Allowing creativity to flourish: how we support individual artists

When you think of Arts Council England and how it supports arts and culture, it’s probably

the National portfolio organisations (there are 696 of them!) that receive regular funding that

come to mind – particularly the big flagship organisations like the National Theatre. But a vital

part of our work also involves supporting individual artists working in all spheres.

We do this either directly through our funding programmes such as Grants for the arts or by

investing in organisations and initiatives that help artists establish themselves and develop

their work.

We know that the North is a place where artists want to train, live, work and make a career.

Here we describe just a few of the people we have helped to fulfil these ambitions, and how.

How our investment directly helps individual artists

Sculptors

• Our National Lottery-funded programme, Grants for the arts, awards funding to individual

artists for activities carried out over a set period. The West Yorkshire-based ceramicist James

Oughtibridge received support for the production of a new body of work in 2010. Since

then, he has gone from strength to strength, producing his trademark flowing sculptures in

his studio in West Yorkshire. A recent year-long private sponsorship has enabled him to

devote himself full-time to his ceramic art. His work was exhibited in April at Ceramic Art

London 2015 – the major international showcase for ceramics.

A sculpture by James Oughtibridge. Credit: James Oughtibridge

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• A sculpture of a very different kind was the result of £9,500 Grant for the arts award to the

artist and maker duo Sagar and Campbell. In 2012/13, with the help of our funding, they

created a 2.5 metres high Chandelier of Lost Earrings made from thousands of donated

earrings. Some of these came from the staff and patients at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester,

where the work was first exhibited.

Our investment made a huge difference to the careers of these two artists. Lauren Sagar

said: “Grants for the arts funding helped us show that we could create large, quality

artworks that have a substantial appeal and increase participation from audiences. It gave us

the time we needed to make the sculpture and confidence to those we requested support

from for the project.”

Dancers

• Company Chameleon is another North success story nurtured by Arts Council funding. Artistic

directors Anthony Missen and Kevin Edward Turner were originally from Manchester, and

trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. They spent their early careers

working with top dance companies and teaching in major contemporary dance institutions

elsewhere in the UK and abroad. In 2007 they achieved their dream of a return to Manchester

The chandelier at St Mary’s Hospital. Credit: Helen Kitchen

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to found Company Chameleon. Their venture received recognition in 2012 when they were

awarded regular Arts Council funding for the first time. As Anthony Missen explained on

learning that their National portfolio organisation status had been extended to 2015, “It’s

a hugely exciting, rewarding moment for us. Kevin and I only formed Company Chameleon

seven years ago and to have our work recognised in this way, to have an opportunity to

make plans for the next few years with the support of the Arts Council, is just fantastic.”

His co-founder Kevin Edward Turner added “It’s brilliant to know we can continue to

develop our performance and educational work, to grow and perhaps take those chances

that we’ve been thinking about over the last year or so.”

Get a taste of Chameleon’s work in this promo video for Beauty of the Beast.

• Robby Graham is another dancer who has been able to establish his own company with a

little help from the Arts Council. Without any formal dance training, Robby developed his

skills via Bad Taste Cru, the pioneering UK Hip Hop Theatre company. In 2012-13 he was

commissioned to create a new outdoor piece, Faust, by Without Walls, a Manchester-based

Street Art Consortium which we support via Grants for the arts and the Strategic touring

programme. Critical acclaim for Faust’s national tour generated considerable interest and

direct funding to Robby via Grants for the arts for 2014-15 enabled him to re-rehearse the

work with a new cast. Faust is now touring internationally on a commercial basis, performed

by Robby’s own company, Southpaw Dance. Based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the company’s

plans for 2015 include Rush, a mass movement spectacle for audiences in South Shields.

Get a feel for Faust – watch this video.

Writers

• 22-year-old poet Matt Miller is one of three winners of The Verb New Voices (VNV)

Competition, an initiative created by Arts Council England and BBC Radio 3, searching

for talented Northern writers. His prize included mentoring from the BBC and partner

organisations, a place on an Arvon course on writing for radio, and a special commission

to create a piece of work for The Verb, which he got to perform at Radio 3’s Free Thinking

Festival at Sage Gateshead in Autumn 2014. River Fragments – the end result of his

commission – was inspired by growing up beside the River Tyne.

