I called in to Stoke Minster - a Place of Welcome - across Thursday lunchtime. I wanted to catch up with a little group who've been meeting together as new friends to get crafting.

They're making a woolly postbox 'topper' to celebrate Mothering Sunday in mid March.

Heather, and members of the group, told me what they've been up to.

The Minster is open every Thursday lunchtime, 12 noon to 2pm, and you're very welcome to call in for a brew, to take a look round, to chat, or even to sit and ponder - crafting's not obligatory!

Jerome

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Host: Jerome Whittingham

A short reflection on the simplicity of pinhole photography, and making art without having to try too hard.

See the photograph and read more on The Picture Poster website: https://thepictureposter.co.uk/nature/theres-beauty-in-not-trying-too-hard/

Thanks to artist Amy Davis for the motivation.

Jerome

MUSIC: by Black Box on Pixabay

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Host: Jerome Whittingham

Artist Amy Davis is on a quest to help people embrace wonkiness and imperfection in their creative pursuits.

She’s recently been using some mini potters wheels, and making tiny wonky pots. She explains how these ‘toy’ potters wheels are helping her and others to learn to play with clay again, building creative confidence.

"It’s about celebrating imperfection and all that it’s about. Your creativity doesn’t haver to be perfect, because the moment things become too perfect or people overthink their creative process, that’s when people tend to step away. And I think a lot of the time it’s education, when we were younger, that makes us think that creativity is a scary thing. When in actual fact, if more people were able to embrace the joys of creativity for what it is, rather than perfectionism, I feel that’s when people will get more out of the process," says Amy Davis.

Amy’s now looking to extend her Wonky Pot Initiative, and is looking to partner with venues and organisations in North Staffordshire to help her bring the fun of wonky creativity to more people.

Interested?

Get in touch with Amy on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/alouartist/

https://www.instagram.com/thewpi/

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Website: https://thepictureposter.co.uk/

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Host: Jerome Whittingham

Anarchy Is Her Birthright, a group exhibition curated by April Star Davis, brings together women and non-binary artists to explore 'resistance, care, survival and feminist refusal, shaped by lived experience and place'.

Presented at ACAVA Spode Works in Stoke, 'Anarchy Is Her Birthright' follows April's residency at ACAVA, awarded as a prize after her success in the Three Counties Open Art exhibition at Burslem School of Art in 2024.

Instagram: @april_star_davis_

Anarchy Is Her Birthright

PREVIEW: 5.30pm, Friday 20th February, ACAVA Spode Works, Stoke, Elenora Street, ST4 1QQ. The exhibition then continues to 1st March.

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Designer and creative thinker Megan Fitzoliver is co-ordinating a celebration of North Staffordshire's creative and caring individuals, groups, and industries.

The Festival of Hands will take place across Stoke-on-Trent and beyond, 1st to 14th June.

She's looking for expressions of interest from anyone that wants to get involved.

We sat in Spode Rose Garden in Stoke, enjoying a coffee from the Bluebird cafe, chatting about the festival and its themes.

Get in touch with Megan at:

megan@festivalofhands.org.uk

A website will be going live soon too.

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We meet Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu, one of two Ukrainian artists currently exhibiting 'On The Edge' at the University of Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent.

Yuliia talks us through the themes of the exhibition, co-produced with fellow Ukrainian artist and friend Olha Barvynka.

The exhibition explores 'transformation in response to a world shaped by crisis.'

One part of the mixed media exhibition, Yuliia's ceramic bricks, have attracted unwelcome and upsetting attention from a small number of visitors to the Henrion Gallery space - a thoroughfare used by students and visitors to the university. Yuliia updates us about what has been happening.

UPDATE: since recording yesterday morning, the artists’ exhibition in the Henrion Gallery at University of Staffordshire has suffered more vandalism, including the breaking of several of Yuliia’s ceramic bricks. We’ve welcomed both Ukrainian artists into our city to give them safety and a home. They’ve responded in gratitude by giving us incredibly poignant art, adding greatly to our local arts scene. It’s shocking to think that a small number of visitors to the gallery would act in such a vile way to our friends. I hope the police and university exercise their fullest powers in bringing the perpetrators to account.

The exhibition has now had its run extended to 6th March.

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Artist Semaan Khawam, who calls himself “Birdman”, spoke with me at Appetite’s Astley Walk arts space in Newcastle-under-Lyme, where he is artist-in-residence during Allison Lochhead’s Art for Peace exhibition.

Born in Syria and raised in Beirut after his family fled conflict in the 1980s, Semaan reflects on displacement, identity and the freedom he finds through art. Working with discarded materials, he transforms waste into sculptures that explore migration, borders and the human desire to be free.

Birds appear throughout his work, symbols of movement, return, and a life without borders.

During the conversation, Semaan also describes his latest sculpture, The Flying Instrument of the Mind, created from wire, plaster and salvaged materials while working in the gallery space.

A thoughtful discussion about art, refuge, and the power of creativity to turn the world’s “garbage” into something peaceful.

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In this episode, I speaks with curator Siobhan McAleer “Shiv” about The Depository of the Dull, an unusual museum that celebrates the overlooked objects of everyday life. Created during the COVID-19 lockdowns, the project invited people to reflect on the ordinary things around them, items that might appear dull at first glance but carry deeply personal stories.

Shiv explains how the project began as a creative response to the isolation of lockdown, encouraging people to look again at their surroundings and rediscover meaning in the mundane.

Our conversation explores why ordinary objects matter, how storytelling transforms the value of everyday things, and what these small artefacts reveal about our lives.

Shiv also reflects on the curatorial challenge of presenting something intentionally “dull”, and why the humour of the title hides a deeper reflection on attachment, loss and memory.

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Website: https://thepictureposter.co.uk/

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