http://www.craftspace.co.uk/, https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/access-to-craft

Craftspace, Unit 204, 60 Frederick Street, Birmingham (2026)

13/10/2026

It’s official – the arts are good for you!

Evidence from the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that activities that involve group participation such as craft where lots of people are working together are particularly effective at fostering cooperation, self-concept and a sense of social inclusion for children, adults, families and communities and across different cultures. That’s why we love bringing people together to make.

The WHO asked the question ‘What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?”. After reviewing nearly 4000 studies they found that the evidence was there – ‘the arts can potentially impact both mental and physical health’. This includes both prevention and promotion, including around child development, encouraging health promoting behaviours and preventing ill health. Within management and treatment, the arts can help people experiencing mental illness and support care for people who are very ill, amongst other things.

That’s why we think it’s so important for people to learn craft skills and carry them with them through life!

Help us to keep craft accessible to all. Donate to our crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

Image: One Thousand Cranes by Roberta Schreyer as part of In:Site 2024. Photo by Hayley Salter.

12/10/2026

Arts education is an essential part of developing a creative career, and can be crucial at degree level - but arts and creative courses are increasingly at risk from a structural funding crisis in Higher Education.

Since the 2021 restructuring of government financial ‘top ups’ available to courses that need additional space or equipment, this funding to arts and creative courses has been halved.

The result: closures of increasing numbers of art schools and courses.

Until these courses are considered strategically important to the government, this is unlikely to change.

Between December 2023 and December 2024, 240 arts jobs were cut at UK universities, most in non-Russell Group universities, which means less student choice and a furthering of inequalities.

If we think the creative industries are a central part of the UK economy, then we need to protect the opportunity to learn in creative spaces.

Whilst we can’t replace the rich experience of attending art school, we can continue to create opportunities for early career practitioners and be vocal advocates for the value of arts education.

This is what the extra £5,000 beyond our first target will help us to do.

Help us to keep craft accessible to all. Donate to our Crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

Image: Maker-led, intergenerational play with materials as part of the Making Together project. Photo by Liz Ord.

12/10/2026

We’re celebrating 40 Objects for 40 years

Yarning: Podcast Series by Sara Fowles
From the project ‘Dorcas Stories from the Front Room’

The ‘Yarning: Tales from Birmingham’ podcast series told the stories of heritage, knitting and textiles in Birmingham’s Black community.

This project was linked to the ‘Dorcas Stories from the Front Room’ exhibition which celebrated 75 years of Windrush by exploring Caribbean textiles, craft and fashion.

Many visitors enjoyed sitting on the comfy sofas in the space, listening to the podcasts while knitting with the needles and yarn supplied. This was reminiscent of the Dorcas Clubs, where women would meet to sew and do charitable work.

This podcast series focuses on Black women in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and begins to address research by artist Lorna Hamilton Brown whose Master's dissertation ‘Myth: Black People Don’t Knit – the importance of art and oral histories for documenting the experiences of black knitters’, questioned the lack of visibility of Black crafters and documents their hidden histories.

Yarning was nominated by board member Saskia.

You can listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

To celebrate Craftspace’s 40th Anniversary, we commissioned the artist Stewart Francis Easton to create an artwork which would explore the story of Craftspace through 40 objects. Stewart created a series of four beautiful graphic quilts. You can see them on our website via the link in our bio.

Images:
1. Graphic illustration of the Yarning podcast series, by Stewart Easton as part of the 40 Object for 40 Years commission.
2 & 3. The Yarning podcast listening area, as part of of the Dorcas Stories from the Front Room exhibition at the Mailbox. Photos by Daniel Graves.

11/10/2026

Who taught you a craft skill? A parent, a teacher, someone in your community?
We’ve been collecting stories of encounters with craft that have had a lasting impact.

Emma D has been the Exhibitions and Projects Development Manager at Craftspace for nearly 20 years…

“I don’t remember a specific moment of realisation of wanting to explore making or materials. However, my Grandpa owned a forge before I was born. I have always admired the gates he made that entwined his and Granny’s initials.

He then did wood turning as a hobby and worked as a wood technician in a school when I was little. I remember seeing his lathe, but I don’t remember seeing him use it. I do have several of the lovely bowls that he made.

My Dad was an engineer and has always made things in metal and wood. I’m the proud owner of two lamp stands he made from old school desks.

My Mom used to make her own clothes, including her own wedding dress! I remember being amazed at the range of things she made, and the shortness of her dresses!

My Granny was a fabulous knitter, she made me a doll that I treasure to this day. I think it was all these influences that lead me to an interest in materials and making. All memories I treasure too.”

Hand-to-hand, craft crosses generations. This was once a certainty: we learned craft at school, from our parents, and through shared, local knowledge. Now, we must work hard to keep craft accessible.