Now Matt has created a piece of one man theatre with dramaturgical support from Peader

Kirk and Matt Fenton as part of the VNV development scheme. He says: “Welcome to Ryton

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incorporates elements of poetry, music and story-telling to recount stories from my own

adolescence, with the hope that it will allow audiences to reflect on their own experiences of

growing up. It draws on similar themes to River Fragments but is not directly related to it.”

Read about Matt’s experiences on the Arvon course here.

• The Arts Council enables individual voices

to be heard through its regular funding of

world-class poetry publishers like Carcanet.

In 2012 Carcanet published Otherwise

Unchanged, a debut collection from

Lancashire-based poet Owen Lowery. The

poems are the quite extraordinary result of

Owen’s very challenging life journey. A

talented judo competitor who had won

several major titles by the age of 18, a

serious spinal injury brought that career to

a close in 1989, leaving him paralysed from

his shoulders down. Owen felt that poetry

could play a part in helping him to deal with the situation ‘as well as providing a means of

escaping it for a time, or for the timelessness of a poem’. Learn more about the remarkable

story of how his writing and studying led to him becoming a published poet here and here.

In 2014 we awarded Owen a grant via Unlimited, the fund that celebrates the work of deaf

and disabled artists, to support a reading tour of Otherwise Unchanged. The tour began at

the Southbank Centre in London. There are still readings to come in 2015, one of them in

the North at the Arvon Centre at Lumb Bank on 3 June. Owen’s second collection of poems,

Rego Retold was published in January 2015.

• Another publisher is Comma Press. Based in Manchester, it pours its efforts into promoting

new fiction and poetry, particularly in the form of short stories. Two recent developments

illustrate the difference the work of organisations like this small, committed publisher can

make to the lives of the writers it publishes.

The Book of Gaza was one of the first books Comma published under its translation

imprint, which brings foreign writers into the British market. The publisher has found itself

in the unique position of acting as a conduit for eye-witness, often harrowing, accounts

Poet Owen Lowery.

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from the heart of Gaza to reach Western media. This development culminated in three

major articles by Atef Abu Saif, the book’s publisher, appearing in The Guardian, The Sunday

Times, and in the New York Times.

Ra Page, the founder and editorial manager of Comma Press, makes the point that it was

through the support of the Arts Council for Comma’s translation input that he was able to

connect with these writers in the first place, allowing him to ‘help in a process that, in some

small way, humanises the news stories and enables readers around the world to connect

with normal, non-political Gazans.’

Listen to Atef Abu Saif discussing Gazan literature and The Book of Gaza.

Comma also set the Iraqi author Hassan Blasim on a path that led to a collection of his short

stories – The Corpse Exhibition – being chosen by Publishers Weekly, the main US trade

magazine, as one of their top ten books of 2014. It was Comma’s translation imprint that

first published two sets of his stories – The Madman of Freedom Square and The Iraqi Christ.

These were sold to Penguin for an amalgamated American edition which became The

Corpse Exhibition. As Ra Page says: “Some feat for a book that little old Comma created.”

• The Writing Squad is an independent organisation working in partnership with Sheffield

Hallam University and National portfolio organisations the Manchester Literature Festival

and New Writing North. It operates a programme for emerging young writers in the north

of England which has, since 2001, worked with 65 writers; and has allowed for

collaboration between artists, who together develop projects initiated by the squad as a

whole. On each two-year squad programme, around 30 writers work with each other and

with professional tutors. The organisation offers continued support after that, helping

writers make their way in the profession. It also acts as a support network for a burgeoning

community of emerging writers and producers in the north of England

Visual artists and designers

Chrysalis Arts, a National portfolio organisation, has over the years helped dozens of

individual practitioners through their Art Connections project, providing marketing,

information, professional development and retail and other opportunities for visual artists

based in York and North Yorkshire. Andrew Cheetham, a painter based in Scarborough, is

among those more than happy with the help he was given when he was selected for a

residency in Rosedale on the North York Moors, “I received excellent support from Art

Connections – practical advice, liaison support with the host organisation, arranging mentor

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support, financial and promotional assistance with the exhibition. I felt confident I had their

full support as artist in residence.”

See some of Andrew’s Rosedale pictures here.

