Some Thoughts, Alan Ward, 2019 | Image: courtesy of the artist
  • StudioBook

2021 Online Course Info

Led by Mark Devereux Projects, StudioBook 2021 offers practical, discursive and tailored workshops and one-to-one sessions for twelve artists across the UK. Made up of twelve, 2-hour workshops and two, 1-hour one-to-one mentoring sessions, StudioBook 2021 will address your key questions and concerns; providing information, advice and guidance alongside open discussions and peer-to-peer sharing to help support the development of your creative practice.

Details

Start Date:
21/09/2021

End Date:
14/12/2021

Venue:
Online (Zoom)

Course programme

Tuesday 21 September, 10am-12pm
Course welcome & introduction
An introduction to the course, with short 5-minute presentations from each participating artist.

Tuesday 28 September, 10am-12pm
Developing your artist voice
Working as an artist can be a solitary venture – this has been emphasised further through the impacts of COVID. It is not always easy to recognise the core ideas you are communicating within your work when you are in the full throws of making in your studio. This workshop will support you to start dissecting your work and practice, giving new techniques and approaches to ensure your intentions are fully realised.

Tuesday 5 October, 10am-12pm
Finding the right opportunity
Identifying the right opportunity is not always as easy as it sounds. As your career develops, opportunities will change and you will have the chance to be more selective. This workshop will give tools to help dissect and understand the opportunity you are offered and how it does or doesn’t relate to your practice ambitions. The session will also look at platforms to find or create the right opportunity and how you can increase your success rate.

Tuesday 12 October, 10am-12pm
Choosing the right words (written)
How you write about your work is crucial – getting this right will ensure your ideas and intentions within your work flourish. This practical session will look at creative approaches to writing, encouraging you to ditch the art language and ensure your work is accessible to all. Led by writer, producer and MDP Director Jack Welsh.

Tuesday 19 October, 10am-12pm
Making a strong application, from start to submit
The use of language and communicating your work / intentions can often be a stumbling block to the development of artists’ careers. This workshop will focus on skills, techniques and information to help you write and submit exhibition, commission and funding applications. The session will offer information and advice on how to target your application and what to and not to include.

Tuesday 26 October, 10am-12pm
Funding and fundraising
Funding your project and creating the transition into earning money through your practice can be challenging. This workshop will look at the various funding avenues and options available to individual artists including: trusts, foundations, individual giving and sponsorship. The session will also introduce the various Arts Council England funding programmes and the Let’s Create 10-year strategy.

Monday 1 – Friday 12 November
One-to-one mentoring sessions
An opportunity to reflect on what you have learned so far, ask questions and share problems in a confidential 1-hour one-to-one mentoring session with Mark Devereux.

Tuesday 2 November, 10am-12pm
Arts Council England application process
As one of the core funders for individual artists, Arts Council England grants can unlock and create important developmental opportunities to help you take your practice and ideas to the next level. This workshop will take an in-depth look at the application process for National Lottery Projects Grants and Developing Your Creative Practice, dissecting the questions and starting to consider what you could include.

Tuesday 9 November, 10am-12pm
I’m here!
Promoting yourself and your work is not always the most natural thing to do for many artists. This workshop will look at different tools, techniques and outlets to increase the awareness of your practice in the best way for you. The workshop will look at how you can use social media, online marketing, press releases and communications strategies to promote your work, exhibition or performance. Led by artist and MDP Director Liz West.

Tuesday 16 November, 10am-12pm
Choosing the right words (verbal)
Whether you have 2-minutes to introduce your work at a chance meeting or 1-hour to present your practice at a public talk, making the best first impression is key. Getting this right could be invaluable to securing opportunities, commissions and tendering for future projects. This participatory session will share practical exercises to give you the confidence to present your practice and its intricacies to your audiences, whilst allowing your personality to shine through.

Tuesday 23 November, 10am-12pm
Show me the Money!
Selling your work can be a core outlet for many artists and help fund future developments. This workshop will discuss pricing structures and various approaches to selling your work including: self-representation, art fairs, gallery representation and private commissions. The session will also consider the importance of negotiation within sales and offering collectors unique discounts or additional benefits.

