Third Space

Cockpit Arts Open Studios in Deptford set to welcome visitors

The makers and artists hub will open its doors at the end of November to showcase their work

Visitors will have the chance to buy items and discover their stories at Open Studios
Visitors will have the chance to buy items and discover their stories at Cockpit Arts Open Studios

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BY LAURA ENFIELD

Cockpit Arts in Deptford is set to throw open its doors this winter, to showcase the work of its makers.

Its 2024 Open Studios event offers visitors the chance to meet resident creatives, hear the stories behind the objects they have made and perhaps to do some shopping. 

This year, Cockpit Arts will extend its opening hours, with sessions running from 4pm-8pm on November 29 and from noon-6pm on November 30 and December 1.

Visitors will be able to explore the studios where Cockpit – the UK’s only incubator for craft businesses – nurtures makers at the early stages of their careers.

It has more than 175 residents spread over sites in Deptford and Bloomsbury, working in disciplines from fine jewellery and ceramics to woodworking, fashion, textiles and even antiques restoration.

I sat down with Ashley Gerling, Cockpit’s head of marketing and digital, to find out more: 

what’s the history of Open Studios?

It’s been running for nearly 15 years, providing collectors and lovers of fine art and crafts the opportunity to visit makers in the studios where they create their incredible work.

what’s new this year?

We’ll be welcoming back several Cockpit alumni who will be exhibiting and selling their work. 

We’re also planning a cross-site exhibition of some of our makers’ most exciting new work and are offering half-price admission for local residents.


Cockpit's studios are located at Creekside in Deptford
Cockpit’s studios are located at Creekside in Deptford

what can visitors expect to see?

An authentic look behind the scenes of a working makers’ studio – seeing the spaces where craftspeople work. 

They’ll be able to discover pieces in progress and, in Deptford, visit our shared leather, weaving and woodworking hubs where makers have access to specialist equipment and the chance to work at scale and collaborate on new projects. 

Open Studios is also a shopping destination, where you can buy pieces direct from makers while learning the stories behind each one.

why is the event important?

Open Studios is important as it not only provides our makers with a chance to connect with collectors, curators, buyers, students, other craftspeople and the public – it’s also a chance for Cockpit to share its work.

Cockpit is the only remaining specialist craft studios in London.

Despite having helped launch the careers of some of the biggest names in contemporary craft, it remains a hidden gem.

Maker Darren Appiagyei shows members of the public some of his creations
Maker Darren Appiagyei shows members of the public some of his creations

are there any new makers?

Ten new makers have joined Cockpit since our last Open Studios, including leatherworkers, weavers, textile designers, basket makers, jewellers and a sculptor specialising in mould making and casting.

who’s your longest-standing maker?

Sally Lees, a jewellery designer and enameller has had a studio at Cockpit for more than 20 years.

Several of our Bloomsbury makers are coming up on their 30-year anniversaries.

which makers are creating a buzz?

Wood sculptor Eleanor Lakelin – a Loewe Craft Prize finalist, whose studio is at Cockpit Arts in Deptford – opened her first solo exhibition in London this summer and was commissioned by The Fine Art Society to create a series of vessels for its Extinction Collection using 875,000 year old wood found at Happisburgh beach.

One of sustainable fashion designer Phoebe English’s dresses was acquired by The Metropolitan Museum Of Art’s Costume Institute this year.

In other news, she recently showed her latest collection, entitled Cloud Cover, at London Fashion Week.


JIhyun Kim’s Salty Fairy Ring series at Cockpit
JIhyun Kim’s Salty Fairy Ring series at Cockpit

key details: Cockpit Arts Open Studios

Open Studios is set to run at Cockpit Deptford on November 29 from 4pm-8m and on November 30 and December 1 from noon-6pm.

A three-day pass for the event costs £25. General admission is £10, while visitors can get on the Friday for £5. Children, 16 and under, go free.

Find out more about the event here

Cockpit Arts in Deptford
Cockpit Arts in Deptford

Cockpit Arts Deptford: a regenerated facility

Cockpit Arts Deptford has undergone a £3.42million project this year to revitalise the former 1960s council office next to a railway viaduct on Creekside.

It came about after the site was under threat in 2015 from a mixed-use development plan. 

Cockpit commissioned Cooke Fawcett to unlock the potential of the premises and the project won the support of Lewisham Council and the Mayor Of London’s Good Growth Fund.

Completed in June, it includes London’s first Craft Garden, a new public entrance and a café.

The garden was designed by Sebastian Cox and features furniture from his first outdoor dining range embedded into a textured landscape intended to emulate Deptford Creekside’s environment.

Plants have been selected for their use in craft processes, including willow, used in basketry, and madder, used in natural dyes.

The new entrance includes artwork Head, Heart, Hand created by Cockpit-based artist and designer Amber Khokhar, in collaboration with the local community.

It celebrates stories and characters from the local area across 1,300 hand-glazed tiles featuring nearly 100 hand-drawn illustrations as well as a series of tiles showcasing more than 40 locally spoken languages.

Read more: A Kiss For Cinderella set to be The Space’s festive production

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- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
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Deptford: How Holly Loftus forges knives from her workshop at Cockpit Arts

Blades are created using an ancient Japanese process before Holly adds handles of local wood

Holly Loftus is based at Cockpit Arts in Deptford
Holly Loftus is based at Cockpit Arts in Deptford

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BY LAURA ENFIELD

The unique patterns running along the blades made by Holly Loftus are created by hammering together layers of softened steel.

She likens the ancient Japanese process to making pastry.

