QEST X SDC, Fresh Focus

QEST X SDC at Collect 2025 Fresh Focus Stand E10

QEST x SDC present

FRESH FOCUS 28 Feb - 2 Mar 2025 E10, East Wing Somerset House, London

Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust @qestcraft qest.org.uk info@qest.org.uk 1 Buckingham Place London SW1E 6HR Registered charity no. 1152032

Society of Designer Craftsmen @societyofdesignercraftsmen_sdc societyofdesignercraftsmen.org.uk admin@societyofdesignercraftsmen.org.uk Solar House 915 High Road London N12 8QJ Registered charity no. 328202

Cover image: Christine Meyer-Eaglestone FSDC, Tondo 1, 2023. Photo Howard Eaglestone

QUEEN ELIZABETH SCHOLARSHIP TRUST X SOCIETY OF DESIGNER CRAFTSMEN FRESH FOCUS, E10, EAST WING The charities Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) and Society of Designer Craftsmen (SDC) are joining forces at Collect 2025 to celebrate traditional craftsmanship reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. Fresh Focus features nine talented makers across disciplines often under-represented in the UK craft industry, including marquetry, tapestry and passementerie.

Founded in 1990, QEST is a charity that funds the training and education of talented and aspiring craftspeople, supporting the UK’s cultural heritage and sustaining vital skills in traditional and contemporary crafts.

The SDC is the largest multi-disciplinary craft society in the UK. Established in 1887

by Walter Crane and William Morris, its national membership continues to welcome and champion designer-makers who excel and innovate through their exploration of materials and skill.

ARTISTS Elizabeth Ashdown (textiles) Fabrizia Bazzo (glass) Kendall Clarke (textiles) Samantha English (metal) Claire Ireland (ceramics) Margaret Jones (textiles) Christine Meyer-Eaglestone (wood) Laura Quinn (glass) Epona Smith (metal)

LIST OF WORKS For all sales enquiries of work:

By QEST artists contact Laura McKee, laura.mckee@qest.org.uk, 07827 460188.

By SDC artists contact Jenny Starr, Jenny.starr@societyofdesignercraftsmen.org.uk, 07886 336229.

Please note all works are inclusive of VAT. Elizabeth Ashdown Piece by Piece, 2025 Cotton, viscose, paper, silk, polyester 82h x 65w x 7d cm £6,100 (QEST)

Fabrizia Bazzo My Dear… (II), 2025 Glass 60h x 90w x 30d cm £7,200 (SDC)

Kendall Clarke Reductive, 2019 Monofilament and paper 140h x 140w cm £4,800 (QEST)

Samantha English From Embers, 2025 Copper, gold, brass & wood 30h x 6.5w x 6.5d cm £950 (SDC)

Samantha English From Forgotten Light, 2025 Copper, silver, brass & wood 30h x 6.5w x 6.5d cm £900 (SDC)

Samantha English From Fragile Memory, 2025 Copper, silver, brass & wood 42h x 6.5w x 6.5d cm £1000 (SDC)

Claire Ireland Media Linea, 2025 Ceramic components 40h x 125w x 12d cm £5,200 (SDC)

Margaret Jones 700, 2024 Hand woven weft faced tapestry 146h x 70w x 3d cm £18,000 (SDC)

Christine Meyer-Eaglestone Tondo I, 2023 Wood marquetry. Dyed Pama veneer, reconstructed wood veneers 78.5w x 2.5d cm £3,600 (SDC) Laura Quinn Lamella IV, 2025 Blown & Kiln-formed Glass 12h x 27w cm £3,720 (QEST)

Laura Quinn Plume Bottle III, 2025 Glass & Resin 28h x25w x 20d cm £2,640 (QEST)

Laura Quinn Plume Bottle IV, 2025 Glass & Resin 22h x 24w x 20d cm £2,520 (QEST)

Laura Quinn Plume Sway, 2025 Glass & Resin 33h x 23w x 21d cm £2,820 (QEST) Epona Smith Harmony of Spring, 2025 Britannia silver with gilding 12 h x 8.3w x 8.3d cm £7,080 (QEST)

Epona Smith Autumn Reverie, 2025 Britannia silver with gilding 12h x 8.3w x 8.3d cm £7,080 (QEST)

Epona Smith Echoes of Joy I, 2025 Britannia silver with gilding 8h x 7.8w x 7.8d cm £3,840 (QEST)

Epona Smith Echoes of Joy II, 2025 Britannia silver with gilding 8h x 7.8w x 7.8d cm £3,840 (QEST)

ELIZABETH ASHDOWN, PASSEMENTERIE QEST Adam Architecture Scholar One of only a few hand Passementerie artists working in the UK today, Elizabeth combines traditional and endangered craft skills with a contemporary aesthetic in order to innovate the craft. She is the author of ‘Passementerie, handcrafting contemporary trimmings, tassels, fringes and more’ published by Schiffer Craft. Working from her studio in London, Elizabeth creates made to order items for interior designers, fashion designers, milliners and more.

