Meet the Artist: Sadie Clayton

This London Craft Week 2026 we welcome East London-based sculptor Sadie Clayton to the Market.

We caught up with Sadie ahead of her May programme in the Market to find out what visitors can expect from the experience and what she’s most looking forward to.

During London Craft Week you’ll be hosting workshops and a talk at the Market, as well as transforming our red phone box into a beautiful copper installation art piece. What inspired you to present your work at Old Spitalfields Market?

“Old Spitalfields Market has always felt like a place where making things matters, where craft isn’t a novelty but a living conversation. When the opportunity came to transform the red phone box into a copper installation, it felt like a natural homecoming. There’s something about copper that speaks to communication, to connection, to the idea of voices carried across distance, so bringing copper to the phone box felt right. I wanted to place the work where people would encounter it in their everyday paths.”

What do you hope visitors will take away from your workshops?

“More than a skill, I hope people leave with a memory in their hands. When you work with copper, something shifts in you. The mind quietens. I want participants to experience that quality of presence, that absorption. Ideally they’ll walk away with something they’ve made, yes, but more importantly they’ll carry the feeling of having made it.”

On the 14th May you’ll be hosting a panel discussion exploring the profound connection between craft, creativity and wellbeing as a living tool for social renewal. Can you tell us why the subject excites you?

“We’re living through a crisis of disconnection, from each other, from our bodies, from any sense of meaning we create with our own hands. Craft doesn’t just produce objects, it produces people who feel capable, grounded, and seen. What excites me most about the panel discussion is bringing together voices from different disciplines to ask, what would it look like if we took this seriously as a community infrastructure? The phone box I’m working with is itself a symbol of that, something that once connected us, now reclaimed as a site of making and gathering.”

As an East London local what does Old Spitalfields Market mean to you?

It’s one of those rare places in London that still feels genuinely layered, history and energy rubbing up against each other. I live down the road, my studio is in Hackney nearby and I used to come to the vintage market every Thursday religiously, fascinated by the makers and traders. There’s a generosity to the space, a sense that it belongs to everyone who shows up. That inclusivity matters to me enormously. It doesn’t feel like a curated destination, it’s a living place. That’s exactly the kind of context where work about wellbeing and human connection makes the most sense.

Do you have any favourite local recommendations for anyone visiting the Market for London Craft Week? Where do you like to explore, eat and shop in E1?

For food, I’d point people towards the Bangladeshi restaurants on Brick Lane, not the tourist-facing ones, but recently we we’ve been to Somsaa & Manteca which I’d highly recommend. For wandering, Columbia Road on a non-flower-market day is a completely different, almost secretive experience. The Whitechapel Gallery is always worth a long visit, particularly if there’s a show exploring making or material culture. For slowing down with a coffee and something handmade, the cluster of independent ceramics, jewellery and clothes shop around Redchurch Street rewards an unhurried afternoon!

Sadie Clayton will be at Old Spitalfields Market for London Craft Week 2026 from Tuesday 12th to Saturday 16th May, you’ll find more details here.