“It’s like a croissant, but instead of layers of pastry and butter, it’s layers of steel that get laminated by folding them on top of each other over and over,” said the 33-year-old.

“I use heat and pressure and just literally smash them together and they fuse. It makes an edge that is really sharp and long-lasting.”

Like the knives she creates at Cockpit Arts in Deptford, Holly forged her career through sheer force.

She is the only woman she knows of working professionally in the male-dominated field and her hand-forged knives, which cost about £300, sell out every month.

When she happened upon the notion of bladesmithing in 2010, she was a community worker on holiday in America.

The Lewisham resident was both beguiled and baffled when she stumbled across a hobbyist knifemaker at work.

- See Holly’s work up close at Cockpit Summer Festival And Open Studios in Deptford from June 17-19, 2022. Entry is free and visitors will be able to meet a variety of crafters in their workspaces and talk to them about their processes.

“That was the first time that I really thought about knives being made outside of a factory and I remember grilling him about how he made them,” she said.

“It sparked an interest in me, but the first five years of the journey into making knives was only in my head. I couldn’t even figure out how to get started, because it was so alien to me.”

Her uncertainty deepened when she was unable to track down any professional knifemaking courses in the UK at the time.

Self doubt made her question whether she could leave her job, helping pensioners and homeless people, which she’d started as a teenager growing up in Dublin.

“I was excited about making knives, but it took a while for me to feel like I could just give myself permission to make something,” said Holly.

“A part of that was because I had done something I felt was socially useful and that transition has been difficult sometimes.”

Layers of steel are folded to create a very sharp edge
Layers of steel are folded to create a very sharp edge

She spent hours scouring internet forums and watching videos, but the nudge to take action only came when a friend bought her a one-day knifemaking course.

“I didn’t really think that I could ever figure out how to do it, because there are so many aspects, different tools and materials and that seemed mental to me,” she said. 

“On the course, we just forged a very basic knife, but I decided I was going to figure out how to start pursuing it.

“Before then it all seemed really abstract, so it took away that mental block I had.”

She still had a hard road to follow to turn it into a career.

“In the UK there’s no professional route into knifemaking,” said Holly. “There’s no apprenticeship, no school where you could go to learn it.”

The only vaguely related course she could find was a City And Guilds in forgework in Scotland. Six months later, she quit her job and headed up there.

“I didn’t make any knives, but that’s where I learned to forge using a hammer, which felt like a good foundation,” she said.

“When I passed, it was really satisfying and gave me the confidence to apply for work in the field.”

Holly spends about nine tenths of her time honing her blades
Holly spends about nine tenths of her time honing her blades

She landed a job with Blenheim Forge where she spent three years learning how to make their Japanese-influenced kitchen knives, using their workshop in her spare time to practise and refine her skills.

“I was really open with them about why I was there and that my plan was to make my own knives. I think they actually believed in me more than I did.

“Even though the forging course gave me a lot of confidence, sometimes when I was actually trying to make knives they were so bad it would knock me down.

“But Blenheim were really encouraging and, over those years, I got so much better.”

In 2020 everything changed. Holly applied for and won the Cockpit Arts/Newby Trust Craft Excellence Award, allowing her to move into the Deptford studios with a year of subsidised rent.

“Without that award, it would have been impossible to go full-time because having the workspace isn’t enough,” she said.

“There’s so much equipment that you need. Having that year meant I could set up properly and get better and get faster on my own.”

Today Holly’s knives are in such high demand that she only releases them in batches every month through a newsletter. 

Holly's knives are released in batches via online newsletter
Holly’s knives are released in batches via online newsletter

Each knife is handmade using steel from Japan and Sheffield and native wood supplied to her by tree surgeons.

“I have pieces from around where my workshop is or I have quite a lot from Hackney at the moment,” said Holly.

“The way I work means I can do things a factory never would because it would be really inefficient to have a tiny piece of a tree from a small street in London.

“But I can pick out those more interesting, unusual timbers and have enough for a few handles. 

“I like hardwoods like cherry and apple. They’ve often been felled because of a fungal species that creates these patterns in the wood.

“I put the pieces through a process that stabilises them by pulling resin through to fill the spaces. It means I can use these them even though they’re partially rotten.”

Holly usually has 30 knives at various stages in her workshop and said they were made to be comfortable for home cooks to use, especially women.

“Lots of women I speak to are afraid of how sharp they are and don’t trust themselves to be able to use a sharp knife,” she said.

Readers can see Holly at work during Cockpit Summer Festival And Open Studios
Readers can see Holly at work during Cockpit Summer Festival And Open Studios

“That’s something I really want to change, because it’s been so satisfying for me to become comfortable with them and I think having a really sharp knife changes how you feel about cooking, it makes it so much easier. 

“When I was growing up, the sharpest knife in my house was one of those plastic-handled steak knives and it was sliding about all over the place and made my whole experience of cooking stressful. I would just resort to choosing recipes without chopping – or use a blender.”

Holly said she was terrified of chopping a finger off when she first started bladesmithing, but after two years at Cockpit, she finally feels confident and is proud of what she has achieved.

“It’s amazing. Sometimes I have to really remind myself of that, because I can get so sucked into the details of really wanting to make the best work I can,” she said.

“I haven’t allowed myself to reflect on this before, but it feels important to, now. This is what I wanted and now I’m doing it.”

Read more: How chefs created From The Ashes BBQ in Fish Island

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- Laura Enfield is a regular contributor to Wharf Life, writing about a wide range of subjects across Docklands and east London 
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