Art connects.
Locus Artis is a shop and gallery of craft by local makers in central Gdańsk. Ceramics, lighting, jewellery, posters, linocuts, paintings, perfume and hand-sewn sketchbooks, among other things — all made by the hands of people from here.
A woman in her fifties wearing a Gryffindor scarf. A visitor from Copenhagen looking for local craft. A dad with a child who wants to touch everything. Someone who ducked in out of the rain. A neighbour who drops in for coffee and a chat. You’ll arrive with a different story again — and you’ll find something here too.
How we got here
Some great adventures start with “hold my beer”. Others with “do you want to go out with me?”. This one started with: hey, shall we open a shop?
We make things by hand ourselves, and our studios are here in Gdańsk. We carried our own work to fairs and to shelves in other people’s shops — one stall along from people doing the same thing, and nothing like it.
Kasia · @dev.random.creations makes porcelain and stoneware for everyday use — mugs, bowls, plates and light. Her kiln is in the basement, and the doodles from her school notebooks have stayed with her: she paints them on the pots.
Ania · @karpiania_art paints, makes ceramics, does calligraphy and draws colouring books. She’s the one who gives the calligraphy lessons here.
Over those few years we came to know a great many people who make beautiful things and show them a couple of times a year, for a weekend.
A friend once told Kasia her lamps belonged in a shop right in the middle of town. Except no such shop existed. When we saw the listing for a place to rent on Długie Ogrody — dead centre, and yet a little way from the worst of the tourist crush — we took it as a sign.
Since nobody had opened a shop like that, we opened one ourselves. We wanted it to work out well for everyone: the makers, us, and the people who walk in.
So that this work would have somewhere permanent to stand, and so you could walk in on a Wednesday afternoon and pick it up.
Today our own porcelain and paintings sit here alongside things made by people we know personally. Ania teaches calligraphy here, we run workshops — and we are both still learning something from our makers. And the first thing you’ll hear when you walk in is: you can touch everything.
What’s on the shelves
Almost everything on our shelves was made in Gdańsk and the area around it — our own porcelain and paintings among them. Now and then something comes from further afield in Poland: if we fall for someone’s work in Poznań or Kraków, we won’t think twice about writing to them. We chose all of it ourselves.
The shelves change with every delivery — we write them all up in the Journal: who made it, where, from what, and what makes it worth the shelf.
Do you make things by hand and want to show them here? Have a look at the Makers page.
Where to find us
Długie Ogrody 6A, Gdańsk. Opening hours, directions and contact details are on the Visit us page.