Here are some more organisations and initiatives we support that help visual artists fulfil

their potential:

• The ‘Artists’ City’ project at Liverpool School of Art and Design (LSAD) is designed to nurture

emerging artists from a range of disciplines to further strengthen Liverpool’s creative

communities. With our support and close partnerships with Liverpool’s public-facing

organisations much has been achieved already. For example, a partnership with The Royal

Standard, an artist-led gallery, studios and social workspace, has meant that artists in the

early stages of their career have been provided with studio space and encouraged to

connect to other organisations in the city

• The Vane gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, directed by Paul Stone and Christopher Yeats,

represents the work of a number of artists from across the UK and abroad. Similarly, the

Workplace Gallery, run by artists Paul Moss and Miles Thurlow in Gateshead, represents a

Andrew Cheetham during his residency in Rosedale on the North York Moors. Credit: Porl Medlock

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portfolio of emerging and established artists through the gallery programme, curatorial

projects and international art fairs

• The International 3, based in Salford and run by directors Paulette Terry Brien and Laurence

Lane, works with emerging and established artists, independent curators, galleries and

organisations to produce a year round programme of new commissions, solo shows, group

exhibitions and events both on and off-site. The International 3 also works with a core

group of artists, exhibiting and selling their work at national and international art fairs

• The Manchester Contemporary, which is co-ordinated by the International 3, gives a

platform every year to emerging galleries and their artists. It is hugely popular with serious

collectors and the public alike, as this video shows. In 2015 the Manchester Contemporary

returns for the fifth consecutive year, running from 24-27 September in a new home in the

iconic Old Granada Studios. The Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (GNCCF) takes

place at the same venue a few weeks later (8-11 October). The GNCCF attracts over 6,000

visitors annually and provides a great shop window for designer-makers. Watch this video to

get a feel for the event

• Supported through our National portfolio funding, East Street Arts is a contemporary arts

organisation based in Leeds that focuses on the development of artists through events and

professional development. It also supports artists and creative industries nationally, offering

specific development support to individuals and emerging companies in accessing the

marketplace, developing new entrepreneurial approaches, bridging arts and creative

business practices and the set up and management of new artist-led spaces. A rolling

programme of long term support to ‘incubate’ and launch emerging companies in the visual

arts has been established and recent companies that have been supported include Compass

Live Art and Invisible Flock

• One of the challenges artists face is how to increase their sustainable income. We have

supported Yorkshire Visual Arts Network (YVAN) to deliver a Cultural Entrepreneurship

Programme (CEP) providing business planning, mentoring and support to emergent or

established cultural entrepreneurs. For example Patrick Murphy of Made North initiated and

delivered a Northern craft and design festival and the new Made North showcase gallery in

Sheffield shows the contemporary designs, materials, skills and products of Northern

individual designer/makers

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• The Arts Council’s Artists International Development Fund supports artists to develop new

artistic international connections, make new work and make contact with a new market.

Yorkshire based anthropologist and photographer, Alinka Echeverria Samperio was

supported to undertake a six week residency at the NIROX Foundation in Johannesburg,

South Africa. Alinka developed a new series entitled Deep Blindness and the foundation

helped to facilitate significant international connections in South Africa. The fund also

helped Christopher Daniels, a North West based artist, to engage with the Transnational

Dialogues programme in China. The project has led to exhibitions in Rome and at the

Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester; and both artists have seen a growth in

curatorial interest and engagement in their work since the awards were made

• We have recently recognised Castlefield Gallery’s success in putting artists’ development at

its core by welcoming it as a new entrant to our portfolio for 2015-18. Alison Clark,

Director, North, Arts Council England explained:

“In a challenging funding environment we’re pleased that we were able to support

Castlefield Gallery. They’re a strong and resilient organisation that plays a vital role in

supporting artists. They’re at the heart of the visual arts ecology in Greater Manchester,

helping develop its huge potential as a major centre for artists outside London.”

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Supporting organisations and initiatives that benefit individual artists

a-n The Artists Information Company, one of our National portfolio organisations, is the

foremost national information resource for individual artists. It has over 19,000 members and

identifies and explores issues that impact on artists’ practice as well as focusing on

conversations around the critical and professional environment for the visual arts.

Arts Council’s Own Art scheme celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. It helps buyers to start

their own collection by spreading the cost of a purchase over 10 months with an interest free

loan thereby benefiting the individual artists. Over 250 galleries are involved in the scheme.

