Our Makers
A project led by Arts Charity Grizedale Arts, The Farmer's Arms is a community and enterprise hub that draws from and adds to the Crake Valley's abundant natural and cultural resources: From Kurt Schwitters to John Ruskin, from hill farming to land art.
Employing a diverse range of people from youngsters to oldsters, artists, craftspeople, gardeners and chefs, our team learn from each other, exchanging ideas and skills everyday. Bonded by a collective commitment to developing creative and imaginative solutions to shared concerns, we utilise the resources available to us and our products are the result of the team's dedication to a collective way of working.
OUR MAKERS:
Francis Lloyd-Jones
Francis Lloyd-Jones joined The Farmer’s Arms team in February 2022 as Pub Potter. Originally studying Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art, Francis graduated in 2013. He then completed the Ceramics Skills and Design course in Thomastown, Ireland and undertook a 3 1⁄2-year apprenticeship at Maze Hill Pottery with Lisa Hammand MBE. His work has been exhibited widely with recent exhibitions at Make: Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Clay College Stoke and Joanna Bird Contemporary.
Tom Philipson
Working chiefly in wood, Tom met Grizedale Arts director Adam Sutherland when participating in the Crafts Council's Emerging Talent Development Program in 2015. Adam then did his best to derail Tom with invitations to take part in various arts projects and he demonstrated his ability to learn, innovate, collaborate and teach in almost any organic material. Amongst other things, creates bamboo implements, multi-purpose furniture, display systems, garden gates and table ware for The Farmer's Arms, Lawson Park and GA's many local, national and international projects. In recent years he has concentrated on pottery, developing The Farmer's Arms' mould-based techniques and delivering workshops in crafts-based product development for clients such as the Whitworth in Manchester. In 2017 he had a solo exhibition of his work at Fairfield Arts Centre in Cumbria.
Adam Sutherland
Trained in pottery with studio potter Colin Kellam and ex Leach apprentice Bernard Forrester at Dartington Hall School, Adam went on to run a 'commercial' pottery drawing from the schools resources from the age of 14.
Dissuaded from a career in pottery by both the aforementioned, Adam went on to Art school in London and Paris before turning to architectural ceramics and social welfare projects throughout the 1980s. He subsequently became the director of various arts institutions before washing up at Grizedale where he has been since 1999.
Over the years he has used his skills in a supporting role for artists that don't make but want things made including: Mark Titchner, Nathaniel Mellors, Ryan Gander, Laure Provoust, Bedwyr Williams, Olaf Burning and more. He has created prototypes for many Grizedale projects including Roadshow, A Fair Land, House of Ferment, The Honest Shop and Making Everyday.
He now makes things for The Farmer’s Arms drawn from historical precedent and his interest in the politics of making. He has no aesthetic, creating works in very different styles, usually rather relaxed about consistency and finish, it might be fair to say these are sketches of ideas in clay. He's inspired by Shan Shui (Chinese vertical landscape painting), Pratt, Delf and Mocha wares (low cost decorative wares often baring satirical, religious or political messages), and eccentric potters like George E Ohr, Sir Edmund Elton and the Martin Brothers alongside pretty much anything else that passes by, settles on, or grows.