Hampshire and Berkshire Guild of Craftsmen

We are a group of makers dedicated to the vision, design and expertise that underpins the best contemporary craft

• ceramics

• furniture

• textiles

• jewellery

• sculpture

• engraving

• wood carving

• glass 

 Many of us exhibit at a national level and the group includes established writers on and teachers of contemporary craft.

Quality Craftsmanship

The members of the Guild maintain the highest standard of materials and workmanship to create work that will be a pleasure to own. They represent the best in British craftsmanship.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions are regularly held throughout the year.  They are an opportunity to be inspired, to buy and to commission one off pieces.

In addition to our exclusive guild exhibitions, most of our members take part in various larger events during the year. Individual members will provide information about such events on their own websites. Links to those websites are to be found on the maker's page.

Commissions

Most members of the Guild will undertake commissions and bring your ideas to reality.

Please feel free to contact any of our members with your ideas. We all genuinely love and enjoy working together with our clients creating something unique and personal.

“Craft and early human history go hand-in-hand. Every find unearthed by archaeologists was made or marked by human interaction with the materials they bent, cut, carved, hammered or built. The innate curiosity of the human mind, allied to our opposable thumbs, has embedded the act of making deep in time and the human psyche.

Our daily routines do not depend on craft as they once did, but a handmade object, transformed from raw materials, still speaks to us in a deeply resonant way. We respond with immediate recognition and perhaps even awe, to the workings of a truly skilled maker.

Rooted in the physical world of touchable materials, each contributor is moved by the human impulse to make something, to make it well, and through rigorous experiment and endless practice, to bring an abstract idea to fruition.

Like a seed bank, the Guild represents an optimistic store of living knowledge and expertise. It exists to celebrate the highest quality of the handmade, and to invite audiences to look closer and to appreciate the realisation of exceptional craft, its place in the wide cultural landscape and how it enriches our daily lives.”

Extract of Introduction by Julie Ayton to the CRAFTED Exhibition at The Willis Museum 2022.