ABOUT
About us
Xceptional designs
consists of two artists - Alex Hallowes
and Pete Rogers, who have been making lovely things for over 20 years.
Pete Rogers trained as a marine engineer, working his apprenticeship in Swan Hunter shipyards in Newcastle. He completed an MA in metalwork from Sheffield Hallam in 2011. Pete's woven vessels are amazing, and his automata and kinetic sculptures are unique. In schools Pete works with DT, but has experience in Early Years and the outdoors.
Alex Hallowes had a career in community theatre before getting her degree in Silversmithing from Camberwell College. She is a certified teacher of PMC and Artclay, and she likes to use unexpected materials in her work. Her MA is in Arts Education and she achieved her doctorate in Early Education in 2013.
Xceptional designs was formed in 1997, when we came back from London after Alex graduated from Camberwell.
For a few years Pete continued to work in the engineering industry, helping to design, among other things, oil rigs and an amphibious vehicle - while Alex made jewellery, started teaching metalwork at a local College and became arts consultant for a local regeneration project.
Gradually our present work has evolved, and now, one way or another, we work freelance, separately and together, on an eclectic variety of projects, including personal work, public art projects, community projects, school sculpture projects, creative learning projects in schools, commissions together and separately, and we occasionally run weekend metal workshops too.
It's hard work, exciting, stimulating, scary and, above all, fun.