King Street Workshops in Pateley Bridge celebrate 30th anniversary with open studios

“My dad worked for Harrogate Council as a surveyor when the workshops were first opened. I was about four or five years old at the time and I can remember going to the workshops as a little boy with my dad, watching the glassblowers who used to be here make their glass.” The glassblowers, who were long-term residents of the studios, retired last year and were always popular with local people and visitors. In a nice piece of circularity Hayton brought his young daughter to the workshops shortly before the glassblowers’ retirement. “It was lovely,” he says. “We stood there watching them in the same place where I had stood with my dad all those years ago.”

Hayton was interested in art from a very early age. “I think we are all artistic as kids and then some people stop doing it and others carry on,” he says. “It was always something I took to and I was lucky that it was recognized by my art teacher at school. It really makes a difference when you get positive feedback. I enjoyed art and design technology and I loved making things. Then I did A level art and at the age of 18 I had to make a decision – whether to go to art school or get a job. I was quite keen to start making things for a living.”

He found stonemasonry and began an apprenticeship. “It is an artistic trade and I have always had an interest in the history of buildings and the way things are made so stone masonry felt right for me at the time and it was a great traditional skill.” He signed up to a course at York College where he studied one day a week alongside practical on the job training for the three-year apprenticeship. “I worked as a stonemason for five or six years and then I started to think about what I might do next. Because I was working for a commercial company, I wasn’t getting the opportunity to design things myself, so I decided to launch my own business. I had rung my dad to tell what I was thinking of doing and he said ‘there is one of those workshops going in Pateley Bridge.’” He has been there ever since.

Jeweller Debby Moxon and her husband Ian Simm who trade under the name Moxon & Simm are founder members of the studios. “We had been based in Otley in an old mill for ten years and we had to leave when it was being converted into offices,” says Moxon. “There were four craftspeople there and we decided to look for something together.” Luckily the King Street Workshops had just been set up, the group went to view them, signed a 10-year lease and became the first studio holders.

Moxon and Simm both trained in silversmithing and jewellery in Sheffield in the early 1980s. “Then we got married, had three children and set up our business together, designing and making our own work,” says Moxon. “The good thing is because we both understand the creative process, we have been able to encourage each other; and when the children were small, we could juggle our working hours in the workshop. We are at a point now where we are both pensioners and, in some ways, it is quite liberating. We are slowing down but we have no intention of stopping.” Moxon began working in titanium early in her career. “It is a very hard metal and the material kind of guides you. I like having to work within those parameters. My latest works are inspired by various complex rocks and stones and the patterns in them.”

Also based at the studios is mosaic artist Ruth Wilkinson who creates mosaic pieces for private, public and corporate commissions. She has been at the studios for three years and will shortly be leaving to work from her home studio, still based in Pateley Bridge. “It has been lovely being at King Street Studios,” she says. “It is a really nice community of creative folk.” The work she will have on display and for sale are framed pieces for the wall. “I have been making them recently, based on old family photographs and I am transitioning more into 3D work. I would like to create pots and vessels and experiment with it a bit.” Wilkinson has worked on large-scale public art projects including a 50m seawall in Robin Hood’s Bay and a circular floor piece in the Victoria Quarter in Leeds. She says she was drawn to mosaic after doing a night class in Harrogate and a brief course in Ravenna. “It hooks you in,” she says. “It is a very slow medium and you need an awful lot of patience to do it, which thankfully I have.” Ceramic sculptor Dodie Hallas and ceramicist Fiona Mazza will also be opening up their studios to visitors.

The latest addition to the creative community is furniture maker Gus Strickland who last October moved into the space vacated by the glass blowers. “I feel slightly guilty about that,” he says. “People are always popping in, having a chat and asking where the glassblowers are. It is really great here – I like being surrounded by artists and makers. ” With an art college background, Strickland has been working in joinery and cabinet making for the past ten years. “I make anything from fitted wardrobes to outdoor benches. People commission me to make something and we go on that adventure together.” He also makes sculptural works when he has the time. “The furniture commissions feed into my sculpture,” he says. “I take inspiration from what I make day to day, pull out an interesting part of a job and put that into a sculpture.”

The artists will be demonstrating their processes and some will offer mini-workshops so that people can have a go at something themselves. “We are trying to create a dialogue with people and give them an opportunity to find out what they could do,” says Strickland. “We really want to get the public interested and inspired.”

King Street Workshops, Pateley Bridge open studios, June 1-9, 10am-5pm. There will also be an exhibition of the work of sculptor Roy Noakes (1936-2002).