Our first south west cohort meeting in Devon last month was a two day affair. Each hothouse cohort has two supporting partners, ours include the Devon Guild of Craftsmen and Plymouth University. Where our cohort meetings will alternate between Bovey Tracey and Plymouth over the six month programme.
The first session designing your future in Bovey Tracey included two interesting guest speakers Tim Parry- Williams a weaver and Claire Loder a ceramic artist www.claireloder.co.uk both have very different practises and it was a great insight into their approach and values. I think this session really made you think about how you operate as a creative maker. It may with hindsight sound like an obvious reflection, but I don't think we often give ourselves the space to consider these questions whilst being wrapped up in the day to day of your practise.
During the lunch break we had the opportunity to take a quick look around the Devon Guild of Craftsmen one of the partners involved with the South West cohort. www.crafts.org.uk
The current exhibition showing there happened to include two members of the group works Keith Varney Ceramics www.keithvarney.co.uk and Paul Stopler Glass www.paulstopler.com
It was also a perfect chance to see their work in the flesh as we were still quite unfamiliar with one another's work at this stage.
Here are a couple of images and links to both Keith and Paul's websites for a larger selection of images.
The second day we were based within the University of Plymouth in the department of architecture and design. For another packed day of business modelling.
During the six months with Plymouth University's kind support we have been given access to all the workshop facilities within the design faculty which is not only exceptionally generous but really helpful for anyone of us wanting to push a technique or process that maybe difficult to develop within our own studio's, or it could simply be used as time to experiment on something new.
We were fortunate to have a tour of all the departments workshop's and meet most of the technicians on site. I was also really impressed by the library it's open 7 days a week and you can access it 24 hrs a day that's unheard of in most university libraries.
The first session designing your future in Bovey Tracey included two interesting guest speakers Tim Parry- Williams a weaver and Claire Loder a ceramic artist www.claireloder.co.uk both have very different practises and it was a great insight into their approach and values. I think this session really made you think about how you operate as a creative maker. It may with hindsight sound like an obvious reflection, but I don't think we often give ourselves the space to consider these questions whilst being wrapped up in the day to day of your practise.
During the lunch break we had the opportunity to take a quick look around the Devon Guild of Craftsmen one of the partners involved with the South West cohort. www.crafts.org.uk
The current exhibition showing there happened to include two members of the group works Keith Varney Ceramics www.keithvarney.co.uk and Paul Stopler Glass www.paulstopler.com
It was also a perfect chance to see their work in the flesh as we were still quite unfamiliar with one another's work at this stage.
Here are a couple of images and links to both Keith and Paul's websites for a larger selection of images.
The second day we were based within the University of Plymouth in the department of architecture and design. For another packed day of business modelling.
During the six months with Plymouth University's kind support we have been given access to all the workshop facilities within the design faculty which is not only exceptionally generous but really helpful for anyone of us wanting to push a technique or process that maybe difficult to develop within our own studio's, or it could simply be used as time to experiment on something new.
We were fortunate to have a tour of all the departments workshop's and meet most of the technicians on site. I was also really impressed by the library it's open 7 days a week and you can access it 24 hrs a day that's unheard of in most university libraries.