Elizabeth also creates bespoke wall-based artworks using her signature techniques.

Showcasing the endangered art of handmade Passementerie in a new and innovative light, Piece by Piece celebrates the rich heritage of textile craftsmanship while pushing the boundaries of traditional techniques. Through blending time-honored skills with a bold, contemporary vision, this piece reimagines decorative embellishment as an art form in its own right. Intricately hand woven and embroidered with unconventional colour combinations and unexpected textures, Piece by Piece juxtaposes historical references with modern influences. The tactile nature of the work invites closer inspection, encouraging viewers to engage not just visually, but emotionally connecting with the craftsmanship and artistry of human hands.

Piece by Piece, 2025 Cotton, viscose, paper, silk, polyester

82h x 65w x 7d cm £6,100 Photo: Elizabeth Ashdown

elizabeth-ashdown @ashdowntextiles

FABRIZIA BAZZO, GLASS SDC Member Fabrizia is an artist and a maker using glass as the main medium to materialise her thoughts. She specialises in architectural glass installations, including commissions for both public and private locations against specific briefs as well as works for exhibitions. Each of her glass commissions is unique and is informed by the ethos, function and aspect of the building as well as the budget and location.

‘This glass installation is about rethinking and reinterpreting the concept of a letter received from a friend who lives in Tuscany near the sea.

Writing and sending a letter is, in itself (especially nowadays) a simple but powerful way to physically connect with someone else and include them as a part of our lives.

I never start a work with a conscious intention to tell a story or to express a concept but, sometimes, it evolves in something deeper than just looking for an aesthetic balance in the design. The text of the letter has been transcribed and acid-etched into the glass on one page allowing the narrative to be discovered gradually. A mix of techniques have been used in this work: acid etching, hand painting and lamination mounted in a purpose-built stainless steel frame.’

My Dear… (II), 2025 Glass. 60h x 90w x 30d cm

£7,200 Photo: Fabrizia Bazzo fabrizia-bazzo @fabrizia_bazzo

KENDALL CLARKE, PAPER & TEXTILES QEST Sanderson Design Co. Scholar & SDC Member Kendall makes wall art and sculptures for exhibition and for the home. Her work is informed by a subtle aesthetic, influenced by the simple beauty of traditional and contemporary Japanese crafts. It is characterised by fineness and detail. She uses painting, mark-making, erasure and other techniques during the process of weaving to produce structurally complex multi-layered pieces that explore surface, layers and time. Her process is materials-led and experimental, with a particular interest in exploring the potential of paper and paper-like yarns. Kendall’s work addresses themes of precariousness and survival, fragility and solidity. Handwritten marks and their lost meanings, together with their fragmentation and erosion over the course of time, are a focus of enquiry.

‘This piece came out of an interest in traces of the human hand and their survival over time. In the work an ancient manuscript text, written in a now extinct script, is etched into the surface of the woven panels, and gradually deconstructed as it moves down each panel. It speaks to precarity and randomness, and how time renders connection and understanding difficult.

The play of light and shadow that the combination of transparency and opacity creates, seems to connect emotionally with feelings of loss and vulnerability. The link between past and present is fragile but ultimately resilient.

Technically, I was interested in how to render organic, calligraphic shapes in an essentially geometric medium. My attempt in this piece uses the devoré technique to etch out the writing. This was an extremely risky process as it involved applying an unpredictable, corrosive chemical to painstakingly woven monofilament and paper panels. Needless to say, a lot of sampling was involved before I dared attempts it on the final, finished piece.’

Reductive, 2019 Monofilament and paper 140h x 140w cm £4,800 Photo Peer Lindgreen kendall-clarke @_kendallclarke

SAMANTHA ENGLISH, METAL SDC Member Samantha’s current work is the exploration of memory; its fragility, preciousness and decay. Our memories are scattered and frayed at the edges, they are at the mercy of our emotions and desires and carry the complexity and weight of our own narratives. Exploration can be laboured, fractured and fragile. It brings forth glimpses of a past eroded by time and emotion.

Using chemical and salt etching, Samantha layers heat, patina, silver accents, gold plating, polish and wax finishes. Incorporating the ancient technique of Shou Sugi Ban, she also inlays metal into wood and preserves the traces of tool marks as a lasting memory of making.

