Catching up with Kathy

KATHY HUBBARD is the Projects Manager at the Shetland Arts Trust, and a busy woman. ANDY ROSS managed to catch up with her by e-mail for this month’s Artsfolk feature.

KATHY HUBBARD has been a moving force within the arts in Shetland, and has been instrumental in getting projects that are not money-making ventures out there. In the week between agreeing to do the interview and my catching up with her by e-mail, Kathy appeared in the United Nations Day celebrations reading poetry, organised and co-ordinated the visit of an opera group from Wales to the North Isles of Shetland and Lerwick, and generally was indispensable to all around her.

The interview appears here unabridged and unaltered – one of Kathy’s pastimes is writing stories and her style clearly shows through. It presents a different side to Kathy Hubbard than the one that we normally see at the Arts Trust and events. Long may both exist!

AR: Kathy, have you always had an interest in the arts?

KH: Yes – although I had a traumatic experience which might have put me off forever when I was four years old and making my stage debut at St Peter’s School in Wythenshawe, Manchester. I had to walk on, pushing a cotton wool-covered toy dog on wheels, and reciting “Baa baa black sheep.” I wasn’t much good at multi-tasking in those days, and I tripped, the dog fell over and all his “fleece” fell off. The humiliation of it!

AR: How long have you been in post?

KH: Just over four years.

AR: How did you decide to do this job?

KH: With great trepidation and self doubt …..

AR: What was your previous work?

KH: I was a probation officer for twenty years, and worked in the criminal justice systems of England, Wales and Scotland during that time.

AR: What did you bring across to the arts position from your other work?

KH: Well, my team would say that an understanding of the criminal mindset is pretty handy, but I think it might have been experience of project management that was the most useful thing. Also, when you have worked in situations which are “life and death” serious, I think it gives you a sense of perspective on everything else. Every now and again a project may not go exactly as we had hoped, or something goes wrong with the arrangements; now although that may be disappointing, frustrating and anxiety-inducing, I know it’s not the end of the world, because I have seen what that looks like for a great many people in my previous life, and it’s a lot worse than a cancelled show, or a late exhibition.

AR: What does Shetland offer you in terms of art that is different to working in the arts in other areas of the UK?

KH: Hard for me to answer that, as I haven’t had this kind of experience anywhere else, but I suppose the obvious thing is that we are lucky that we had extra funding because of the oil investments of thirty years ago. Although that’s all starting to look pretty rocky now because of stock market crashes, etc, it has still enabled us to do things that most other cash-starved local authorities would not have been able to do.

AR: What is the major difficulty with the work that you do in the Trust?

KH: Not enough hours in the day, days in the week, etc. As a team working in a small community we are very visible, and expectations of us are high. No matter how well you perform you are only ever as good as your last gig, so we feel a pressure to constantly do more, do better, do bigger, and it can take its toll if you’re not careful.

AR: Where do you intend to take your ideas and job in the future?

KH: Well at nearly forty eight I think I may have stepped off the career ladder now, so I don’t see my job going anywhere else (unless it goes for good in the next round of public spending cuts) and I’m not interested in leaving Shetland and going to work on the mainland. This my home, and my community, and I would like to carry on enabling exciting, enjoyable, stimulating things to happen for them and with them for as long as I can do it well.

AR: What is your special interest in arts terms – music, visual arts …. ?

KH: The whole banana! I love literature, visual arts, crafts, drama, dance, music, film – what a privilege to be able to be involved in the whole range of activities like this, and get paid for it too.

AR: I know about your penchant for Bryn Terfel – who are your other favourite performers/heroes?

KH: Bryn, Bryn, and Bryn again. And George Clooney. And Al Pacino. And …. oops, getting carried away here. I love all the films by the Coen Brothers and I love everything that Aardman Animation do. Favourite Scottish animation artist is the wonderful Jessica Langford. Favourite 20th century novels are The Great Gatsby and Pat Barker’s hugely moving Regeneration, but I read Kinky Friedman for fun. Saw Bill Viola’s amazing video installation Five Angels for the Millennium at the Tate Modern last year, and I now want to see everything else he’s done. Favourite local hero is Shetland pianist Neil Georgeson, currently at the Royal Academy in London – watch out for him, world, because he’s going to be very special indeed. Love to see the Royal Shakespeare Company doing anything at all, but would unreservedly recommend the National Theatre’s touring and education group – their workshops are a 100% treat. Have a weakness for ceramics artists, particularly Blandine Anderson and Jenni Hale, both from Devon, and I love Nick Hubbard’s wonderful, whimsical jewellery. Too many favourite poets to pick one, but I find the poems of Shetland’s own Robert Alan Jamieson particularly moving. And then there is the best fun you can have without laughing? Dance workshops with Andy Howitt from Scottish Youth Dance – you’re too out of breath to laugh! There are loads more, but I don’t want to bore you.

AR: I know you read a lot and have a wide ranging interest in books. What do you think of the Big Read list for the BBC?

KH: I have very mixed feelings about this, and all the other “Hundred Best Whatever” lists that are so prevalent in the media at the moment. If The Big Read gets people reading and interested in books, that’s fine, but I don’t look to lists or celebrities to inform my reading choices. My friends and my colleagues at work (particularly our incredibly well-read Literature Development guru, Alex Cluness) have a bigger influence on what I read, because I respect their judgment.

© Andy Ross & Kathy Hubbard, 2003