/// THE LONDON TRIP - WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT ///

Some of my Arts Council England Develop Your Creative Practice grant funded a trip to London. The main purpose of which was to visit Collect which I covered in a previous post.

But as I haven't been to London for yonks, and there is so much there to see and do, and people to meet up with, the visit was more than that, I wanted to make the trip as beneficial to my progression as possble.

Something I have been wanting to do for a long time was to meet up with Charlotte Dew for a mentoring session. Her official title is Head of Public Programmes at The Goldsmiths Centre in London but she is much more than that in her own right too. I first met Charlotte when I was a recent graduate through her involvement with a Goldsmith Centre commission for recently graduated silversmiths, and again when she invited me to exhibit my work as part of the Shine 2019.

Since the pandemic I’ve been feeling a bit stuck, overwhelmed and not really sure where to turn or who to ask for advice. The reason I chose Charlotte for this meeting is that she has seen my work evolve from degree through to the present, and that coupled with her industry knowledge meant she would be best placed to give me tailored advice to suit my work and ambitions. And she did exactly that; Charlotte was incredibly generous with her knowledge and I came away from the meeting buzzing with ideas.

After graduation I had a very clear plan and once I achieved (most) of those things - not least that I’m now a full time silversmith, and with lockdown hitting it knocked me off kilter and I needed that gentle help to find a clear plan for the next step. Thank you Charlotte!

I'm really excited by how well this slots into all other areas of my funded Water Tower Project, it is delivering everything I had hoped for and more. I don't take it lightly that I have been invested in, I want to make sure I do justice to every penny I have received and I think I am doing that. Some of what I am learning in this project will inform and shape future decisions and opportunities too, the funding is helping me short term and long term. I cannot stress just what a pivotal moment receiving this funding has been for my artistic career and I am incredibly grateful. I still have regular pinch me moments and I'm not sure that is going to stop!

I’ve missed visiting London and its galleries/museums so of course the trip involved some of those too. I headed to the Tate Modern to see the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms and The Capturing the Moment, A journey through painting and photography exhibition, as well as Legion, Life in the Roman army at the British Museum and the Architecture Tour at the Barbican Centre, both the tour and Legion have their own posts on Instagram.

I enjoyed having the time to fully digest everything, the opportunity to really dig deep and reflect on why I am drawn to some things and not others, instead of the surface level yes no. Generally life is so busy and being a self employed creative can mean you have a portfolio career - the fancy term for saying you have to do loads of different things to make ends meet!

This means you rarely have the time to stop and think, to sit with your thoughts and ideas as you are being pulled in many different directions. This trip was a welcome chance for me to do just that. Away from the normality of life, my own little vacuum of undistracted inspiration, advice, and thoughts.

The Grant funded my travel to/from London, my accommodation, my ticket for Collect and entry for three of the exhibitions I saw. Initially I was supposed to stay for 3 nights (in hindsight would not have been long enough) but luckily good old premier inn hub prices and a little extra from me meant I could squeeze 5 nights which made all the difference. I had the time to do everything I wanted to do and time to think about it all too. Reflecting and planning are equally important to the doing and I’m grateful I had the breathing space to do that.

Oh and I swam in a rooftop pool in the rain surrounded by concrete buildings, it was bliss. And visit the Moonwalkers show at Lightroom (both funded by me!) which I can highly recommend.

Forever grateful for the opportunities afforded to me by this grant, and excited by the difference it’s going to make to my future.

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England