Magdalen Road Creative Street Festival review

Graci Wakely is the current Exeter City Young Laureate, and is a young writer/poet who has a particular interest in the environment, neurodiversity, and the creative arts. As the Young Laureate, one of her main aims is to help inspire other young writers in the city of Exeter to use their writing to speak out about issues that are important to them, in order to influence bigger positive change in the city.

Here she shares her experience of getting crafty at the Magdalen Road Street Festival as part of June Boom….

As I arrived at the Magdalen Road Creative Street Festival, the first thing I noticed was the sound of joyous sea shanties pervading the background chatter of people visiting the countless colourful stalls surrounding both sides of the street. Following my ears, I found the source of the shanties: the Woodbury Whalers, a close-harmony sea shanty group based in the village of Woodbury, East Devon.

After spending a few minutes enjoying the music, I headed over to So To Felt, a business that sells unique felt and silk creations inspired by the natural world and aims to teach others the wonderful process of using natural fibres to make felt. I immediately signed up for the 30-minute workshop about learning how to felt. The process was both fascinating and cathartic, and I went away having bought my own felting kit to be able to continue trying to master the craft in my own time.

The next stall I visited was the Devon Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers; here, I learned about how to hand-spin fluff into wool, using a drop spindle. The Guild meet monthly in Pinhoe and teach the traditional crafts of hand weaving, spinning, and dyeing wool and fibres, with members ranging in expertise from complete beginners to accomplished artisans of their craft. It was a fascinating look into the way clothing would have been traditionally made long ago, with a wonderfully sustainable and nature-based form of clothmaking.

Wandering on, I met Reeves K Ceramics, owned by Kate Gisby, who is based in Exmouth and crafts handmade decorative and functional stoneware. One of my favourite items that I spotted on her stall was a handmade ceramic bowl with a built-in fork holder for maximum convenience; beautifully glazed, it doesn’t compromise on either design or functionality.

My next stop was Fairsilver, a family-based fairtrade jewellery business that works with silversmiths in Mexico to produce handmade sterling silver jewellery. Rossana Smart, one of the owners of the business, described some of the processes behind the jewellery displayed on her stall, including the way they utilise traditional Mexican silversmithing techniques and ensure that artisans are paid fairly whilst still using environmentally responsible materials and practices wherever possible.

Finally, on my way to catch the bus home, the stall for Sail Trade South West caught my eye, and I stopped for a brief discussion with the stall owner, who told me about the business’s mission of sustainable food transport. Among other products, they sell food that has been sustainably sourced and exported utilising a restored 1929 Cornish Lugger to ensure super-low carbon emissions. The stall owner particularly highlighted the business’s key values of environmental stewardship, community building, and cultural preservation. It was a fascinating discussion and genuinely caused me to reconsider how the food we eat is transported around the world.

Overall, visiting the festival was an incredibly fun and interesting way to spend my Saturday afternoon, and reminded me of the importance of taking time to utilise the resources available to us in the natural world in a sustainable and creative way in order to bring joy to ourselves and others. Creativity and nature have a powerful connection that is often greatly underestimated, but the future lies in the hands of those who, like many of the Magdalen Road artisans, are brave enough to take inspiration from our roots in nature to solve the problems the world faces today.