Multi media organisations

• Islington Mill in Salford provides workspace for the creative industries, housing more than

50 creative entrepreneurs ranging from fashion designers to welders, plus a gallery space. It

also hosts exhibitions and concerts. In the latest round of our capital funding we awarded

the Mill nearly £1 million towards improvements in its main building that will underpin its

distinctive creative ecology, where diverse artists and artforms combine in the delivery of a

contemporary programme, attracting participants from across the world. The major building

works will include a brand new Artist-in-Residence facility – new work and living spaces that

will enable up to 20 artists to be accommodated at the Mill at any one time, and a new

production and showcase space

• Hoot Creative Arts is a specialist arts and health organisation based in Huddersfield, West

Yorkshire, working creatively with adults with mental health needs, and older people with

dementia. Their work – we support them as a National portfolio organisation – uses art and

creative approaches to improve physical and mental wellbeing. Regular activities on offer

include singing, dancing, visual arts and creative writing. One of its latest ventures on a

grand scale, involving all these media and more, is Going Sane – an exploration of what is

meant by sanity. Going Sane will culminate in a big public festival in Kirklees in 2016. Sally

Barker, Project Manager and Creative Lead Artist for Going Sane explained: ‘We really want

to elevate this discussion about sanity and madness and open it up to the public.’

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• Skimstone Arts is a multidisciplinary arts organisation based in Newcastle. It produces

collaborative, socially engaging artworks, performances and exhibitions, regionally,

nationally and internationally. In 2013 a Grants for the arts award for organisational

development enabled Claire Webster Saaremets to examine and develop her role there

as its artistic director, with the aid of a mentor and evaluator. “Having the time and space

to reflect on the quality of our arts practice, method and ethos has made a huge difference.’

While Skimstone Arts does do important work with elderly people, it is perhaps particularly

recognised for helping young people to fulfil their creative potential. What is special about

its approach is the way it gives equal weight to the work of the two different groups that

collaborate in its studio setting: the Ensemble, made up of professional actors, audio and

visual artists, photographers, live performers, film makers and composers; and the Young

Artist Collective, an ever-growing and dynamic group committed to exploring artistic

practice in film, music, performance and photography. The national Arts Award, which

Skimstone Arts has pioneered since 2007, is embedded in all its work and plays an

important role in enabling the young people to think of themselves as artists.

You can catch Skimstone Arts’ latest large-scale project, A Natural Anthem, at the Discovery

Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. More information can be found here.

Skimstone arts – a performance of Natural Anthem at Discovery Museum Dec 2014. Credit: Louise Taylor

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Musicians

• Merseyside Arts Foundation is an independent development organisation supporting

engagement in the arts and creative industry. The foundation works both with young

people who exhibit significant talent and potential and with more established artists

demonstrating artistic excellence, using a variety of approaches which are always owned

and delivered by the artists involved.

In September 2013, with funding from Arts Council England, the foundation was able to

launch a ground-breaking music development programme which provided invaluable expert

music industry advice and studio sessions to 30 emerging early-to-mid-career bands and

solo artists based in Merseyside.

• On the other side of the Pennines, we also support Higher Rhythm, the award-winning

music and media organisation based in Doncaster. The many facilities it offers to local

musicians and other artists include a community radio station, recording studio, plus music

Stuart McCallum and the Real String. Credit: Porl Medlock

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publishing and events organisation businesses.

Higher Rhythm is also the Music Industry Development Agency for Yorkshire. Through Music

Industry Yorkshire, the region’s music business support network, Higher Rhythm and its

partners provide support for musical enterprises and artists through events, seminars, advice

and networking opportunities.

See the Beaus and other musicians fostered by Higher Rhythm in action here.

• Jazz North aims to increase the profile of contemporary jazz in the region by developing

opportunities for artists and by building audiences through collective partnership working.

Its main method is the Northern Line scheme. Since launching the scheme in 2013 Northern

Line artists have given over 250 performances for 110 promoters including eight jazz

festivals and three rural tours. Artists can take one booking outside of the North, and these

have included bookings at London Jazz Festival, St Ives Jazz Club (last jazz club before New

York) and Beijing, China. Visit the website to learn just how the scheme is welcomed by

musicians and promoters alike. The scheme is now recruiting its third set of artists and in

April this year Jazz North became an Arts Council National portfolio organisation.

