About us
-
Hello!
-
We are a gallery and shop in Worthing selling Art, Design & Craft by independent makers, creators & suppliers.
-
-
Our shop is located at 28 Warwick Street in Worthing.
We are proud to be a small independent business, and have worked very hard to bring our curation of new and unusual products to the high street. There is always a warm & knowledgeable welcome waiting for you at Heavy Gretel!
-
Usually if you're visiting the shop, you'll be greeted by Hanna, although we do have Alex & Becky working here too.
-
We enjoy chatting to customers old & new, though we'll never give you the hard sell.
-
Heavy Gretel is the pseudonym of Hanna M, an Anglo-Austrian maker based in Worthing.
I have a love of folk art, heavy metal music, the great outdoors, story telling and cats. Heavy Gretel incorporates a nod to my identity and what the shop is about. I studied 3D Materials Practice at the University of Brighton and have worked as a prop-maker, jeweller and university lecturer. In 2019 my partner Bob and I renovated one of Worthing’s oldest buildings to launch our own businesses: Heavy Gretel, and his tattoo studio Noble Rose Tattoo.
-
We 🖤 making
Sign upWe love our community and want to help in building Worthing’s creative industries by offering workshops, talks and classes at the gallery shop.
-
Pre-pandemic we ran jewellery-making workshops at the shop. Now that Covid-19 is a bit more manageable we will start these up again soon.
-
Sign up to our mailing list to stay in the know about our plans for the future. If you are interested in hosting an event at the shop, please get in contact! We'd love to hear from you.
-
-
What kind of products does Heavy Gretel sell?
Shop nowWe stock carefully selected work, with emphasis on hand-making and sustainability. We represent our favourite contemporary jewellery, ceramics, textiles, prints, cards, plants, home-wares and interior decorations.
We love colour, pattern, texture, narrative & FUN!
-
Our aim is to promote the work of independent creatives, championing their skills through regularly changing and thoughtfully curated displays, telling the stories of objects, highlighting the power of making.
We have cultivated great working relationships with our 50+ UK-based suppliers, many of whom are based in Sussex. We love the excitement of discovering new products and bringing these to our customers. We believe passionately in the power of making, the importance of telling the stories of the makers, knowing the costs - environmental and labour - that go into the work we stock.
Small batch, not mass produced, ethically made.
-
We aren't about over-consumption
Heavy Gretel is trying to encourage a slightly more conscious form of consumerism, not buying things for the sake of it. All the items in our shop have a low carbon footprint and the people who make the items are getting paid properly.
-
Buy once, love forever
Words like ethical and sustainable get used a lot, but we know that our shop is both those things because of all the research and care we put into choosing items. We love being able to do this as a truly independent high street shop.
