Developing the Arts in Orkney

CLARE GEE is the new Arts Development Officer in Orkney. In the second part of her conversation with ALISTAIR PEEBLES, they discuss her experiences in the North East of England, and look forward to some forthcoming projects in Orkney.

Alistair Peebles: You mentioned the Orkney Arts Forum. I’ll declare an interest, that I’m its chairman. The Forum is of course a successor body to the one established some years ago by Councillor Roderick MacLeod, which led to the commissioning of Brian Beattie’s audit, and the subsequent Orkney Arts Strategy. The second part was overseen by Councillor Robert Cormack, and the whole process was very well supported by the local agencies, particularly OIC’s Education Department, and by HI~Arts and the Scottish Arts Council. Nothing’s been rushed and no one, so far as I know, has been alienated, and that’s almost too good to be true, given the scope of the whole process and the number of long-established interest groups.

The concordat reached between OIC, Orkney Enterprise, Scottish Arts Council and Visit Orkney provides an excellent foundation for future partnership, and for the realisation of the aims you mentioned earlier. The fact that Orkney Arts Forum continues as an advisory group to the Council is, I think, a mark of the mature sense of purpose of all concerned, including its present host, and your own base within the Council, the OIC Museums and Heritage Department.

Well, that’s us past the 2,000 word mark, well short of equal stakes in the count, and of course I’ve been focusing on my own areas of interest, and probably not said enough about drama and music, amongst other things, but I’m sure Hi-Arts Journal readers will be kept up to date regularly with the progress of your work in Orkney. Perhaps after only a few months settling in it’s too early to ask what tangible effects your work might have had so far, or what in particular you’re looking forward to seeing come to fruition, but it would be interesting to hear what you have to say. It would also be interesting if you had any comparisons to make between what you’ve found here so far, and life and work in Tyne and Wear. I ought to ask about your life outside work too. You’re an artist yourself. Did that have a bearing on your decision to come and live here?
 

Clare Gee: Lots of questions and ideas there Alistair!  To take up your point about artist studio space – I could seriously do damage to a few thousand words on that score alone!  For seven or eight years I worked at South Tyneside Arts Studio (STAS) in South Shields, on the coast in between Sunderland and Newcastle/Gateshead.  I started there as a volunteer, running art workshops and doing a bit of administration, and over the years went from that, through being Studio Manager to, for two years, being the Project Director. 

“I think it is incredibly important that, when providing, or creating studio space for artists, you also attempt to create alongside it a sustainable source of income for those artists”

As a limited company and a registered charity it had a couple of very clear functions (I talk about it in the past tense because my experience of STAS is in the past, but it is still a thriving and well respected organisation.)  STAS is an open access community visual arts studio, and it has a priority service for people living in the South Tyneside area with mental health needs.  It is open Monday to Friday on a drop-in basis, but also runs specialist courses, has a gallery space, and a range of facilities such as a digital media suite, printmaking equipment and darkroom. 

It also houses five low-cost studio spaces to rent to artists (hence the reason I mentioned it in relation to your comments).  The reason the studio spaces are always full and artists stay for a long time (some have been there since it opened in 1994) is because the studio spaces are directly related to work opportunities.  The artists who rent the studios also run art sessions in the drop-in – main studio space, they will run specialist courses and sessions when funds are available and they are able to use the facilities out of hours to run their own private classes and courses.  They also have access to all the artistic/computer-based facilities and equipment and access to low cost materials.

They are paid at proper Arts Council approved rates as self-employed, sessional artists, and are often requested by other organisations to deliver arts projects and workshops, so you could say that STAS acts as a kind of artist agency.  I don’t know about the current funding profile, but while I was there none of the funding for this project came from the obvious arts based sources.  It came from health, social services, regeneration funding and via the New Opportunities Fund’s Healthy Living Centre programme (as a consortium member with a number of voluntary sector organisations). 

I think it is incredibly important that, when providing, or creating studio space for artists, you also attempt to create alongside it a sustainable source of income for those artists which will enable them to be able to afford to work in their studios, not just worry about where the rent is going to come from.  You can probably see now why I go on and on about engaging with the arts in the context of social inclusion or social justice.  The benefits are across the board if based within a structure like STAS – individuals who make use of the service develop and grow through their engagement with art and artists, and artists benefit from being within an arts focussed environment, from regular and long-term work opportunities and, because they are being paid at appropriate rates for their sessional work, they are able to fund the rental of a studio and have the time to work in it.  Enough of that – I could go on and on!

