Pop-ups & Installations
LUSH
As part of the September pilot, Lush will create a mini pop-up on the lower ground floor of the Poetry Pharmacy Lab in Market Square, showcasing some of its newest ranges and bringing a rather different kind of temporary retail experience to Bishop’s Castle.
The Lush pop-up is part of the wider experiment: exploring whether temporary spaces can accommodate everything from an individual artist testing their work in a shop for the first time to an established national brand trying something somewhere unexpected.
POETRY PHARMACY LAB - LOWER GROUND
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
LUSH
KATY ALSTON
A freelance artist and illustrator based in Shropshire, Katy specialises in making informative pictorial maps both as commissions and self-initiated projects. She spends time researching the location using archived material and old maps to preserve local knowledge.
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Whether it is painting or illustration, her work is often about the passing of time and the marks or traces that we leave on the landscape. Mapmaking is a brilliant way of discovering and recording a locality, and she tries to create a sense of place including roadways, buildings, historical evidence, folklore and references to fictional characters.
Besides doing commissions, Katy creates self-initiated projects that allow her to follow her interests especially the natural world and history.
14 MARKET SQUARE
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
BISHOPS CASTLE TOWN HALL
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
Bob Fowke trained as an illustrator at Taunton College of Art and began his career painting science fiction and fantasy book covers for authors including Ray Bradbury, Anne McCaffrey and H. P. Lovecraft. He later moved into writing and has written or contributed to numerous books, particularly for children. He continues to write and paint, and supports other writers through YouCaxton Publications.
BOB FOWKE
BEAN SAWYER
Bean first had a taste of Stained Glass at the age of 15 when, in a rebellious move, decided to pursue an alternative work experience week at Walcot Reclamation Yard in Bath with Stained Glass Artist, Tony Bristow.
This was the start of a fascination into the craft which sat on the back burner with her as she went through Art College coming out the other end with an HND in Illustration.
Bean sparked the fire up again when she became a mother in 1993, relearning the craft in-between child care, until she felt confident enough to take on her first commission. Since then she has brought light and colour into many homes. More recently Bean has merged her illustration and writing practices into her Stained Glass projects, creating some interesting pieces of art at her home studio in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
Bean is also dedicated to running small workshops to help others on their Stained Glass journey, and is also the newly appointed Casual Lifelong Learning Tutor in Pembrokeshire.
Bean is also a poet and writer setting up a postal poetry project in 2023 called The Murmuration of Words.Â
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14 MARKET SQUARE
Thursday /  Friday / Saturday / Sunday
JULIE McMAHON
The Art of the Cyanotype
Julie is a photographic artist whose work centres on the interplay between light-sensitive chemistry and the natural world.
Specialising in botanicals on silk, cotton and paper, Julie has refined the 19th-century Cyanotype process into a modern fine-art practice.
She embraces the medium’s creative unpredictability as an essential element in the creation of her bespoke lampshades, archival wall art and greeting cards.
26 HIGH STREET
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
NINA ARCHER
Nina is an abstract painter, living and working in the south Shropshire hills. Following a career in graphic design she moved to Shropshire a few years ago and began painting full time from her studio which overlooks the borderlands of the Welsh Marches.
She observes and visually records elements of this landscape. These observations are developed through abstracted forms suggested by the edges of land, the darkness and contrast of the forests and the textural feel of this unique landscape.
Nina is represented by several galleries and has exhibited work throughout the UK, including the Royal Cambrian Academy, Wells Art Contemporary, The Society of Women Artists, Sidney Nolan Trust and at many London Art Fairs.
Nina will be showing paintings, paperworks and Art cards.
POPPY HOUSE
 Friday / Saturday / Sunday
JANE FARRINGTON
Jane Farrington constructs atmospheric mixed media works and dioramas that explore
performance, illusion, and storytelling. Combining manipulated textiles, distressed papers,
printmaking, and repurposed historical objects, her pieces evoke a sense of nostalgic luxury and
stage magic. Farrington invites onlookers to step Behind The Curtain and inhabit detailed,
miniature worlds where memory, theatre, and imagination meet.
POPPY HOUSE
Friday / Saturday / Sunday
CARIS JACKSON
Caris is a mixed media collage artist reimagining iconic performers and theatrical subjects in a playful, maximalist and joyful homage. Using vintage prints, recycled fabrics, and repurposed items, Caris creates layered textural pieces filled with narrative and drama. Theatrical subject are a reoccurring theme in her work, in part inspired by childhood visits to Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre and family tales of her glamorous great-grandmother running the sweet shop next door.
Her artistic journey began at 4 years old after visiting a degree show in her birth town of Wolverhampton. She later pursued a Fine Art degree at Liverpool John Moores University and became a qualified Tutor, teaching art in diverse settings, including universities and HMP Parc in South Wales.
