My Maker Membership is all about creative growth – learning new things, looking at your own work in new ways, connecting and sharing with others and taking your creative practice forward. I have invited current Membership to share their work in a new online exhibition focussing on how they have grown creatively through the membership and the community of other makers. I wanted to offer members an opportunity to show their work (some have not exhibited or shared their work at all before), to have a deadline to finish a new piece and to see what the others in the group have been working on. I am so pleased and proud to present a very eclectic but highly creative and thoughtful group of works. Have a look at the exhibition here.
The online exhibition of 13 members work, plus a group project and one of my new pieces of work, is available now until the end of April 2023.
If you would like to boost your creative growth through this group and the support I offer, membership is open to all makers. You can find out more about Membership here.
If you are looking for a creative community with ongoing support and resources to challenge your thinking and take your creative practice further, have a look at my Maker Membership. It’s a monthly rolling membership that you can join any time. I create workbooks, blog posts and videos about all kinds of things including research, creative development and reflection. There’s also a lively community who share their work and their thoughts via the members chat and we meet monthly on Zoom for a group mentoring session which is always really inspiring and encouraging. It’s £25 per month to join with no minimum term. Find out more here.
My review of the year through the brilliant people I’ve worked with.
I’ve been thinking about lots of different ideas or lenses to review of 2022. I don’t want to just write a list of things that I have done, or even to list the things I have made. Celebrating success is important but also I don’t want to be one of those people who just proclaims about how well they have done as that’s neither realistic or inspiring for anyone else. Nor do I want to be someone who focusses on the negatives, because however positive a spin I put on it, it’s just gloomy and I don’t like to dwell. I have made a list of failures and successes for my own private contemplation but I am not going to subject you to them!
In order to work out what angle to use to review my year, I turned to my coaching group for their thoughts. The simple fact that I chose to discuss it with other people gave me the answer – I should review the year through the lens of the brilliant people I have worked with!
Collaboration and working with other people has been a really vital part of my work for years, although it’s only fairly recently that I’ve noticed and celebrated that. The 2020 lockdown was of course a reminder to me of just how much I enjoy and get energy from creative work with others, alongside my own solitary studio practice. I was used to working with groups, spending time in other artists studios, giving talks, going to events, teaching and mentoring in person. I found the lack of conversation and connection around creative practice really hard. I was lucky in that I had ongoing and new projects that enabled me to work with other people remotely in 2020 (on WebinArt and on Textiles in Lockdown) which really made a huge difference to how I felt and what new work I could created. I pursued artist mentoring via Zoom which has become a major part of my work and something that I love, and eventually this also led to my Maker Membership where I get to work with lots of different people and support their creative practice over a long period. I also first created Gentle Goal Setting in the autumn of 2020 and ran it for the first time that winter. (It’s now revitalised into Find Your Focus which is starting this week and open for the whole of January). One of the most important goals I set for myself for 2021 was to connect and collaborate, and it has continued to be one of my guiding lights in how to develop my work.
Once I started gathering the people I’ve worked with this year, I realised it is potentially quite huge, so this is actually a snapshot of the connections and collaborations of the year rather than a detailed list, and I hope one that will be interesting for you to connect with too.
Podcast & Making Meaning Live Gathering
The most exciting bringing-together of people that I’ve done in a long time was Making Meaning Live which ran online in July and involved three days of presentations and conversations between the artists and creatives and an audience of about 100 people from around the world in each session. It was utterly exhausting and completely wonderful. The recordings of the sessions are still available for free and there are three podcast episodes with edited highlights and the full programme here.
This year I’ve produced the second series of Making Meaning Podcast which has been a joy to make and I’ve had the pleasure of conversations with Helen Hallows, Sharon Adams, Claire Wellesley-Smith, Alice Fox, Michaela McMillan, Mandeep Dhadialla and Gillian Lee Smith, as well as a solo episode, one about my Maker Membership and three highlight shows from Making Meaning Live. Making the podcast is fantastic, I really do love getting to talk to brilliant, creative people about what they do and why they do it. The admin is less enjoyable, but really it’s worth it to have these chats and to share them with so many – which brings me on to podcast listeners as another group of people I have connected with. Podcast audience numbers this year has exceeded all expectations. There have been over 100,000 downloads this year and some episodes have hit 8000 downloads. This is really incredible and I am so honoured that this small, low-budget podcast is having such a great impact. I will be chasing for donations to make another series very soon so I hope many of those listeners will be able to contribute to making more episodes this year as I have some great people lined up.
