A Toast to Tea Green: Ten Years of Bringing Craft to Inspiring Destinations

Thousands of people across Scotland, from first-timers to regulars, have discovered and purchased Scottish craft thanks to Tea Green. Bringing makers and their work into some of Scotland’s most visited cultural venues, Tea Green produces pop-up craft retail events that inspire locals and delight visitors. 

Based in Dundee, Tea Green’s spirit reflects the dynamism and can-do attitude of that city’s craft and design scene. ‘Committed to championing Scotland’s wealth of independent creative talent’, this year – its 10th anniversary – it has organised a record 20 events.  

Image: Joanne MacFadyen / Photography by Dylan Drummond

Its founder, Joanne MacFadyen, is Tea Green: an energy powerhouse who runs her vibrant company single-handed, fuelled by passion and large quantities of coffee. A small team of skilled freelancers supports her with the set-up and take-down at each venue, achieving these seamlessly and fast. Otherwise, she does all the planning, organisation and admin herself, and is present throughout every event.  

Joanne describes herself as an “accidental events organiser”: it was never her life plan. A maker at heart, she trained as a jeweller at Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee, graduating with a BDes (Hons) in 2010 and an MFA in 2012. She fully intended to be a practising jeweller, and in 2013, her work was selected for Craft Scotland’s Summer Show. But in 2014, her career took a new direction.

Seeing few opportunities for designer-makers to sell direct at high-quality, well-curated events in Scotland, she decided to do something about it. Her goal was to create “the event I would love to have been able to go to as a customer.” Her jewellery background has allowed her not only to appreciate the skill and graft behind the work, but to communicate maker-to-maker. Enabling makers and buyers to meet in person can bring significant opportunities to both.

While makers can showcase work, glean invaluable market-tested feedback and, crucially, make sales, buyers can ask questions, learn about processes and consider commissions. Such exchanges can build enduring relationships. 

Image: Tea Green at The Burrell Collection / Photography by Dylan Drummond

Joanne’s first event was launched in Glasgow School of Art’s Student Union. Only five years later, Tea Green was partnering with V&A Dundee. It was curating and running the Dundee Design Festival’s Design Superstore in 2019 which encouraged her to approach the museum. By 2024, Tea Green’s portfolio of venues had grown to include Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum and Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, and The Burrell Collection.

This year, Tea Green arrived in Edinburgh, at the National Galleries of Scotland. 

Image: Scott Smith / Photography by Dylan Drummond

The type of venue is fundamental to Tea Green’s success. Nearly all events take place in the public spaces of high-profile museums and galleries, where the makers’ work can be viewed within a wider cultural context. The location also helps to give buyers confidence.

"seeing my pieces appreciated in such distinguished venues has been profoundly rewarding" - Scott Smith.
 

Scott Smith, an emerging silversmith and jeweller who has shown several times with Tea Green, comments, “seeing my pieces appreciated in such distinguished venues has been profoundly rewarding, both for jewellery sales but also for larger-scale silversmithing [objects], which I wasn’t expecting”.

The experience brought him new friendships as well as new clients. Exhibiting with Tea Green at Aberdeen Art Gallery brought Aberdeen-born Scott a particular career milestone. He credits the museum’s acquisition of his Wood Chip Tea Spoon to the opportunity for curators to engage closely with him and his work.  

Image: Candy Coated Accessories / Photography by Dylan Drummond

The venues also benefit; Tea Green brings life, new work and a wider audience into their heart. As Joanne points out, her events can attract people back into museums who haven’t visited for years. Every event is planned to be as stress free as possible for venues and makers alike: venues need only to open their doors.  

One long-running location is not a museum. Bowhouse, in St Monans, with its high-quality food markets committed to ‘the best ingredients and finished produce the East Neuk has to offer’, has found Tea Green’s craft events a natural match for its own standards. 

Thousands of visitors attend Tea Green events. V&A Dundee has attracted some 5,000 each weekend, while 10,000 came through the doors of The Burrell and close to 8,000 at Kelvingrove last winter.

Joanne aims to consolidate the number of venues (currently 20) for the next 5 to 10 years, establishing regular locations and dates in people’s consciousness. Though she doesn’t rule out expanding to the ‘right’ locations.  

Image: Tessuti Scotland / Photography by Dylan Drummond

Since 2014, Tea Green has given a selling platform to hundreds of makers from numerous artforms. 70-80 makers may be present over any weekend. Many more people apply than can be accommodated, so how does Joanne select?

Firstly, on quality; then, to offer variety. Jewellery is always popular, but she ensures a wide range of other disciplines is always represented. Those showing regularly with Tea Green include textile makers, like Fiona Ross of Candy Coated Accessories and Fiona McIntosh of Tessuti Scotland; ceramicists, like Jo Walker; and glass artists, like Elin Isaakson. Joanne feels “privileged and honoured that people come back to me time and time again”.  

Image: Elin Isaakson / Photography by Dylan Drummond

Always seeking new talent, Joanne will happily consider skilled makers at all stages of their careers, from emerging to established.

Seven 2023 graduates from Fife Contemporary’s Materialise 7 program at V&A Dundee and Kelvingrove will be showcased this November/December. She has excellent advice for potential applicants. Above all, invest in good quality photography. And, just as important, your five images of work should aim for coherence and articulating your ‘voice’. “Don’t attempt to cover everything”. 

Joanne feels she has achieved her goal: to create the ideal platform she herself had sought to sell her own work. She would like to return to making one day but, for now, her focus is on doing the best for her makers. As she says, “It’s tough out there”. 

Finally, where did that name come from? It turns out that Tea Green is a colour of Letraset Promarker, a pale green she often used as a background colour in her practice. It was “essentially the platform for the drawing on top. It seemed apt, as the aim of my events is to create a platform to champion Scotland’s creative community…Tea Green stuck.”