Based at English Bridge Studios, Shrewsbury, her original collage designs are also available as prints, cards, gifts, homewares and clothing.
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POETRY PHARMACY LAB
Friday / Saturday / Sunday
RHIANNON HOOSON
Rhiannon's work explores the tension between the domestic vignettes of the still life, and the ways in which we conjure these safe but separate spaces into being.
Our comforting domesticity is constructed around us piece by piece, a spell brought into being by the placing of objects. We lay the table. We put flowers in a vase. But these comfortable spaces are easily ruptured by something wilder, something unknowable - a constant tension between the real and the imagined.
POETRY PHARMACY LAB
Friday / Saturday / Sunday
LAINIE MAKES
Elaina is the crafter behind Lainie Makes and Creates.
She is Shropshire born and bred, and has a strong connection with Bishop’s Castle, having worked at the SpArC Leisure Centre for over 30 years as a swimming teacher.
Elaina has always had a passion for making and creating, whether it is drawing, painting, upcycling or sewing. With a love for sustainability and British products, she tries to focus on creating beautiful sustainable gifts. Everyday products that you can use time after time.
Elaina sews Reusable Face Pads, UnPaper Towels, Baby Bibs, Burp Cloths, Baby Wipes and more.
She also draws and doodles illustrations that she prints and transfers on to wood slices, and easy to recycle greeting cards (no glitter or bling here).
POETRY PHARMACY LAB
 Friday / Saturday / Sunday
BCB1 Bishop's Castle Broadcasting
Bishop’s Castle is getting its very own TV station. Think BBC1 but with the letters in a different order! For 12 hours starting at 8am on Thursday September 3rd, BCB1 will be broadcasting live to the world to celebrate the Bishop’s Castle Is Open initiative and the town’s famous Michaelmas Fair. There’ll be programmes for everyone both young and old – news, local history, business, farming, food, drink, rural affairs…. And, because of the community’s connection with poetry plenty of that too.
The idea is the brainchild of the podcaster, poet and former BBC broadcaster, Rich Uridge, who lives in Shropshire and has been a visitor to Bishop’s Castle for much of his adult life – most regularly to the Verbatim Open Mic nights at the Poetry Pharmacy.
BCB1 will be streamed live to YouTube and simultaneously hosted on the Bishops Castle is Open website. Selected content will be live on Facebook and LinkedIn. Recordings of the whole show and selected highlights will also be available to watch after the event.
THE STARS SHOP
Thursday only
POP-UP MARKET
Art, bric-a-brac, plants: a number of separate stalls. Organised by Sam Angell of BCCLT.
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The Stars shop is a permanent pop-up space designed and refitted from an unused old shop by Bishop's Castle Community Land Trust https://www.bcclt.co.uk/. The charitable Trust also provides some low-cost housing in the town.
THE STARS SHOP
Saturday only
LYN EVANS
The Shropshire landscape provides a constant inspiration and influences a lot of Lyn Evans' work, from the countryside, towns, wildlife and people she has met along the way. Her passion for colour and texture, and her torn paper collages reflect these loves.
26 HIGH STREET
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
LIV BARGMAN
Liv Bargman is an illustrator originally from the Welsh borders, now based in Shropshire.
She graduated from Falmouth University in Illustration, and has an MA Art & Science from Central St Martins.
She likes anything to do with soil microbes, soil in general. See also tunnels, caves, volcanoes, and portals.
34 HIGH STREET
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
RACHEL LLOYD PRESS
Rach Lloyd (RACHLLOYDPRESS) is an artist specialising in ceramics. She is passionate about tactile, hands-on processes and creates work inspired by her love of comedy. Her work celebrates happiness, human behaviour, and the joy found in everyday life through thoughtful and playful making. She will be selling one-of-a-kind handmade ceramic wares and limited edition letterpress prints. She will also have a small samples sale, allowing you to own your own piece at a discounted price. Come along to chat and find out more about clay!Â
THE STARS SHOP
 Friday only
ELLIOTT STALLION
Elliott Stallion, aka Video Olympic, is a UK-based video artist, graphic designer and creative who has spent years making moving images for live performance, from tour visuals for Jessie J to VJ sets for the likes of Neneh Cherry, Salt N Peppa and Andrew Weatherall. His large-scale work includes video-mapping a 180ft structure at Glastonbury's Shangri-La and performing at the Mapping Festival in Geneva. As part of the September installation, he'll bring that practice down to street level, installing a video projection in a shop window in Market Square. It's the same craft built for festival stages, scaled to an everyday storefront, testing his work somewhere unexpected.
NIGHT INSTALLATION AT 14 MARKET SQUARE
Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday