Peak District pottery and food festival honours founder as rare craftsman
POTTERS from Derbyshire and across the country will gather in the Peak District for a two day celebration of pots and food and to honour festival founder and renowned ceramicist Geoff Fuller.
Geoff, who passed away earlier this year, and his wife Pat, started the Wardlow Mires Pottery and Food Festival back in 2012 and from humble beginnings the popular event now attracts more than 70 established and up-coming pottery makers and local food purveyors.
This year’s Celebration of the Table takes place on Saturday 10 and Sunday September 11 at Wardlow Mires set in the heart of the Peak District countryside, where Geoff and Pat launched their pottery at the Three Stags Heads pub, which they owned.
Organiser Pat Fuller said: “Geoff passed away earlier this year, but we are here because of the vision he had to put on a festival of functional pottery alongside quality foods, and it is for that reason that I would like to dedicate this year’s show to his memory.
“Geoff was never one to push himself or his work forward, preferring people to look at the work, rather than be influenced by any hype or, as he called it, ‘art school speak’. That is also true of our show.
“He always kept true to his principles and there was a purity in that, a single minded intent that his work should speak for itself, stand alone. Could he have been more famous; his work exhibited more widely? Perhaps, but that, to Geoff, would have meant lowering his standards and possibly being forced to make in a way that he was not comfortable with – a less pure way.
“His gift to pottery is not just through his work, but through his teachings and guidance to his students and to those who came to know handmade pottery through the pub. He encouraged them to look beyond what we made, opening up the wider world of ceramics to them and encouraging them to find their own styles and their own tastes. To my mind, that made him a very rare craftsman indeed.”
Potters and producers will be based in a marquee just off the B6465 near Wardlow village, with a food court, beer and cider tents and a chance to glaze your own Raku pots in an area behind the marquee.
Around 1,000 people are expected to attend the popular festival over the weekend, which runs from 10am-5pm on Saturday September 10 and 10am-4pm on Sunday September 11. Last entry is one hour before closing time.
Tickets cost £6 each on the gate (free for children under 16) with free parking.
Further details visit www.potsandfood.co.uk