Groups
I’m writing this during one of my regular Tuesday co-working groups with three freelance friends, Emma King, Claire Wellesley-Smith and Wendy Ward (all of whom have appeared on my Making Meaning Podcast in one form or another). I think I started this in 2021 but whenever it was, it has worked out brilliantly. We meet on Zoom, have a chat and then quietly on our own projects for 30-40 minute bursts before breaking for more chat and repeat. Sometimes it’s more chat than work, but we all acknowledge how important it is to have space to talk about issues in freelancing – problematic employers, funding issues and even stuff in our personal lives which impact our ability to do the work we love. The group has been so valuable to me, both in terms of having work buddies to chat to and the accountability of co-working time so I get stuff done! I’ve made a shift this year so the sessions are focussing on writing, so here I am doing the thing, on the first day back to work. That’s the power of connecting and working with others.
I also have a great mini group of other artist mentors & coaches with Melody Vaughan and Sharon Adams. This was Melody’s innovation, because she recognised how challenging it can be to both support others and to run a business supporting others and that sharing with others who really understand both aspects is vital. We meet roughly quarterly and talk about all kinds of practical issues, new offers we are thinking about, bounce around problems and ideas and also explore some of the bigger picture stuff about supporting others and the things we would like to learn and develop.
Sharon is also a member of another group which started working together early this year. At the end of 2021 I applied for funding called Four Nations which aims to bring together partners from the four UK nations and others from overseas. I created a project of artists coming together to talk about artist support and also to be that mutual support group for each other. We meet online across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Sweden and The Netherlands and decided to call our project Artist Support Recipes, based on the idea of recipe books which bring ingredients and methods together. The group includes Sharon Adams, Gillian McFarland, Collette Rayner and Liz Nilsson. It’s turned into a supportive and fun collective of brilliant women with great ideas and innovations about how we can be supported as artists, how we can offer support to others and how we think organisations should go about supporting artists. We have also become highly expert in creating food & cooking-related metaphors for artist support! The funding for this project comes to an end soon but the learning and the connections will undoubtedly continue and we hope to offer our findings to organisations and others who want to do better in supporting artists. Working with this group is one of the many things that has helped to cement my decision to focus on supporting artists as my main freelance / consultancy work for this year and beyond.
I also have the pleasure of monthly chats with my European business friends: coach Elin Lööw, artist Gesche Santen and jeweller Daphne van ver Meulen about business and personal development. We met through a group programme in 2020 and have kept in touch since, and share a lot of the ups and downs of running a business and trying to fit in a life around it. These connections are so valuable and beneficial that I am even prepared to meet at 8am !
Working with artists
I made a decision in 2021 that I needed to be working with other artists on my various projects both to share the load and to have a creative collaboration to make it all more fun. I invited Mandeep Dhadialla to work with me on Woodgate Wellbeing last winter and then included her in my funding application for Community Spirit in the Spring / Summer. We had a great time collaborating on this project and then managed to follow it almost immediately with another one in the late summer. I supported Mandeep’s project with ArtReach in project producer role, as well as running one workshop. It was a really enjoyable collaboration and we are looking at other similar partnerships for this year. I’ve written about the project here. All of these projects have really made me think about who I work with an on what basis. Supporting artists with projects is something I really enjoy so I am formalising that work now – so if you need a producer to support an artist-led project, please do get in touch.
I’ve also had the pleasure of spending time in person with Kathryn Parsons this year, as well as seeing her new moths work on display. We had a mini retreat together in the summer to talk about art and landscape and making a living out of a research-led practice. We are planning another retreat before too long to continue to cook up ideas for another artists group (it seems that I cannot have enough!).
I’ve also been co-mentoring with Gillian McFarland, who I collaborate with a lot, and we took a really inspiring week’s retreat in the autumn, which you can read about here. Conversations with other artists who get what I do are worth their weight in gold (if you can weigh a conversation?!) and I am really lucky to have so many creative friends to talk to.