Monday 29 November – Friday 10 December
One-to-one mentoring sessions
An opportunity to reflect on what you have learned throughout the course, ask questions and discuss the next steps in your practice in a confidential 1-hour one-to-one mentoring session with Mark Devereux.

Tuesday 30 November, 10am-12pm
Public & private commissions
Pitching for and receiving a commission for new work can highlight new challenges within your practice. You may no longer be the sole decision-maker when designing and creating the work. This workshop will highlight the importance of managing relationships, budgets and expectations, whilst ensuring you retain your artist voice and intentions for your work. The session will discuss the processes of pitching, negotiating, collaborating and presenting your work and all the additional considerations you may need to make when creating work in the public realm. Led by artist and MDP Director Liz West.

Tuesday 7 December, 10am-12pm
Which Way Now? (Session 1)
At a time where many artists’ plans have been thrown out of the window and possible new routes are required due to the impacts of COVID, this workshop will give the tools and ideas to help plan your future steps. Using our specially designed strategic planning exercise for artists, you will be encouraged and supported to question your career direction and outline a new 1, 3 & 5 year plan.

Tuesday 14 December, 10am-12pm
Which Way Now? (Session 2)
Continuation and conclusion of the strategic planning exercise following the first workshop. The session will also include a group discussion to talk about how each artist can take the next steps in your practice and career with the support of Mark Devereux Projects and the peer group.

Artist Info

We are proud to introduce our STUDIOBOOK {ONLINE} 2021 cohort: Jo Ball, Lucy Barker, Adele Christensen, Hayley Williams-Hindle, Paul James, Anno Mitchell, Melissa Pierce Murray, Tania Salha, Steph Shipley, Stefanie Trow, Alan Ward and Lucy Wright.

Participating Artists

Jo Ball | joball.info
Jo Ball is an artist and gardener based in Bristol. Her practice has two strands – a studio-based activity creating objects and prints and a socially-engaged approach working with people involving plants, growing and activities to bring people together. Working with plants often feeds into Jo’s practice through the use of natural objects or by using growing as a way to connect people to each other and the places around them. Making and materials are central to Jo’s work and her ideas are led by a deep curiosity for the outside world and a fascination for the workings of the human brain. Jo’s practice explores ideas of connection, fragility and repair – often using delicate materials and creating finely balanced compositions.

Lucy Barker | www.lucy-barker.co.uk
Lucy Barker’s practice looks at the environment, movement and neurology, using her practice to build an intimate connection between each. The act of physical walking, creating routes and pathways, helps to form neural networks through which she gains insight into her own neurodivergent mind. Meanwhile music and dance offer escapism – a gateway to bypass the real world and enter into another dimension. In her current research project, Lucy is considering scientific thinking from both the cognitive neurosciences and social sciences, where ideas of embodied cognition can offer valuable insights into the interdependent relationship between mind, body and environment. Lucy Barker is an interdisciplinary artist striving to offer fresh perspectives that inspire audiences and participants to make positive personal and social change.

Adele Christensen | www.adelechristensenglass.com
Adele Christensen’s concepts are based on ephemeral and transitional moments in nature, the beauty and illusionary qualities it presents. Adele’s fascination with this is rooted in her childhood experiences, play and observations of these effects. She interprets research through the medium of glass, using direct casting and painterly techniques with enamel and lustre to create various surface qualities, structure, pattern and colour. Adele incorporates the light shadows and reflections as a visual glue that creates the form often accentuated by elemental change.

Hayley Williams-Hindle | www.alittlebitdistracted.com
Hayley Hindle develops multi-sensory and interactive artworks that are often research based or have elements of data visualisation within them. The works challenge a conventional world view of human cognitive experience. Hayley’s approach is informed by a neurodiversity perspective, that invites reflection and celebration of different cognitive and cultural understandings of the world and our ways of interacting with it and with each other.

Paul James | www.pauljamesworkshop.com
A strong and varied narrative and bold use of form and colour is always present in Paul James’ work, reflecting his varied interests – often taking influence from where science, philosophy and spirituality meet. A minimalist approach is then taken to preserve the simplicity and essence of the idea. Paul’s varied creative background (artist & designer) means he is able to work with various mediums to find the most suitable approach to express his ideas. This maintains an ethos to always be learning, to further my creative freedom and ultimately to inspire and be inspired.