Help us to keep craft accessible to all. Donate to our crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

Images:
1 & 2 & 3. Gate made by Emma's granddad.
4. Doll made by Emma's grandma.
5. Lamp base turned by Emma's grandad. Lampshade made by Jennifer Collier.

10/10/2026

Who taught you a craft skill? A parent, a teacher, someone in your community?

We’ve been collecting stories of encounters with craft that have had a lasting impact.

Melanie Tomlinson is a professional artist who has worked with us on lots of projects...

"In December 1981, when I was a child, I went to see the Electric Light Orchestra at the NEC in Birmingham. It was a freezing winter, so cold that my teeth and bones hurt from the icy temperatures. Dad was friends with one of the roadies for the band (childhood friends from playing on the streets of Tyseley). He invited us to the NEC in the afternoon to watch the set-up, and we stayed on for the performance that evening. I remember Jeff Lynne arriving for a sound check in a huge fur coat, drainpipe jeans and sneakers!

The show was built around ELO's new album, Time, and featured a robot that walked onto the stage as the lights went up. Everything was space-mad back then, with films such as Star Wars, and the robot was part of that phenomenon.

I went home after the concert, gathered up every larger tin I could find and old biscuit tins (there was no plastic in those days), and set about making my own robot. A particular find was a gold tin and if I recall correctly a Schweppes can that was a vivid cyan blue. I threaded the tins together with an unravelled wire coat hanger to make a figure about five feet tall. I remember the head was a battered old Quality Street tin that had a pink edge. I loved it! It started my interest in making objects from recycled metal, a material I went on to use for a period in my early career.

Whenever I listen to Time now, all the memories come flooding back. Apparently, I later learned, the robot was called Fred!”

Help us to keep craft accessible to all. Donate to our Crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

Images:
1&2. Screenshot of ELO Time Tour, video posted by
3. The Funfair and the Vanishing Woman by Melanie Tomlinson. Photo by Stephen Heaton.
4. Blackbird by Melanie Tomlinson. Photo by Stephen Heaton.
5. Melanie next to her work at the launch of Made in the Middle at Hub, Sleaford. Photo by Jules Lister.

09/10/2026

Today, we have launched new rewards on our Crowdfunder.

Now, you are able to choose a scissors and thread bundle, a back issue bundle of Embroidery Magazine or an Embroidery Magazine digital subscription as a reward for your donation.

For a donation of £12, you can receive 3 2026 issues Mar/Apr, May/June & Jul/Aug. Whether you’re a keen embroiderer or simply love textiles, Embroidery, the worlds' leading textile art magazine, is filled with ideas and features to inspire you.

For a donation of £40, you can receive Pfaff Micro-Tip Embroidery Scissors and a box of 8 premium Madeira Aerofil threads. These Micro-tips are perfect for the hard-to-reach thread snipping that sometimes needs to be done! The Madeira Aerofil threads are high quality polyester sew-all threads for all fabrics and seams.

For a donation of £45, you can receive a ne year subscription to the searchable digital library of the world’s leading textile art magazine. Over 450 issues plus current issue. Embroidery brings you the best of embroidery and textiles, talking to artists and sharing their passion, giving an insight into all facets of this sumptuous craft.

These rewards have been very kindly gifted by and

Help us to keep craft accessible to all. Donate to our crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

08/10/2026

Help us to keep craft and its benefits accessible to all. Donate to our crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

08/10/2026

Access to basic creative opportunities is becoming increasingly uneven – it’s becoming more and more dependent on what you can pay.

We don’t think this should be the case!

Having a go at a new creative challenge was once part-and-parcel of school life, from a very early age to our teenage years. Now, that kind of experience is more and more limited – there are 27% fewer arts teachers at secondary school, nearly 50% fewer younger people studying the arts at GCSE.

But, in our current world, we need access to craft more than ever.

Craft offers a way to think and do things differently. Through understanding materials, developing skills, and creating physical things we can improve wellbeing, encourage shared knowledge, and increase curiosity – supporting individual confidence and social connection.

Help us to keep craft accessible to all. Donate to our crowdfunder today via the link in our bio and help us to raise £15,000 By 25 October.

07/10/2026

Your support and generosity has gone beyond our wildest dreams! We have reached our target of raising £10,000 in just 12 days! So what to do for the next 20 days of the campaign...

You have all given us the confidence to keep going, so we have extended our target to £15,000!

An additional £5,000 would enable us to develop and promote our income generating activity, helping us to become more sustainable so we can continue to deliver social impact with artists and communities.

Please do keep sharing and donating, and keep a look out for some exciting additions to the rewards section of our Crowdfunder which we'll launch over the next week 👀

Craftspace

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