Reinvigorating the traditional craft of metal etching by embracing self-learning, continual experimentation, and an intuitive, rulebreaking approach, her practice is a dynamic conversation with metal, where failure and success are equally vital to discovery.

From Embers, 2025 30h x 6.5w x 6.5d cm. £950 From Fragile Memory, 2025 42h x 6.5w x 6.5d cm. £1000 From Forgotten Light, 2025 30h x 6.5w x 6.5d cm. £900 All pieces copper, gold, brass & wood Photo: Samantha English samantha-english @samanthaenglishmetalwork

CLAIRE IRELAND, CERAMICS SDC Member Claire produces elegant hand-built sculptural forms on different scales – collectable objects, inspired by her studio’s location in the grounds of a historical steam museum in London. Her working practice as a ceramic sculptor is changing and is drawn to a more minimal and reductive strategy, simplifying structures, but constantly enhancing and developing the surface.

Media Linea, 2025 Ceramic components 40h x 125w x 12d cm £5,200 Photo: Richard Kalina claire-ireland @ceramicsbyclare

‘I have created a site-specific piece for Collect.

The grand fireplaces that feature in many of the rooms at Somerset House have such dignity - they have become a fascination for me, and I wanted to make a collection specifically for such a setting; a natural plinth that presents boundaries, but also at a perfect height. I enjoy the gesture to a domestic setting - a curatable space in the home, a museum in miniature.

Historically there is a long-standing tradition to adorn mantels with decorative arrangements.

‘Garnitures’ derived from the French term ‘to garnish’, became a way to understand different levels of taste, social status and cultural influences. The mantel could be individualised and tell a story about the owner’s passion and interests.’

MARGARET JONES, TAPESTRY QEST Garfield Weston Foundation Scholar & SDC Member Exploring the world created by Margaret Jones uncovers unexpected tales nestled in the ordinary. Through a clever mix of history, legends, and poetic images, she crafts a vibrant tapestry that defies clichés of unicorns and medieval maidens. Allow her to lead you through ethereal landscapes where conflicting senses and temporal shifts create a surreal experience. Whilst each viewer will see within the work their own reality based on individual imaginations and experiences, the intention is to widen that experience and encourage deeper selfreflection.

According to a Dutch ballad, there once was a nobleman farmer who seized land from the trolls (or elves, depending on the version). In response, 700 elves left the forest and marched towards the farmer's property to take back what was rightfully theirs. The poem evokes images of a country taking control of land that is already occupied by a long-established community.

The tapestry reflects the artists frustration at humanity's merciless treatment of their fellow inhabitants of this planet, and their apparent failure to glean wisdom from past events.

700, 2024 Hand woven weft faced tapestry 146h x 71w x 3d cm £18,000 Photo: Peter Jones margaret-jones @margaretjones6979

CHRISTINE MEYER-EAGLESTONE, WOOD SDC Member Christine creates wall-based artworks and functional pieces of art with a marquetry surface. Structure is central to her designs balance, counterpoise, dynamic growth and rhythm are among the essential elements in her compositions. Working as fast as the medium allows, she manipulates line and colour, creates shapes and defines their edges, juxtaposes hard-edged geometry with organic pattern - sometimes creating tension and vitality and at other times imposing a sense of order and balance. Precision and craftsmanship are critical to her practice and this is never compromised by the apparent spontaneity of her designs.

‘Like all my marquetry pieces, ‘Tondo I’ evolved through the cutting process without a preparatory drawing, which means that from the first insertion of a line or shape into a background veneer all subsequent interventions are made in response to those first cuts – this is how the composition grows.

Tondo I, 2023 Wood marquetry: dyed Pama veneer, reconstructed wood veneers, stained oak edging. 78.5 x 2.5cm £3,600 Photo: Howard Eaglestone christine-meyer-eaglestone @christinemeyereaglestone

As multiple changes are made during that process, it turns into a tense battle, not least because the white veneer tape I use to hold the design together has begun to partially obscure what has been created up to that point and is challenging both the decision-making and the precise cutting process. When I decide a design is complete, release it from the cutting mat and turn it over to the reverse ‘tapeless’ side, it is as if I see the whole composition for the first time!

Not following a preparatory drawing means leaving the creative process open from beginning to end and feels like ‘painting in wood’. Now the fragile sheet needs to be pressed onto a substrate, have the veneer tape removed, cut out, edged, sanded and have a finish applied.’

LAURA QUINN, GLASS QEST Garfield Weston Foundation Scholar Laura creates a variety of work from interactive glass sculptures to lighting, wearable art and functional designs. Most of her work is inspired and driven by her fascination with innovation of the material.