Anno Mitchell | www.annomitchell.com
Anno Mitchell is an artist primarily working in drawing and installation. She is currently working on a series of inter-related projects about shipwreck, breaking and reforming. Anno has a multi-disciplinary approach, using new materials and processes finding a rhythm between drawing, writing and 3D work in and with space, allowing her to explore the thematic and material production of the artworks. ‘Shipwreck’ considers questions surrounding; what it is to be wrecked, what it is to salvage something? How can shipwreck be used as a kind of narrative trapdoor into new worlds?

Melissa Pierce Murray | www.melissapmurray.com
Melissa Pierce Murray‘s works arise from an interest in engagement and interactions, how specific objects and materials can facilitate and deepen awareness of ourselves and our world. Melissa’s ideas are motivated by studies in literature and physics, while her sensitivity to place and material arises from her roots in the Colorado mountains. Working across several universities, Melissa delivers interdisciplinary workshops and facilitates interactions between scientists and artists.

Tania Salha | www.taniasalha.com
Tania Salha’s practice is an investigation of personal thoughts and views. While some simply practice introspection, others are ignited by the constant shifting parameters of moral and ethical behaviour. Through a constant shift between painting, film, sculpture and installation, she investigates a thought from different perspectives. In this interdisciplinary practice, Tania finds her joy of playing, experimentation and connecting thoughts at a deeper level.

Steph Shipley | www.stephyshipley.co.uk
Steph Shipley’s practice considers those places that hold a personal or collective memory or intrigue or attachment and those that are familiar but estranged or transitory. She is interested in what remains and calls her back, the palimpsest of present and missing spaces, and how those encounters are felt and expressed through still and moving image, sound and print-making. Layers and fragments are gathered from archives, texts and sound, and re-arranged to convey, by association, another place or space.

Stefanie Trow | www.stefanietrow.com
Stefanie Trow’s work centres on the human gaze – her unique compositions leave us to question what cannot be seen or what exists outside the framework. Each work is inspired from an assortment of images and sketches – found and from life -becoming starting points for Trow’s emotive paintings. The work considers themes of memory, movement, obstruction and colour meaning. Intense bold colours are pulled and scraped across the canvas, creating an expressive language of their own. Trow’s expressive brushwork gives way to movement. The paint just about holds onto the image, creating an ebb and flow of realism, taken away from us sometimes by abstraction. Like trying to grasp a memory, parts of the paintings remain vivid, whilst others drip and slide away from us, pooling into a new reality, ready for the viewer to unearth.

Alan Ward | www.alanjward.co.uk
Alan Ward’s practice uses photography as a conduit to respond to the ideas of place, loss and heritage in our surroundings. This has also led to developing commissions and projects through other mediums including: video, text and public art. Much of his work is informed by research and engagement, whether that is historical or community led. Archives, be these personal or institutional, have become a significant reference point for exploration and reflection on ideas around a collective cultural heritage. He enjoys making quirky discoveries, connections and combining off-kilter observations to consider alternative readings and perspectives on our surroundings. Ward is interested in often overlooked details, the infra-ordinary of our geographies. His photographic work has been described as ‘a poetic and quiet consideration of our place in that landscape’. However, he is equally at home combining text and image within outcomes, an aspect of his typographic design background that offers extra value.

Lucy Wright | www.artistic-researcher.co.uk
With tongue in cheek, Lucy Wright calls herself a contemporary folk artist. Folk is a slippery and divisive term with some uncomfortable associations, however we only need look at the UK Brexit vote and rise of populism worldwide to see how customs and traditions continue to inform our sense of self and other, often with agonistic consequences. Lucy’s practice is driven by the conviction that now more than ever, we need to pay attention to the things people make, do and think for themselves— and it is this kind of folk, and this kind of art that informs her work. Some of Lucy’s projects interrogate the problematic relationships between folk, nationalism and colonialism. Others deal with the under-representation of women, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities in the existing canon of English folk arts and the need for new, more inclusive traditions for our divided society.

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