Revised 20 Oct 2013 -- dead links updated)