Changing Rooms

The Allendale Forge Studios is passionate about displaying a variety of artwork, sculpture and gifts from local artists. We want to create a unique shopping experience than can't be found on the high street but also supports smaller local businesses. Work will be changed regularly within the building to keep things fresh and we want our customers to know that their is a product for every purse and purpose.

Alongside the transition of a new board at the Forge we also decided to freshen up the building and give it a few licks of paint. The Forge relies solely on volunteers and one of our shop members suggested, as we no longer have a permanent manager, to move the office and use the former room as space to display artists' work. The board thought this was a brilliant idea and decided to created 2 new spaces downstairs in the building which would enable us to display more work from our network members. The added benefit of this meant we could bring in more work from new and existing creatives. We also spent some time sourcing more 3D artwork and gift products as one of the more frequent comments we hear is "I have no wall space". Visible directly from the cafe we hope that our new spaces add to the already fantastic shopping opportunities offered by the gift shop and gallery spaces.

Heres a sneak peak at some of the work on display in the new rooms...

1. Trevor Craggs 2. Artwork on the walls 3. View from the cafe 4. Steph Jamieson of Broadwood Studios 5. Cath Hodson 6. Robin Fox and Deb Fox 7. Will Nicholls

8. Lindsey Cooper and Caroline Mann 9. Melissa Robson on the walls and lots of prints

10. Will Dawes Photography 11. Jane Charles Studio Glass 12. Hayley Curbishley

13. Hanging by a Fred & Glynnis Carter 14. Jessica Cooper Ceramics

15. The Woolly Pedlar, Melanie Barrett and Carol Davison 16. Tim Foxall Spatulas

17. Jenny Bell Ceramics 18. Captured Keepsakes 19. Glassic Glass

Zoe and Jina would like to offer a huge thank you to all the volunteers involved in helping to redecorate the ground floor. Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, upstairs! We'd also like to thank our fabulous members (both in the shop and the network) who help make the Forge so special.