Designer and creative thinker Megan Fitzoliver is co-ordinating a celebration of North Staffordshire’s creative and caring individuals, groups, and industries.
The inaugural Festival of Hands will take place across Stoke-on-Trent and beyond, 1st to 14th June 2026.
We sat in Spode Rose Garden in Stoke, enjoying a coffee from the Bluebird cafe, chatting about the festival and its themes.
Megan’s looking for expressions of interest from anyone that wants to get involved.
“Let’s join hands, build on the centenary celebration foundations, and show the world what we can do together in this creative city.”
I met Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu, one of two Ukrainian artists currently exhibiting ‘On The Edge’, at the University of Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent.
PODCAST: 19 minutes
Yuliia talks us through the themes of the exhibition, co-produced with fellow Ukrainian artist and friend Olha Barvynka.
The exhibition explores ‘transformation in response to a world shaped by crisis.’
One part of the mixed media exhibition, Yuliia’s ceramic bricks, have attracted unwelcome and upsetting attention from a small number of visitors to the Henrion Gallery space – a thoroughfare used by students and visitors to the university. Yuliia updates us about what has been happening.
“Sometimes art is born not from nice feelings inside, sometimes art is born from pain. And from my experience, and actually it’s one of the reasons why I’m doing art, is that I feel pain. I feel so much pain inside, so many emotions, different feelings, that you can’t do anything else only express it somehow, and I express it through art.”
Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu
UPDATE: since recording yesterday morning, the artists’ exhibition in the Henrion Gallery at University of Staffordshire has suffered more vandalism, including the breaking of several of Yuliia’s ceramic bricks. We’ve welcomed both Ukrainian artists into our city to give them safety and a home. They’ve responded in gratitude by giving us incredibly poignant art, adding greatly to our local arts scene. It’s shocking to think that a small number of visitors to the gallery would act in such a vile way to our friends. I hope the police and university exercise their fullest powers in bringing the perpetrators to account.
I met up with artist Rob Pointon in Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre as he battled the elements to continue his series for the Brampton Museum and Art Gallery, entitled ‘Painting Through The Dark Month’.
Local artist Rob Pointon will be attempting the challenge of completing an oil painting a day throughout the month of January. Rob paints outdoors in all weathers, temperatures, day or night. As soon as the painting is completed we will hang it and gradually populate this exhibition.
Brampton Museum & Art Gallery
We enjoyed a chat about the town’s palette and his notable style of painting with an exaggerated perspective.
Also good to be reminded we’re both alumni of the University of Wales, lol.
Portrait photograph of ceramic artist Jon French. Copyright Jerome Whittingham.
Jon French, ceramic artist and master craftsman, has been demonstrating his skills to shoppers in The Potteries Centre, Hanley, this week – part of a programme of events during the Willow Pattern Ceramics and Stories of ‘Other’ exhibition at Spode Museum Trust in Stoke.
Commissioned as part of Stoke-on-Trent’s Centenary celebrations, Willow Pattern Ceramics andStories of ‘Other’ explores the enduring legacy of the Willow pattern – one of North Staffordshire’s most iconic and globally recognized ceramic designs. Originating around 1790 and inspired by Chinese porcelain, the Willow pattern became a worldwide commodity through British adaptation and mass production, embedding itself firmly in global visual and material culture.
Spode Museum Trust
The exhibition at Spode is curated by Professor Tiejun Hou, Jingdezhen Ceramic University and Professor Neil Brownsword, University of Staffordshire. It continues until the end of March 2026.
