I was lucky enough to be chosen to be feature on a new craft programme on BBC2, Paul Martin’s Handmade Revolution. I felt honoured to be among such talented crafts people. The people chosen for the programme used a wide range of crafts including knitting, ceramics, weaving, woodwork, metal work, felting, millenary, the list goes on. Many of these people came form a non-craft background and used crafts as a release for their day to day activities. Some, of course, had done craft their whole life. The judges, Glenn Adamson, Mary Jane Baxter and Piyush Suri, were great. They were very honest with their comments about the work they saw and gave advice to some of the finalists about how they would develop their work.I was shocked to find out that I was chosen as a judges favourite on programme 5, One person was picked form each programme. As one of ten favourites for the series I have my teddy bear, Cedric, on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for four weeks from 15th October 2012.
Upon seeing the series I was really pleased that the producers put a real emphasis on the time and skill it takes to do some of the crafts. As well as showing some crafts which are more speedy in process. The public were encouraged to have a go at a craft, most crafts people can pick up fairly quickly and can start making things. Although it does take time and experience to learn the skills and understand the process/medium chosen to produce something of great quality. One of the things I find difficult is to explain to people how much time and skill it takes to weave fabric and then make teddy bears from it. On first glance they can seem expensive but for the time and skill that goes into each teddy bear they are a very fair price.
