Creative Colleagues - January 2025

JANUARY 2025

CREATIVE COLLEAGUES Creative Lives’ in-house magazine

KEEPING IN TOUCH

One of the outcomes of last year’s Away Day in Bradford, was the acknowledgement that we’d all like more opportunities to get together. The separate teams have regular weekly meetings, but to help us feel like we’re all pulling in the same direction, and that we’re here to support each other, it’s important for the whole team to meet up.

To that end, Lindsey has arranged a year of get-togethers, some to talk about work (‘All staff meetings’) and others simply to chat about how we’re doing and share cultural recommentations (‘Tea and Talk’). So you’ve got them all in one place, here are the dates: All staff meetings: 27 Jan, 25 Feb, 25 Mar, 28 Apr, 27 May, 30 Jun, 22 Jul, 26 Aug, 2 Sept, 7 Oct, 3 Nov and 9 Dec. Tea and Talk: 3 Feb, 4 Mar, 7 Apr, 13 May, 9 Jun, 8 Jul, 1 Aug, 29 Sep, 10 Oct, 18 Nov and 16 Dec.

THE QUICK CATCH-UP BRADFORD GRANTS DISTRIBUTED As part of our partnership with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, we’re in the process of distributing £400 micro-grants to 54 groups across Bradford.

The projects are many and varied, from South Asian cultural celebrations to football fanzines, and this lovely roving dance troupe, The Bradford Belles. You can see who else we’ve funded here.

CHILDREN’S CAPITAL OF CULTURE MICRO-GRANTS No sooner have the Bradford grants been awarded, than we’re diving headlong into a new programme of micro-grants. This time we’re helping Rotherham Children’s Capital of Culture 2025 to get more local groups involved.

We’ve got 40 micro-grants of £250 each to give to groups in Rotherham, to encourage them to join in the celebration and run a creative project. You can read more about the grants here.

OUR NEW GRANTS COORDINATOR! Well done to everyone who has been helping out with the Know Your Neighbourhood project since Liz left. But now, we have a new member of staff into whose capabale hands we’re passing the KYN grants and associated projects. Carlota joined us in January, and you can find out a little bit more about her in our ‘Photo Finish’ on the back page. Welcome to Creative Lives, Carlota!

CONGRATULATIONS TO GEOFF! Huge congratulations to Creative Lives’ Trustee Geoffrey Crossick - or Geoffrey Crossick MBE, as he’ll henceforth be known - after being recognised in the New Year Honors List for his services to arts and education. You can find out more about the man behind the MBE in our ‘Getting to Know You’ Q&A this issue!

ON THE HORIZON NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH BBC RADIO LONDON The Creative Lives On Air team is about to grow, courtesy of our new partnership with BBC Radio London. We’ve been recruiting for a freelance Community Producer throughout January, and hope to have our new colleague in place by the end of February.

They’ll work part-time with us until the end of May, building a network of creative groups in one (or more) of the following wards in London: Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Croydon, Enfield and Newham, and then creating engaging content to broadcast on BBC Radio London.

SUPPORTING CREATIVE GROUPS IN GLASGOW Sophie, Phoenix and David will be in Glasgow on 6 February as part of our place-based work in the city, in partnership with Glasgow Life.

They’ll be at St Francis Community Centre, bringing creative groups together to explore challenges and opportunities, with another (evening) event planned for the near future. Find out more here.

CREATIVE NETWORKS Phoenix will be looking at ‘Creative Motivation’ in her next Creative Network for BIPOC Creatives on 20 February. She’ll be joined by Ica Headlam, founder of We Are Here Scotland, an organisation that aims to amplify the voices of Global Majority artists and creatives across Scotland. You can read more about the event here.

ESSEX WORK COMES TO FRUITION After months of hard work by Jess, and freelance team members Natasha Richards-Crisp and Damian Hebron, our Mapping Creative Health in Essex report is complete, and Gareth is busy designing it ready for launch in February.

GETTING TO KNOW...

GEOFFREY CROSSICK MBE, TRUSTEE What’s your first memory of being creative?

As a child I don’t think I was given much chance to be creative, though my father’s attempt to get me to play the violin at the age of 7 was a disaster. My dabbling with pottery in Cambridge in my early 20s was my most creative spell. Modestly creative but not enough for me to keep it going.

If you could click your fingers and be proficient at any art/craft form, what would it be?

In my time as Chair of the Crafts Council it was makers working in metal – in sliver, gilding metal and so on – whose practice and objects particularly spoke to me. That is where I’d like to be proficient and keep wondering whether I should try.

Which do you prefer: river walk, beachside stroll or hill climb?

River walk for sure, because I need the visual variety that gives.

You’re planning a day of live music and can book any 5 artists – who’s on the bill?

Bill Evans (with his first Trio). John Coltrane (with his classic quartet). Isabelle Faust plays wonderfully as a solo classical violinist so backstage wouldn’t get too crowded. Leonard Cohen. Nina Simone.

What inanimate object in your home most sums you up? My fountain pen. It sums up my belief that old technologies are often best absorbed into the world alongside new ones rather than being displaced by them.

What’s your favourite quality in a person? A willingness to be open, thoughtful, reflective.

Which do you prefer – chocolate bar, slice of cake or biscuit?

Slice of cake – fruit cake not cream cake. I don’t like things too sweet (so not a chocolate bar) and biscuits are too quickly finished.

If you could choose any work of art to hang in your home, what would it be?

The paintings I enjoy the most – late Rembrandt self-portraits or Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire series – would look out of place alongside the contemporary art in our home. Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Peasant Girl Seated on a Chair is a work I’ve long loved and if you can get it for me from Bremen it would fit perfectly.

Which country have you never visited but would love to? Peru. I’d want the remarkable archaeological and heritage sites, but also a taste of Latin American cultures of which I know too little.

Tell us one thing your colleagues would be surprised to learn about you Ever since our first visit to Japan in 2017 (we’ve made two more since) I’ve been fascinated by Japanese food. During the pandemic I taught myself to make quite elaborate Japanese meals. No short cuts so I make my own dashi, miso soups, pickles and so on. I find it absorbing, maybe creative (the way it looks matters) and people seem to appreciate it!

PHOTO FINISH Each month, we ask a colleague to capture an aspect of their life, at home, or out and about.

“To shake off the January blues, I decided to trade my gloom for fur at the Meadows Wildlife Park in Caerphilly. I met meerkats, a cheerful capybara, and even a skunk, but the highlight was feeding and playing with the sheep, goats, and llamas. Here’s a snap of me with my three new fluffy friends - who do you think is the happiest of the bunch?” Carlota Sousa Nobrega