It is probably too soon to talk about tangible effects of being in post.  A lot of the work I have been doing has been trying to ensure that the ground work has been done, that the revision and updating of the arts strategy and the priorities that are taken forward are the right ones, and that I see and speak to as many people as possible to ensure that it is a balanced set of priorities.  It’s great having the Arts Forum there to advise and support that process, and I agree with you that so far, by taking the time, the process has been working well.

There are several irons in the fire however – I managed to secure a small amount of funding to deliver three ‘training weekends’ for dance (a clear local priority), leading to the inaugural Orkney Dance Festival at Easter next year, for which I have been supporting and advising the organisers.  Other interesting projects include the development by a local artist and web designer of a forum for debate and information sharing for arts practitioners specifically about the arts in Orkney and I will soon be undertaking an enormous piece of work – to come up with a capital strategy for the development and improvement of arts venues in Orkney.  The issue of accessible artist studios will definitely come up within that research.

“So, I feel very at home and very inspired, both in my role as Arts Development Officer, and as an artist.”

I’ve said a lot about the work I was doing at South Tyneside Arts Studio.  More recently I was the Arts Officer for Hartlepool Borough Council.  The biggest difference I suppose is that the post of Arts Officer there also covered responsibility for events, and I had a fantastic team of community arts officers and an events officer, who were facilitating, planning and (sometimes) delivering a huge amount of community based activity.

My department had a service level agreement with Arts Council England, North East (ACE,NE), to act as the Local Arts Development Agency (LADA) for Hartlepool.  We had to submit a programme of activities to ACE,NE each year and we received a substantial grant, based on population size, which was effectively my delivery budget.  ACE were very keen to see Local Authority arts officers move away from direct delivery of community arts projects and work strategically to develop the arts, (a concept I wholeheartedly agree with) so, in Hartlepool we were moving more and more into supporting other organisations and individuals to deliver specific priorities, with grants and project budgets through the LADA pot. 

That approach has certainly benefited me in terms of taking up the strategic role here.  The other similarity is that in Orkney I am part of the Museums and Heritage department, and in Hartlepool, arts development is part of a wider Arts, Museums and Events service.  Arts development can be, and is, placed within all sorts of different departments and service areas within local authorities, such as recreation and leisure, and planning.  I find it very positive being allied with Museums and Heritage as a lot of the priorities in both areas are the same – such as increasing access and participation, the links in to life long learning, and the celebration of local culture. 

I must say though, that so far, I am quite enjoying the freedom of not having a line management responsibility for staff, and there is also some freedom in not having a large budget – it focuses the mind on to long-term strategic thinking rather than moving from one short-term project to the next short-term project, but I think Orkney would certainly benefit from having the same kind of set-up as I was used to in the North East.

As an artist, I couldn’t be anywhere much better than Orkney.  I love it here and just wish I had more time to focus on my artwork.  My partner is also an artist (we met whilst at Falmouth School of Art, Cornwall), and for a long time we had been trying to work out how we could make a move to an island(s) such as Orkney.  Seeing the arts development post advertised seemed too good an opportunity to miss.  The creativity and culture of Orkney does remind me of being in Falmouth – in fact a lot of the rich and vibrant creative heritage of Cornwall has ended up here as the Pier Art Collection!  So, I feel very at home and very inspired, both in my role as Arts Development Officer, and as an artist.

AP: Well, well, well. And there we were thinking the arts came out of the air, or were something to while away the evenings or the odd weekend, or that they’d really all been sorted out somewhere far away and long ago by the likes of Bach, Burns and Botticelli. But it seems from what you’re saying that they are alive, they can go on all year round, and they can connect with almost every area in society, to the advantage of everyone – and, moreover, that there are ways of managing costs and benefits that make a joined-up, professional approach towards the arts as sound and sensible as a joined-up, professional approach towards healthcare, transport, education and any other area of vital concern to the community.

We certainly have been missing something, however much we agree we’ve been lucky enough hardly to have noticed. I think you’re going to have a busy time here, but I get the feeling you wouldn’t have it any other way. Good luck!

© Clare Gee and Alistair Peebles, 2004