Well, London Craft Week has finished and what a week! A huge amount of effort was put in by all the participants and the boutique team. Thank you to everyone involved and for all the people who visited us. The exhibition will now be travelling to Glasgow in July. More details to follow.
‘Everybody needs something that no one can take away from them.’
Francis found himself homeless after a family breakdown, aged just 16. For the next three years, he relied on the goodwill of friends and wider family – sofa-surfing when he could, but sometimes having no choice but to sleep on night buses.
Throughout this time, creativity became Francis’s lifeline and connection to reality. He found solace in writing poetry and songs, using his music as a way to process the emotional impact of being homeless, and to manage a heavy sense of family estrangement.
Three years later, Francis found work as a street fundraiser. But the strain of his living situation was exhausting, and having nowhere permanent to call home was starting to take a heavy toll on his mental health. With help from his employer, Francis found a room at his local YMCA, and began to rebuild his life.
Now 27, Francis is studying cyber security at university, and living in privately rented accommodation. He still draws on his experiences in his music, which remains a positive force in his life.
Francis, sound producer and musician, is an amazing multi-layered talent. We admired his love for superheroes and gaming as a way to escape. The headpiece is inspired by a combination of the classic baseball cap, indicative of Black pop culture, and the icicles of cryokinesis – ice manipulation.
M: Francis, if you had a superpower what would it be and why?
F: My favourite superpower would probably be… ICE! It has to be man… too cool, too suave. Ice is mysterious looking and chilling. There's a lot of depth to superheroes with ice powers.
M: How would you link your superpowers to your work as a sound producer?
F: My mind always goes elsewhere when I do music. I was facing depression at one point – it was the first thing I always did to quickly escape the world… I’m in my own world, my own zone.
Materials: Recycled polyester, nylon remnants, power mesh, 3D printer filament
‘Before I contacted Shelter, I’d tried all options. In a day, they’d sorted somewhere for me.’
Shaiso was a wedding planner when the Covid pandemic hit the UK. As for so many people in the hospitality industry, finding work became difficult, and she finally lost her job when lockdown restrictions were announced in December 2020. The redundancy had a devastating knock-on effect: unable to pay for her tied accommodation in a hotel, Shaiso also became homeless.
Bruised but determined, Shaiso spent the next fortnight calling her local council, but was told she hadn’t lived in the area for long enough to qualify for help. Calls to another council proved fruitless, because she wasn’t living there. It was then that a friend suggested Shaiso call Shelter, who’d helped them in the past.
Shaiso’s caseworker managed to get things moving, and fast. Just hours later, Shaiso received a call from an agency, another call from the council, and was found a spot in temporary accommodation the very next day.
Shaiso now lives in a shared house and is proud to be working again. In her spare time, she makes art – and has drawn real inspiration from this project.
After the conversation with Shaiso about her experience of homelessness during the pandemic, prominent words were safety, security, and angel.
For Shaiso, Lilly from Shelter was the angel who helped her secure accommodation, while having a home is having a sense of security and safety.
The headpiece represents Shaiso’s journey. It expresses how with the right support, we can have a shelter, how our well-planned lives can easily become very messy, and how homelessness can unexpectedly affect anyone.
In the space we call home, we’re able to nest. Feeling protected and having a haven improves our wellbeing, and new sparks of energy and creativity awaken. Having a home ends living in a survival mode and transforms life into living. Shaiso’s resilience and new home will help her thrive.
Materials: Cane, cotton, leather label
‘Your value is independent of your circumstances.’
In November 2014, mum-of-two Melody tried to take her own life after years of horrendous abuse from her ex-husband. Waking up in hospital proved to be a turning point – she saw there was no way she and her kids could continue to live under the control of a man who despised her.
A month later, Melody escaped – taking only the children and a few essentials – with just £147 in the bank. Lost, desperate, and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she found refuge in a friend’s loft, and began to reckon with her ordeal.
From here, Melody was able to reach out to Shelter, whose caseworkers helped her to access the holistic package of support and resources she needed to pull her life back together. Melody was helped to arrange a multi-agency risk assessment, childcare, solicitors, police liaison, and more. Crucially, she was made to feel valued – and encouraged to rediscover her love of art.
Melody’s first portrait was completed in November 2017 – a piece called “Turning the Corner”. Her ongoing series explores the behind-closed-doors experiences of people living with domestic violence, and tells her truth with real resonance. Today, she sees her oil painting and her writing as tools for healing – and to give validation to other survivors.
FLORA MELODY CROWN
Melody Victoria is even more than her amazing name. She’s super passionate, talented, a singer and artist with many interests similar to my own – with exotic tastes from Spanish mantillas to the Amazon jungle. Her imagination and mine fizzed. This meant the project flowed very naturally and ideas poured out of us as soon as we met. Instantly simpatico, we shared many stories and images. I wanted to make her a crown or tiara, so I have constructed a metallic 3D line drawing based on one of her early sketches of her dream home. I’ve tried to include many aspects of our intense conversations to celebrate her victories in a melodic dynamic sculptural rhythm. What a privilege.
Materials: Copper coated steel, welded and spray painted
‘I want to show people that you can be at the bottom and turn it around.’
Chris spent six months on Sheffield’s city-centre streets while holding down a supermarket job. It was a harsh existence: he’d work 10-hour days, five days a week, while cycling six miles each way. Eventually, it began to catch up with him – and his job was placed at risk. Unable to continue, he sought help from Shelter.
With help from his caseworker, Chris found a flat to call home. But after four happy years, his flat mates moved on, and new people moved in. As Chris is autistic, he found it difficult to adjust to the change, and began to feel drained and fearful. His curtains stayed closed, and he rarely left the flat. He saw himself as a prisoner, unable to relax or drown out the noise of his neighbours’ music.
Chris called Shelter again, whose advisors provided reassurance and support, and used medical records and reports to build a case to present to the council. The council agreed that Chris was in the wrong surroundings for his autism, and swiftly addressed the situation.
Chris has since moved into his own bungalow, and hasn’t looked back – the changes to his health and happiness have been profound. With a place to call his own, and the stability it brings, he wakes up feeling positive about life again.
“If someone gives you something, where can you take it?” This was Chris talking about how Shelter helped him, and about his plans to help others. It brought to mind a positive spiral, moving forward and outward in an ever-widening network. After cycling to and from work each day, Chris pitched his tent overlooking Sheffield.
Safer than a shop doorway, the location provided both a connection to other people, and a vast canopy of stars above. I loved this combination of the logical and spiritual. Being autistic, Chris deals with life as he would a jigsaw puzzle, or perhaps a mosaic. I’ve described my pattern-cutting as taking a line for a walk to see where it takes me, and the pieces often become a kind of puzzle. Here, I wanted to create a sculptural cycle helmet – a protective shell, a canopy for the head, a mosaic of stars.
Materials: Thermo-plastic felt with vintage suede attached, mosaic reflective tape, wool felt with silver beads embedded, grosgrain ribbon, Oscar Wilde quotation embroidered with reflective thread. Ties: Cotton tape, metal D-rings
‘All I wanted was a home where we could feel safe and comfortable.’
In 2021, Krystalrose was living with her two-year-old daughter in a badly maintained one-bed flat. Despite the flat’s expensive monthly rent, the walls were full of mould and damp, which ruined her daughter’s cot and all of their clothes, and started to make them ill.
When Krystalrose complained about the flat’s unsuitability, she and her daughter were served an eviction notice in retaliation – an experience that threatened to leave them both homeless.
Krystalrose and her daughter now live in another privately rented flat, and while the high costs of living are a challenge, they’ve left behind the stress of being evicted, and no longer need to share a bedroom. But their home is still temporary and Krystalrose has to move yet again. With Shelter’s support Krystalrose is fighting for a permanent home for her and her daughter.
DEFLATE
The power and importance of breathing and connecting to the breath were the main inspirations for 'Deflate/Inflate'. Being evicted, and living in-between uncertain spaces causes immense stress, often making it hard to breathe.
For Krystalrose, who was living out of bags to avoid mould, breathing life into a negative space was difficult.
INFLATE
It felt important that the head-form focused on the positive aspect of new space being created. Krystarose's story, involving her young daughter, provided the idea of a child's balloon. ‘Deflate/Inflate' is an inflatable and joyful artefact, given form by the power of breath. Like a balloon, it can be blown up and deflated. It’s also designed to flat pack – echoing how, in an emergency, essential items have to be easily packed into bags, and moved on.
Materials: Recycled tissue paper and contact adhesive
‘You can’t escape your problem when your problem is your home.’
Sireena and her son were renting privately until their property was repossessed from under them. Because of Sireena’s health, they had no choice but to make a homeless application to the council, and were placed in emergency accommodation. There, they lived together in a single room with an ensuite shower. They had no kitchen, no drinking water, and a cockroach infestation to deal with. Sireena had to clean their dishes in the shower.
Desperate to find an alternative, Sireena contacted Shelter, whose caseworkers arranged a suitability check and helped Sireena complain to the council. As a consequence, the council moved Sireena and her son into temporary accommodation. While bigger and better equipped, the flat was still far from ideal: within weeks, mould had destroyed their clothes and began to affect their health.
Thankfully, Sireena and Ethan have now moved into permanent social housing, from where Sireena has started to rebuild their lives without the anxiety of being in limbo. She sees their home as a sanctuary they’re happy to call their own. She’s started a course in politics at university, and is doing all she can to make sure Ethan can pursue his dream of achieving a PhD.
My choice to use copies of the Financial Times as the material for this hat came from speaking with Sireena about the way councils can treat people who are experiencing homelessness, and how policies leave people in impossible situations. These situations aren’t ‘bad luck’ – they’re political.
The techniques (cutting, twisting, weaving) were intentionally laborious to reflect the determination, patience and endurance Sireena proved as she fought to get herself and her son rehomed – a long and difficult process with many discouraging elements.
I chose to use a non-noble material (newspaper stolen from my neighbours’ recycling bins!) as having a home shouldn’t be a wild luxury, it’s a basic need, a universal need. Sireena also liked this choice of material, as she often has to make a lot happen on a small budget.
The stories written on every strand zigzag through the structure to come together (through hours and hours of labour) in a small contained bubble at the top.
Materials: Coated wire structure, woven PVA rolled newspaper strands
The day has come when all the designers in the project deliver their pieces for the photoshoot. A very exciting day for all!
Apart from one hat being delivered to the wrong address, drop offs went smoothly.
Then we were off to a studio in Greenwich to capture the beauty and stories of the hats.
Here are some pics of the day…. but no shots of the hats. You’ll have to wait until exhibition day to see the fully crafted pieces.
The starting point of the project – thinking about ways to capture concepts of 'breathing' and 'space to breath' by looking at things that inflate and deflate.
The start of the craft process was to create a laser cut template to cut a very fine tissue material which I had decided to work with to give a delicate and lightweight feel.
The cutting process was a very exacting and time consuming process with so many repeats needed to create a three dimensional form.
Different gradient shades of red, descendants from the Shelter Pantone colour were used to make the piece more multidimensional. The material was folded in repeats in preparation for gluing to create the concertina. There was a lot of delicate finger work and hours involved in the preparation to build the final construction.