Other Peopleand connections
Alongside many brilliant artists, I’ve also had the pleasure of working with other professionals this year, firstly at the start of the year, Louise Jones-Williams, Director of Llantarnam Grange where I showed my Criminal Quilts exhibition for the last time in the Spring. Louise has been fantastically supportive of my work for a number of years and it is always a pleasure to spend time with her. We had a live-streamed conversation for the exhibition launch in February and then in March we recorded in person for my Making Meaning Podcast which you can listen to here.
In the Spring I also worked with Josslyn and Evelyn of Peace of Green on the Woodgate Wellbeing project and we’ve been talking about doing more together in the local countryside in the coming year, which will be great. I also got to have a long chat with Jemma Bagley and see the Loughborough Wellbeing Centre which is really inspiring and another place I hope to work with before too long. I also had some great, supportive and inspiring connections with volunteers, library and venue staff and volunteer co-ordinators during my Community Spirit project in the summer. It’s a shame that was only a short project as I made some really positive connections, but that’s often how things work in the community arts field. I’ve reflected on my volunteering experience here.
I also did a great bit of research and facilitation with ArtQuest earlier this Spring, working with a group to discuss ideas about improving the equity of open call artist opportunities. I loved doing this work and working with ArtQuest and the experts they brought into the discussions, and it’s really inspired me focus on more artist support consultancy work.
I didn’t end up working with Clore Leadership this year, as I wasn’t selected for their visual arts fellowship, one of the disappointments of the year for me, although I was pleased to get through to interview. Instead I decided to work with the fantastic coach Sarah Fox to help me work out the next steps I want take in my consultant / producer / freelancer work. I started Sarah’s Lasting Impact programme in September and it’s been fantastic. With her support, and the others in the group, I have started writing more about things that matter to me and sharing my thoughts more widely. I’ve written this autumn about textiles and having something to say (which seems to have created a project!) and the start of a series about artists and money which I will continue this year. I’ve also really clarified the kind of consultancy work I want to do in the future and started making steps towards making this happen.
And last, but not at all least, I have the pleasure all year round to work with the wonderful humans in my Maker Membership, some of whom appear in podcast episodes 17 and 24. We’ve had some great online sessions over the year as well as a small group of stitchers getting together in the spring to create work and have conversations about our feelings about the invasion of Ukraine. The group continues to be a wonderful community and such a great space to connect and share. I am so happy that I created this space and that it supports so many in their creative journey.
If you would like to spend some time reviewing your year and thinking about what you really want to do next, my Find Your Focus course is open now. The five week course begins with a holistic and mindful review of the year to help you plan what you want more of in the coming year. The course is open for the whole of January, with new lessons released each week. Find out more here.
Creating great projects is all about the preparation and behind the scenes work. As my Community Spirit project is coming to an end, I’m reflecting on all the work and unseen effort, creativity and chaos that goes on to make things like this look seamless. I started working on the funding application last summer when my house move got delayed again and I suddenly had 2 weeks with not much in the diary. But the idea of the project was even longer ago than that. While I was deep in the middle of volunteering for the foodbank in 2020 I went for a walk in the park (because I couldn’t go any further) and was thinking about just how vital and impactful volunteering was proving to be. And I wanted something to show for it. Something that others could see and that would really shine a light on the amazing work done by volunteers. It took 12 months more before I turned it into a funding application and then it took three attempts to get the funding, taking me through to the very end of 2021. It was hard to write the application and even harder to revise and change it and keep the energy and enthusiasm needed to get it finally funded.
Luckily, one of the changes I made to the project in the re-submitting stage was to bring in an associate artist. I realised that I need to collaborate, to work with others and have a team to work with. I invited Mandeep Dhadialla to work with me on this because of her experience in running community workshops. In fact originally I thought she would be doing all of the workshops although it really didn’t work out like that!
Our first joint job was to create the concept for the artwork. I love coming up with different ideas for making projects where different people can collaborate and work towards a finished piece. The original application says that we’d make a quilt but I knew from the start that I actually wanted to do something different. I love a community quilt project but there are a lot of them around and I always want to take the least obvious route in a creative project.
