Our secret buyer shops around in Arundel, a Sussex Craft Week ‘Craft Town’
Can a hat be a work of art? This year’s Sussex Craft Week runs from June 20-28. The variety and diversity of the work on show revive the old question: what is the relationship between art and craft? Is there a hard boundary between the two, or do different makers’ works lie at different points along a craft-to-fine-art spectrum? Is functionality versus non-functionality defining features? Where, for example, do we place pottery and ceramics? A very good destination for collectors to ponder this question is Arundel, designated as one of Sussex Craft Week’s ‘Craft Towns’.
James Stewart of Zimmer Stewart Gallery is one of the key co-ordinators of Arundel’s Craft Week display. He has chosen the Crypt Gallery in Ford Road to exhibit works woven in Sussex at Atelier Weftfaced by the distinguished tapestry and textile weavers Caron Penney and Katherine Swailes. Their work, created from hand-dyed natural materials is produced for hanging or in frames. Swailes gives superb semi-abstract tapestry renderings of pastoral landscapes in subtle and shifting colours, reflecting the natural tones, movement and texture of her subject. Penney relies on more angular coloured geometrical shapes. Their works are made on a scale accessible to a wide range of collectors.
Zimmer Stewart will be returning to Tarrant Street, the epicentre of Arundel’s craft scene, later in 2026 with its own gallery, specialising in contemporary art. During Sussex Craft Week, collectors should certainly visit two established landmarks in the street: Josse Davis’ Duff Gallery and Ann Symes’ Gallery 57.
The history of Duff Gallery is worth exploring. Josse is the son of the celebrated ceramicist and painter Derek Davis (1926-2008), who with his wife, the painter Ruth Lambert, acquired Duff House, in Maltravers Street above Tarrant Street in 1953 and established his studio there. ‘Duff’ because it was built by Captain Duff, a commander in Nelson’s fleet. The Gallery was later set up by Derek below the house, and now showcases the ceramics made by Josse and associate artists. Josse, born in Arundel, trained first at Worthing Art School and then as a ceramicist in Bath, immediately setting up his own studio on graduation. His highly original work spreads across a wide repertoire of witty glazed and raku pieces, both decorative and functional. Much of it is inspired by animal, bird and wildlife motifs (with a strong bias in favour of dogs). This collector, after meeting Josse’s own dog, was particularly attracted to his dark raku plates with lively images subtly floated across their surface. An exhibition celebrating Derek’s centenary will be held in Duff House later this year.
Across the street at Gallery57, Ann Symes’ summer show neatly coincides with Craft Week. Her typically balanced and carefully curated collection will emphasise, as always, works which are produced in natural materials and are inspired by the natural world. It will include much work made in Sussex. The textile designer Kate Box will be exhibiting there again. She works from her home studio in the South Downs in highly coloured lambswool and linen, producing textured and layered works akin to painting. Jason Mosseri of Hope Springs Chairs will be showing one of his bespoke pieces, traditional Windsor morphing into modernism. Cara Wassenberg creates simple sculptural forms in glass, copper and steel inspired by landscape and tree forms. Since 2025 she has also tutored in metalwork at West Dean College. Lawrence Dicks will also be returning to the gallery. He describes himself as ‘heavily influenced by nature’. Inspired by his daily walks on Sussex beaches, he creates sculptures translating the underlying structure, in particular cellular structure, of the natural world. There is a short abstract film on his website, ending with a poem by Michelangelo, which dives deeply into his interaction with the surroundings of the beach and the sea, and shows him at work.
To complement these galleries, many of the shops in Arundel will be celebrating its status as a Craft Town by displaying original art and craft works in their windows.
As for hats, go to milliner Isabella Josie’s Sussex Hats at 10 Castle Mews on Tarrant Street. Her men’s hats are from outside suppliers (I bought two great Irish linen caps), while her women’s hats are the inspired product of her own inventive genius: a dazzling array of colours, fabrics, textures and shapes, meticulously assembled on the wooden blocks she keeps in the shop. If these works, created by a talented maker, do not fit the definition of art, what does?