In Scotland, Bard’s Latest Exhibition Finds Inspiration in the Hardware Store

Over the past several years, Leith, Edinburgh’s historic port district, has evolved around an influx of artists, designers, and collectors, some drawn in part by the presence of Bard: a gallery founded in 2022 by husbands Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens. Set within Custom Lane, a design hub founded in Leith’s 19th-century Custom House, Bard has imbued the city with Scottish craft through the hands of contemporary makers residing in or hailing from the country, many of whom combine heritage maker techniques with distinctly contemporary materials or ethos. “Bardware: By hands for hands,” the gallery’s third anniversary exhibition, is no exception.

Beginning in 2023 and coinciding with the onset of every festive season, Bard has celebrated each passing year in Leith with anniversary exhibitions that showcase makers’ “interpretations of Scottishness.” With this year’s show, Macdonald and Stevens doubled down on the role of  touch and tactility within craft, in the context of a setting familiar to many makers: the hardware store. It’s also a space that the pair are deeply familiar with, having refitted Bard’s space within Custom Lane from a former warehouse in a matter of weeks. 

For Macdonald and Stevens, “Bardware” and its “please touch” ethos is crucial to the gallery’s championing of craft through the works of living artists and makers. “We’re waking up people’s fingers by inviting them to touch objects they might normally feel nervous to pick up or rub or stroke in a gallery space or museum, or even a shop,” says Macdonald. “We learn so much through our sense of touch—at least, we used to.” 

Through the month of January, those fortunate to find themselves in a position to wander Bard with open hands will discover how makers including James Rigler, Eve Eunson, All About Willow, Clement Knives, Juli Bolaños-Durman, Jess White, Oliver Spendley, and David Taylor iterate on what Macdonald and Stevens describe as “signifiers of domestic endeavor and devotion.” 

Rigler, a sculptor who often works in clay and plaster, contributes bronze-glazed ceramic cabinet knobs cast from a ceiling rose created by 19th-century Glaswegian architectural theorist Alexander “Greek” Thomson. Baskets by designer-maker Eunson are woven from sea plastic pulled from the beaches of Shetland, where she resides. Glass artist Bolaños-Durman expands her practice with sculptural toilet roll holders made from salvaged wood and glass, while Sweden-based Scottish silversmith Taylor created an imposing four-armed candelabra.

“Craft,” Macdonald maintains, “is one of the last bastions of sensory adventure.” The doors of Bard, then, are simultaneously a destination—and a departure point for such exploration.