More than 100 artists and makers are preparing for exciting exhibitions and studio events in November and December as Oxfordshire Artweeks presents its ‘runaway’ Christmas Season, eight weeks of pop-up exhibitions and Christmas Fairs across the county. A selection of the county’s painters and photographers, glass workers, metal sculptors, wood turners, stone carvers, jewellers, print makers and textile artists will be presenting seasonally-inspired art and crafts to the public for free, in a range of interesting venues and they’re the perfect places to pick up original locally-crafted gifts for under the Christmas tree.

Among the unique offerings on show, you’ll find chameleon jugs that bring a character from tropical Madagascar to your table; a canal-side alchemy of textile art in Banbury, a celebration of the acclaimed traditional Gifford’s Circus in Jericho and an exhibition of Arctic art to make you shiver in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Escape inclement windy and wet weather with Elaine Allender’s ‘Summer in Winter’, make a red nosed reindeer in Long Wittenham or choose handcrafted wooden chairs for the fire-side in Milton Common. And then when you’re ready to wrap, Harwell’s Robert Strange has reproduced that evocative sea of scrumpled festive wrapping paper, with it’s cheery colour and pattern, in a drawing that is now printed as wrapping paper itself to celebrate the joy of present-opening!

With a gingerbread house in colourful glass in Holton, and delicate contemporary metal design in Stonesfield, hand-made earthenware and stoneware pottery for the festive dinner in Bicester, and hand-made chocolate in Aynho, there’ll be something to everyone’s taste in Artweeks Christmas!

Art aficionados and everyday enthusiasts alike are invited into dozens of houses and art spaces to delight in art and craft inspired by nature and local scenes, world travels and seasonal celebrations.

For more information and to plan your weekend, visit www.artweeks.org