Creative media

• Jemma Tanswell and Rachel Rogers are directors of Reform Radio Community Interest

Company, a shared, digital arts platform working mainly with 18-30 year olds who are not

in employment, education or training. With our financial support through Grants for the

arts and practical help via Contact Theatre’s Future Fires programme (which helps young

emerging artists to plan and deliver their own community arts outreach projects) Jemma and

Rachel have been able to develop Harry, a new radio sitcom, for their station.

Harry follows the trials and tribulations of a young man trying to find work in a challenging

economic climate. The six-part series has been written by a group of unemployed 18-30

year olds working alongside award-winning creative writer Louise Wallwein and informing

the story line with their own experiences of unemployment. Listen to Harry.

Theatre

• Theatre in the Mill, a National portfolio organisation based in the University of Bradford, has

a range of programmes that develop emerging artists. Every year it offers six £5,000 cash

commissions in a deal that includes artistic, marketing and technical support. Head of Arts

and Artistic Director Iain Bloomfield explains their approach: ‘It is always our intention to

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allow audiences to take a formative role in the development of new work and we

encourage our commissioned and other artists to think in that way. In fact, we won’t

commission unless they are happy with an ‘open’ model of making their work.’

Theatre in the Mill’s Open Space programme offers a week long residence at the venue for

artists to explore new ideas with artistic mentoring. Participants – of whom there are at least

six but usually 10 or more a year – have the opportunity to show at the end of their

residency, but there is no compulsion.

• National portfolio organisation West Yorkshire Playhouse (WYP) runs Furnace, an ongoing

new work development programme. This gives emerging artists, or those in mid-career, the

opportunity to test out new projects and realise ambitious ideas. Selected artists receive

producing and production support, mentoring, rehearsal space, a seed commission and

support with fund-raising. The process culminates in a showcasing of the new work at a

Furnace weekend, and with advice and support in terms of taking the work further.

• Slung Low, the ‘company that makes adventures for audiences outside of conventional

theatre spaces’ was in fact one of the first organisations to be selected for the WYP Furnace

scheme when it was launched in 2011. Now an National portfolio organisation, with the

Hub in Holbeck as its home, it has its own mission to share resources with artists ‘making

and performing on the M62’. This includes not only making the Hub available as a

performance space for visiting companies but also sharing the organisation’s van and

equipment – and not necessarily on a money basis either. It promotes a culture of trading

resources and ideas as opposed to cash. This is in response both to an identified need by

artists to have access to such resources and also to the current economic climate which

restricts this. The Arts Council awarded Slung Low capital funding of £100,816 in 2014 for

improvements at The Hub

• The National Rural Touring Forum, a National portfolio organisation, does important work to

engage individual artists and companies in rural touring. For example, in 2014 NRTF worked

together with PANDA (the performing arts network and development agency) and a

northern consortium of rural touring networks to develop and extend a pitching and

mentoring project across the North. Twenty eight companies experienced in touring but

new to rural touring applied for the opportunity to pitch an existing performance or a

developing project to a panel of rural touring scheme managers and promoters. Eight acts

were selected to make their pitch at a Rural Touring Pitching Day in March 2014. The

benefits for those selected included mentoring from a rural touring manager or promoter,

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potential inclusion in future rural venue programmes and ongoing support, advice and

training from PANDA. Even those not chosen to pitch benefited from follow-up and

feedback.

One of the successful pitchers, the poet, playwright and performance artist Chanje Kunda,

was subsequently invited to perform at NRTF’s Rural Touring Showcase Festival, New

Directions, where she also discussed her work with rural touring schemes and promoters

across the country. View the trailer for Chanje Kunda’s performance art piece Amsterdam,

which toured the UK at the end of 2014 with our support

Dance

• Ballet Lorent, one of the dance companies we support as National portfolio organisations, is

committed to providing opportunities for dancers, choreographers and administrators to be

able to develop their careers in the north east. Its dancers come from diverse backgrounds:

the current company includes two B-Boy-trained dancers plus performers from Poland,

Spain and Australia, as well as several trained at the Northern School of Contemporary

Dance. See them in action in The Night Ball, which celebrates the beauty and intimacy of

social dancing and is influenced by several movement styles from Breakdancing to

Quickstep.

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