Project colour palette
The other element in this project was that I was working with Mandeep not just by myself and I soon realised that the quilt idea wouldn’t work with Mandeep’s print on paper specialism. So I wanted to find a different way of working that would allow paper and textile to be used and I realised that it would also be great if the pieces made could be returned to the participants rather than produce one large piece which would then need a home.
One of the inspirations was Alinah Azadeh’s Medals for Everyday Courage, shared by Craftspace. I loved the idea of medals or tokens to celebrate the work volunteers had done. But I didn’t want to copy this idea for my own project, I needed my own concept. We bounced around a lot of ideas and eventually rosettes came out top. It worked perfectly – could be made in textile or paper, there’s space for words and images and they would make great mementoes of volunteering for makers to give as gifts or to keep for themselves.
We both worked on creative concepts that would be easy to make in workshops and at home with materials kits and put together all the stuff required and made prototypes.
I wrote instructions and printed booklets with photos to go with make-at-home kits while Mandeep prepared printed and hand drawn papers for the kits and workshops. And then we got started. Over 50 rosettes were made and contributed to the project over the summer and we then had to work out how to bring them together and display them in a way which allowed us to move it around easily and return the rosettes to their makers after the tour ended.
After a lot of research and experimenting, I decided to make a simple quilt for the pieces to attach to and went on the hunt for a suitable display stand which would work. I had a lovely time researching quilt displays but in the end opted for coat rack / open wardrobe style stand. The one I picked was designed to move easily and folds up for transport. It has a large box attached at the bottom which is not ideal in some ways but does mean I can store the packaging for the display all in the base and leave it at the venue.
So then I made the quilt to go on the stand, for the rosettes to attach to. That was a lot harder than I hoped, as I was running out of time and had to short cut to make a simpler version. I had intended to make a complex patterned patchwork but eventually realised that it would be impossible in the time I had left and also would be covered in rosettes so wouldn’t show anyway! So that rather lovely but wonky piece of patchwork is going to become my own artwork about volunteering – smaller scale and more visible as a standalone piece. Mandeep and I spent a day securing rosettes with extra stitching, backing, glue and other scaffolding to make sure they stood up to being moved and handled regularly.
Professional studio shot
One final inspection by my cat and it was ready to go on tour.
The showcase, along with the film and a booklet of my research is now on show in Loughborough at John Storer House. It’s there until 14th October and then has a couple of other venues in the county before it’s taken apart and the rosettes are returned to volunteers. You can also watch the film and download the booklet here. This is the last of a flurry of community projects I’ve been working on in 2021-22 but there will be more, in time. If you work for an organisation that would benefit from an artist-led project, please get in touch.
Creative Producer
Projects around making things happen and bringing together people, places and stories
I love working with people to explore places and stories. I create and deliver projects inspired by my three sources of joy: textiles, artists and heritage. I add in research, partnerships and funding to produce experiences around People, Places and Stories.
The experiences I create might be for artists, for textile-lovers, around heritage and stories, by, with and for communities.
Find out more about my Creative Producer work here.
My project celebrating the Stories of pandemic volunteering in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland is going on tour
I’ve been working on this project most of the year and even longer in the planning and development. It’s finally almost out in the world! Back in 2020 when volunteering to help run a local foodbank, I realised just how important volunteering was to me and other volunteers. We felt useful and engaged and were making a real difference. I wanted to capture that energy and celebrate it and make sure that volunteers got a proper thank you for their incredible work.
Eventually I turned this into a funding application and created Community Spirit of Leicestershire with support from Arts Council England and Leicester city community funds.
From 5th September the resulting work, created by volunteers, will be shown in libraries and community centres as well as the foodbank where it all started for me. And you can also see the project film here.
There’s details of the tour venues here and a press release here.
I’ve worked with Mandeep Dhadialla as associate artist while I’ve been both lead artist and project producer (plus marketing, admin, funding, workshop-leader!). It’s been a real joy to see this come together and to be able to use a creative project to say THANK YOU to all volunteers for your amazing work.
Creative Producer
Projects around making things happen and bringing together people, places and stories
I love working with people to explore places and stories. I create and deliver projects inspired by my three sources of joy: textiles, artists and heritage. I add in research, partnerships and funding to produce experiences around People, Places and Stories.
The experiences I create might be for artists, for textile-lovers, around heritage and stories, by, with and for communities.
Find out more about my Creative Producer work here.
A couple of weeks ago Mandeep Dhadialla and I concluded our summer community project called Sanctuary Stories. I wrote a little about the project development here. The work made is now on show at Leicester Central Library until 31st August. Sanctuary Stories was part of the city-wide Journeys Festival run by ArtReach and we worked with participants from Roots Group who are all Leicester-based but from sanctuary-seeking backgrounds.
Mandeep created the project concept and ran most of the workshops while I worked on the behind-the-scenes project producer work. But delightfully, she also invited me to be part of the creative workshop side. The project focussed on print and book making exploring stories of nature, wellbeing and belonging. My part was to introduce slow stitch on the papers and books with the idea of a meditative stitch practice.
The previous week the group made collograph-style collages which Mandeep blind embossed onto heavy white paper to create beautiful textured, simple pieces. We stitched into these pieces and Mandeep later made them in to folded forms.
I created my samples around a theme I’m working on for myself on borders, boundaries, paths and journeys. The stitches represent a border, a path, containment and freedom. That’s where the research resonance of the title comes in – making the samples for this workshop created all kinds of connections with my own work. Talking to Mandeep about her work and the meanings behind this workshop programme also sparked ideas for both of us. She and I will be talking more about this in a podcast due out in mid-September. It was a real pleasure to work with this group and to collaborate with Mandeep on this project and the results are so lovely. I hope plenty of you will be able to see them in Leicester Library in the next week.
Creative Producer
Projects around making things happen and bringing together people, places and stories
I love working with people to explore places and stories. I create and deliver projects inspired by my three sources of joy: textiles, artists and heritage. I add in research, partnerships and funding to produce experiences around People, Places and Stories.
The experiences I create might be for artists, for textile-lovers, around heritage and stories, by, with and for communities.
Find out more about my Creative Producer work here.
I’m working on a new community project this summer in collaboration with Mandeep Dhadialla / Laughing Cactus Print Studio. Mandeep is doing most of the workshops including leading this one using print making and book construction, and I’m adding in some textile elements and stitch in future sessions.
Sanctuary Stories is a project for ArtReach, working with their Roots group for people from sanctuary-seeking backgrounds. Their work will be shown in Leicester Library as part of Journeys Festival in August.
The Roots group are local participants from around the world, who come together to learn new skills and engage in cultural activities throughout the year. The project, Sanctuary Stories, is all about inspiring conversations around stories of individuals from sanctuary seeking backgrounds, and their connection to community, home and environment.
Mandeep Dhadialla
In this project I’m more behind the scenes while Mandeep does most of the workshop side. The project concept was developed by her with project planning and support from me and I’m really enjoying this way of working. I’ve got a couple of decades of experience in running arts projects, exhibitions and engagement activities so it’s great to be able to collaborate and share with someone else. Mandeep is also working with me on Community Spirit project. I’m keen to do more of this kind of project management where I get to be creative and not just admin, and work with great groups on meaningful projects. I also worked for ArtReach a very long time ago on a great museum project so it’s good to be involved with one of their projects again.
I’d love to work on more community projects around my on practice and the themes that inspire me with local and regional groups. Please get in touch if you think this might work for your organisation. You can find out more about the kind of things I love to do here.
Creating art projects with and for communities is a huge part of my creative business. For years I’ve worked on projects to support creativity and wellbeing for those with limited access to the arts for various reasons. Recently I’ve been creating projects myself rather than just working for other people and one of those is the Woodgate Wellbeing project I’ve developed for the users of the foodbank I helped establish in 2020. I’ve brought together a group of local artists and practitioners to create activities and events that are creative, accessible and relaxing and which also link to the local area of the city. To make the activities as accessible as possible, I’ve put together this magazine with loads of activities and an accompanying materials box to go with it. Workshop activities start later this month too. I’m so excited about this getting this project launched and hopefully supporting people to have a bit more creativity and wellbeing in their lives.
The cover of Woodgate Wellbeing magazine is one of my Foodbank Stories embroideries. I created this project concept in early 2021 and applied for two different funds through the foodbank. The second was successful (Places Called Home fund from The National Lottery & IKEA). I have created the concept, commissioned the content and designed the magazine and kits. I’ve been supported in this project by Mandeep Dhadialla. She is also delivering one of the workshops for the project. Mandeep is also associate artist with my Community Spirit project.
I’d love to keep this project going and replicate it elsewhere. If you are interested in supporting creativity and wellbeing for underserved communities in a similar way, please get in touch.
Have you volunteered to help others during the pandemic in Leicester, Leicestershire or Rutland?
You’ve done amazing work over the last two years, supporting communities throughout the pandemic.
I am collecting stories and making an artwork to celebrate the incredible work of local people during the pandemic. The stories will become part of an artwork, also made by volunteers, to be showcased in the autumn. There will also be events during volunteers week in June.
It’s taken months and several funding applications to get off the ground, but I am pleased to say I have at last got my wellbeing project for foodbank users in Leicester up and running. I’ve been part of the foodbank / community hub volunteer team since early in lockdown last year, and I’ve had this dream of adding more than just food to what we can offer to support people. I wanted to use my community arts experience to create a programme of activities that support the wellbeing of people who are struggling with poverty, poor housing, insecurity, isolation and many other challenges brought on by or worsened by the pandemic. Volunteering during the pandemic really focussed me on trying to develop arts activities which really impact those who don’t have the privileges and access to the arts that I have.
I’ve now got a small pot of money for some consultation with foodbank users and to try a few different activities to see what people like & want. I’m also working with a local school who will help me create local history guides and walks and add their own touches to the wellbeing packs I plan to give out to those who sign up. Once the weather warms up, I will run some sessions in the foodbank too (it has no heating!) and involve local artists, writers and community practitioners to share their expertise too.
I only have 6 months of funding and I am already doing more than I am being paid for, but I have great ambitions to make this a long-term project and to support more people in the city, not just the foodbank users. I’m working with partners to find additional sources of funding and making use of my extensive funding application experience! It’s been such a great challenge to establish this new way of working and combining my volunteering / community work with paid project development work. I’m really excited to see where this goes and how it works with the community. If you would like to support the foodbank and the work we do, you can donate to our winter crowdfunder here. If you let me know I will ask for your donation to be put aside for the wellbeing work I’m doing.
Working on your own as a creative maker or artist is hard enough in normal times and it’s even more challenging this year, both financially and personally. Isolation and struggling alone is very real. It can be hard to connect with friends and make new ones when you aren’t doing exhibitions, shows, teaching or other events where we normally get together.
WebinArt Establish programme has been created to help established artists and makers to connect, share, learn and grow. We are here to support you.
WebinArt is an online creative community of established artists and makers learning, sharing and supporting. We come together through online forums, Zoom networking and peer mentoring groups to share experiences, knowledge and support each other. I am the co-ordinator for the Establish group, creating a community of peers to learn and grow. This is the best way to work with me on a mentoring basis if you are an established (3 years or so) creative business. And it’s only £8 per month!
Establish Membership gives you access to:
An online forum where members share and learn from each other, facilitated by Ruth Singer with monthly focus challenges and topics
2 special events a year delving deep into topics that are important to our members
Monthly Zoom networking sessions led by artist and mentor Ruth Singer
Quarterly peer mentoring sessions with a small group of like-minded artists/makers where you can talk about the issue you want to delve into for your own business
An online school of recorded webinars and artist / organisation interviews
Live webinars once a month
Networking with midlands-based arts organisations
Optional add-ons (pay as you go) 1:1 mentoring with specialists
Does this sound like something you need? It’s only £8 per month which is heavily subsidised. If you want to apply, register your interest here. If you aren’t quite sure, find out more here or drop me a line and we can chat.
Very inspiring and motivating. Great to work with others in my group too!
So far it’s been completely transformative. I don’t think I would have got so far with my new business without it.
WebinArt 2020/21 is generously subsidised by our funding partners – Leicestershire County Council, Arts Council England, Derbyshire County Council, Hinckley + Bosworth Borough Council, North West Leicestershire District Council, Blaby District Council + Rutland County Council.
Ruth Singer 