May 2014 

TALENTED SCOT, HANNAH MCANDREW,
SCOOPS CRAFT&DESIGN SELECTED MAKER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014 
 

 
2014 craft&design Selected Maker of the Year 

(Please click on link to download full-sized image)

Over a period of six years, the suite of awards has become highly esteemed within the craft industry. Each year prizes amounting to a value of £25,000 are hotly contested by more than a thousand makers across six categories: Textiles & Needlecrafts, Glass, Wood & Metal, Jewellery & Precious Metal, Specialist Media and Ceramics. Winners are selected by an online public vote over three months, from 1^stJanuary through to 31^stMarch each year, and across more than 1200 makers who have been accepted to showcase their work onwww.craftmaker.co.uk. There is no charge to feature on the gallery but makers must first pass a verification stage to ensure there work is of a suitable standard.

Hannah received the news of her award on 1^stMay, the first day of Craft and Design Month - the annual campaign that is dedicated to putting British craftsmanship under a national spotlight. She was first told that, following the online public vote she had been identified as one of six finalists in her category.

Each category has its own specialist judge who then has the difficult job of choosing one Selected Gold Award winner and two Selected Silver Award winners from the six finalists. The Selected Maker of the Year Award goes to the Selected Gold Award winner who has achieved the highest public vote.

Category judge for Ceramics in 2014 was Helen Walsh, Curator of Ceramics, York Museums Trust.

Helen says: ‘I was thrilled to be asked to judge thecraft&designSelected Awards Ceramics category. At the start of the process I looked through the potters taking part and was heartened by the variety of high quality work being produced in the UK by potters from a wide range of backgrounds. I was also somewhat relieved that I would only have to select from six finalists rather than all of them.

Hannah McAndrew makes the kind of pots that give me warm glow inside, they are pots I can imagine using myself with great enjoyment everyday. Her work retains a very strong connection to the historical slipwares seen in museum collections, strong forms with balanced decoration that make the most of the natural characteristics of clay and glazes. The decoration has a refined sophistication that gives her pots a contemporary edge.'

Commenting on her win, Hannah says: ‘It was a grey and miserable morning and I had a phone call out of the blue to say that I had won. It's really exciting.'

Hannah wins prizes to the value of £5,000.

For further information about the Craft and Design Awards please seewww.craftanddesign.net/awards.

Details of Craft and Design Month

Anyone that wants to see Hannah's work for themselves will get a chance towards the end of Craft and Design Month from 24^ththrough to 26^thMay at open studio event, Spring Fling, one of hundreds of events taking place throughout May. For further details on this please seehttp://www.spring-fling.co.uk. To view Hannah's work online please seehttp://www.craftmaker.co.uk/hannahmcandrew/.

Full details of all the category winners and comments by specialist judges may be found atwww.craftanddesign.net/seledted/awards/2014. 

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Editor's Notes:

For further information contact Jan Lasnon on 07971 669606 or E jan@lasnonpr.co.uk
The craft&design Selected Awards were launched in 2009.
Each of the six categories produces one Gold and two Silver Award winners with three additional finalists.
Specialist judges were first introduced in 2011 and change each year.

The 2014 judges are:

Textiles & Needlecrafts
Angie Wyman, Course Leader for Degree Programme, Royal School of Needlework

Specialist Media
Shirley Frost, Design Gap

Wood & Metal
Matthew & Louise Dwyer, Saltbox Gallery, Helmsley, North Yorkshire

Jewellery & Precious Metal
Amanda Stücklin, Independent publicist

Glass
Victoria Scholes, Chair of the Contemporary Glass Society

For further details on judges please go to: http://www.craftanddesign.net/awards/selected/2014/judges/

Gold Award winners receive a prize to the value of £2,500
Two Silver Award winners in each category receive a prize to the value of £750

 For a full list of winners please go to: http://www.craftanddesign.net/awards/selected/2014/winners/