Hundreds of artists and designer-makers are joining the Oxfordshire Artweeks online Christmas Season this month to encourage you to ‘shop local’ and support our artists.
Hundreds of Oxfordshire jewellers, ceramicists, textile artists, painters and photographers, metal sculptors, wood turners, stone carvers, print-makers and glass artists will be presenting unique handmade work and gifts for you to buy this Christmas from November 14.
“While while staying at home is the new normal, we are spreading the Oxfordshire Artweeks festive flavour online,” explains Esther Lafferty, Festival Director.
Which means this month visitors can enjoy the new Christmas Season Virtual Art Trail with an on-line Winter Show and a series of innovative Art and Craft fairs on Instagram from December 12. You can also enjoy virtual gallery and studio tours.
“By shopping locally, people are supporting the Oxfordshire economy and the individual artists, many of whom have seem their livelihoods decimated during the pandemic,” says Esther Lafferty, Festival Director.
From gemstones set in pendants, earrings and bracelets to oil paintings, pottery penguins, leather-bound journals in festive colours, small bronze sculptures, Christmas tree decorations and local scenes in watercolours, there is so much to choose from.
As part of the Virtual Art Trail, the on-line Winter Show features 200 artists’ submitted wall art and 3D pieces themed around a walk on a winter’s day. From windswept beaches, winter sunsets, sparkling snowscapes to ice-capped mountains and stripped trees.
This includes a Weather Map of the UK by Freeland artist Jane Tomlinson who explores the facts and folklore of this very British obsession. “The British climate is famously changeable,” says Jane.
“It’s influenced primarily by two major factors: The Gulf Stream, an oceanic current drifting up from the Caribbean bringing warm waters which is constant and predictable, and The Jet Stream, a high altitude fast flowing air current, which frequently shifts. Between them, they bring the vagaries of the British weather that we all love to talk about. At this time of year we can see anything: rain, sun, wind, snow, and sometimes a lot of it in quick succession,” she says.
For those visitors who we stayed at home this summer, a series of beer cans by Kevin Hinton may remind many how they spent their lockdown days, or for a touch of escapism, however, David Pollock’s An afternoon of heat, Madurai, whilst Lizzie Waterfield’s snowdrops remind us that a new year is on its way.
New for this year, are the three Art and Craft Fairs on Instagram Stories featuring 60 makers and artists www.instagram/OxfordshireArtweeks so keep an eye out for the many treasures on offer.
If browsers see something they fancy, they simply contact the maker directly.
Take the Christmas Season Virtual Art Trail at www.artweeks.org/festival/theme/christmas-season-virtual-art-trail
See the on-line Winter Show at www.artweeks.org/latestshow
The Instagram craft fairs will take place at www.instagram.com/oxfordshireartweeks
See all the venues opening in December at www.artweeks.org/christmas
For more information and to plan your visits, visit www.artweeks.org