Using a combination of digital technologies and alternative materials with traditional glass making, Laura seeks to push the perceived boundaries of glass. The pieces she has created have come from research into sustainable design and craft design and seek to bring the user closer to the material.

Laura is passionate in encouraging the user to rethink what they know about glass, and instead learn how to care, use and reuse the pieces so that they can last a lifetime, or several.

The Lamella series continues with this brand-new work from Laura. Inspired by the growth of fungi bodies in the darkest time of the year, this new work is a display of beauty in adversity. Laura draws on her passion for endurance running and swimming, which provides a continuous reminder that daily rituals, however seemingly inconsequential, culminate into something greater. This is echoed in the repetitive individual gill formations that radiate from the centre of this undulating sculpture.

Lamella IV, 2025 Blown & kiln-formed Glass

12h x 27w cm. £3,720 Photo: Sylvain Deleu laura-quinn @lauraquinndesign

EPONA SMITH, SILVERSMITH QEST Pewterers' Company Scholar Epona Smith is a jewellery designer and hand engraver, who embraces history by incorporating ancient oriental culture into her artwork. By fusing traditional European techniques with her oriental culture background, Epona transforms traditional heirlooms into contemporary jewellery. She embraces illustration as a form of therapy.

Instead of telling her own stories, she also encourages her wearers to express themselves through bespoke, hand-engraved illustration and design. She believes the wearer can be healed through the process of telling their own stories.

Each of Epona’s hand-engraved pieces begins as a sketch and her engraving practice is rooted in patience. Lines are first imagined on paper before being carefully carved into silver and the result is an object that holds not just its form, but the journey of its making. Without the aid of pneumatic tools, she pushes each line into silver by hand, a rhythmic process that echoes centuries-old craftsmanship while forging something entirely her own.

epona-smith @eponasmith_

Autumn Reverie, 2025 Britannia silver with gilding 12h x 8.3w x 8.3d cm. £7,080 Photo: Karen Bengall

Harmony of Spring, 2025 Britannia silver with gilding 12h x 8.3w x 8.3d cm. £7,080

ABOUT US Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust is a charity that transforms the careers of talented and aspiring makers by funding their training and education, creating pathways to excellence and strengthening the future of the UK’s craft sector.

QEST has awarded £7 million to almost 900 individuals working across the UK in 130 different craft disciplines. From guitar making to printmaking; thatching to enameling, we embrace craft in all its many forms and are proud to contribute towards its evolving tradition. Alongside our Scholarship, Emerging Maker and Apprenticeship programmes, QEST has introduced a Crafting Tomorrow programme focused on inspiring a new generation of makers by offering opportunities to develop hand skills, meet professional craftspeople, and explore careers in craft and making.

QEST was founded by the Royal Warrant Holders Association in 1990 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Association and the 90th birthday of HM Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. In 2017, the Former Prince of Wales became QEST’s Patron, with Vice Patrons the Earl of Snowdon and the Marquess of Salisbury. In May 2024, we were honoured that His Majesty the King retained his Patronage of QEST.

Society of Designer Craftsmen The Society of Designer Craftsmen is the largest multi-disciplinary craft Society in the UK, championing the work of designers and makers who innovate in craft through their exploration of materials and skills.

Formed as the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1887 with Walter Crane as the Society's first President, the purpose was to give a voice to, and to organise exhibitions for the growing body of designer makers who felt under-represented in the art world. The first of these exhibitions was held at The New Gallery, Regent Street in October 1888.

The Arts and Crafts Movement took its name from our Society and was one of the most influential, profound and far-reaching design movements of modern times. Today, as a registered charity, we continue to give voice to and organise exhibitions for designer makers, advocate for craft practice and support our talented community of over 350 craftspeople.

Our national membership is made up of designer makers across various disciplines including ceramics, wood, metal, glass and textiles. We are run by makers for makers.

PROJECT TEAM Hazel Connors - SDC Trustee Laura McKee - QEST Project Manager Jenny Starr - SDC Executive Director

WITH THANKS TO Amy Bicknell - QEST Communications Manager Pat Tempest - SDC Administrator

SALES ENQUIRIES QEST Laura McKee - QEST Project Manager laura.mckee@qest.org.uk / 07827 460188 SDC Jenny Starr - SDC Executive Director Jenny.starr@societyofdesignercraftsmen.org.uk / 07886 336229

PRESS ENQUIRIES QEST Amy Bicknell - QEST Communications Manager amy.bicknell@qest.org.uk SDC Jenny Starr - SDC Executive Director Jenny.starr@societyofdesignercraftsmen.org.uk

Laura Quinn, Plume Sway, 2025. Glass & Resin. Photo Sylvain Deleu