Happy Birthday Workshop 4 years and a lovely story from the man that built the building many years ago

Happy Birthday Workshop 4 years. We can’t even believe it. We didn’t think we would pass 2 years.

What a lovely story I learnt yesterday (31^st March 2014). This old man around 11am knocks at the door and he said “I built this place. My name is Thomas William Eaton TWE” pointing at the door. He asked me to come in and we spent a good hour telling me how he built the place brick by brick and bolt by bolt.

He was working in the lace market in a building on the second floor doing all sorts of engineering but the landlord there didn’t not let him do welding so he was going secretly in the night throwing water on the wooden floors so they do not catch fire and was doing welding. It was hard work and they could not afford the rent he said so they decided all the family to get their own unit. They all scraped the bottom of the

barrel and gathered £12K and bought the Unit at 247 Noel Str. It was just one ground floor unit and only 3 offices and a canteen. The rest was a yard and a garden. Hard to imagine it now.

His wife was running the canteen and serving food to the workers as well as doing the accounts. She was also washing the workers clothes and hanging them in the garden. Also his two sons were working there.

They all slowly slowly started building the building. Brick by brick, nut by nut. 25000 bricks he told me.

He told me “We were working, paying the wages, buying brinks then working, buying steel and kept on doing that”. He remembered every single bolt and every single joint that was constructed.

They didn’t not have tools at the beginning (hmmmm sounds like us) but work was coming and they started buying machines. They were making everything engineering using metal. They made almost all the lace making machines in the Notts area as well as sawing machines, industrial alarms, and much more.” If you ask around” he said “you will find all out all out fabric making machines”.

They were so in demand that started exporting lace machine to New Zealand and Australia.

“We built this staircase “ he said “we installed in the building 3phase and each working station with compressed air, here was my workbench. Oh I used to do welding on those tables.” He continued.
I said on this same table I do electronics , he smiled with satisfaction. “Oh and at the back there we had metal folding machines” . “We have 2 independent wood makers here come and see their new machine” I said. He followed me and smiled again.

5 years ago they all retired and eventually they closed the unit and sold it. And here we are out of necessity not being able to find a decent affordable space to do artwork projects, we got this unit on a temporary basis. The unit is too big just for us so we decided to share it with others, so The Workshop – Nottingham was born.

“My name is Thomas William Eaton what is yours?” Adam I said “good luck Adam oh here are my initials at the door TWE” pointing at the door.
The Workshop – Established April 2010.

The Workshop is a non profit unfunded self sustained organisation and from day one trying to restart and reinvent local micro production, engineering and fabrication using design, engineering, technology and business skills and knowledge. The Workshop supports artists and students, hosted many events and currently houses 7 independent businesses. The Workshop already supports and wants to grow supporting local fabrication to high street retail.

The wood makers just bought 2 machines, all the businesses in The Workshop just about started going. We want to do much more one of them is to buy machines to be used by other local makers.

The Workshop needs to grow and possibly find new premises since the current ones are sold and most likely we cannot stay. We are looking for investors that would like to support this social entrepreneurial enterprise venture.

We are so happy we met TWE. A real inspiration to keep The Workshop going. I own it to him to make it work.

Adam Spinos

www.thenottinghamworkshop.com   www.facebook.com/TheNottinghamWorkshop

Just some images of The Workshop and of the things that happened
and keep happening.....

Light Night at Dezigne - Nottingham Hockley

On the 28th of February 2014 it was Light Night in Nottingham.
We had great fun here at Dezigne preparing for the night. Although I have to admit it was a lot of work but thanks to help from local designers and artists we managed to make it happen.

Jolanda from The Workshop - Nottingham a lighting designer lent us 800 Bohemian crystals. We decided to make something interesting for the shop, well it was easier said than done. The first string of crystal took us 2 hours to make, after 5 strings we nearly gave up. Eventually after 10 days and experimenting we managed to make a string in 15min and the chandelier was just finished in the morning of light night -it looked stunning !

















Having had a chat with local artist Paul Matosic and thinking what else we could make I visited his garage where we sifted through loads of items we came across a box of photographic slides. The slides were of memories and travel experiences from all around the world from one of Paul friend`s dad who is no longer with us.

The idea came - why don't we make a huge QR code - Retail and Art working together.
So off we went to The Workshop - Nottingham and started work.
I was a bit worried that it would not look good or interesting and our 3 days work to make it would be wasted - how wrong I was. The QR light sculpture was stopping people in their tracks and they were interacting with it - trying to scan it with their phones, taking photos and spending a lot of time looking at all the photos. Pleasantly surprised. - Interactive Dynamic retailing using Art.

Steve from Kotch Design also made some experimental lamp shade forms. He is an eco designer and his forms were made by knitting and fusing lace together.

Daniel from ReLit Design also brought into the shop a selection from his art work as well as some very interesting iconic mid century refurbished lights of which one was sold on the Light Night. 

Upstairs in the Coffee bar we had projections from designer and fashion photographer duo Hue of Two. A fantastic selection of artistic and fashion photos that kept the visitors looking all the time whilst sipping our special brew Machinato coffee and eating a slice of Chloe's home made almond and raspberry cake.

Oh and I had 2 of my LED light sculptures which are on permanent display.

It ended up being a very interesting and buzzy night We felt there needed to be more activities in the area and we wish we could have done even more.

We will keep working as hard as we can to keep design and art work in our shop. Looking forward to more events like this.

Finally a massive thank you to The Nottingham City Council and in particular the Arts and Events Department that featured us in their Light Night city trail map.