Starting Out, our annual start-up course aimed at early career artists and makers, continues this January with 3 Tuesday afternoon sessions. All sessions take place in the meeting room at Persistence Works Studios, start at 1pm (sessions finish between 4 and 5pm) and cost £10 (payable on the day). This course is now in its 7th year and has proved to be very popular. We aim to keep the sessions interactive by giving all the artists on the course time to ask questions relating to their individual practice. Please book your place by contacting Mir Jansen or phone 0114 2130111. We have a maximum of 20 places available for each afternoon.

Our first session this year took place place on Tuesday 17th January and focussed on ‘Working with schools, communities and groups’ what do you need to know? \ what do they need to know from you? \ what do you need in place before embarking on delivering workshops or run projects with other people? There were presentation from artist and Creative Director of Encounters, Ruth Ben-Tovim. Encounters was formed in 2003 in Sheffield by artists Ruth Ben-Tovim and Trish O-Shea and is now based in Devon where they work on creative projects which are driven by a social responsibility and ethos of community engagement and involvement. Ruth’s presentation provided a brief history of Encounters and the impact artist lead projects can have within city/urban regeneration context.    Sarah Villeneau is a ceramicist with extensive experience in the management and delivery of education projects.  Sarah talked about the practicalities of what you need to know when planning and delivering workshops.  Ruthie Ford one of our current starter artists in engaged practice shared her experiences of a co-mentoring project with current resident artist Ania Bas and Rachael Dodd, programme manager at Yorkshire Artspace finished the afternoon with a brief outline on policies and procedures to follow when working with children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Our second session this month takes place on Tuesday 24th January and is entitled ‘Work, Work, Work’. We will focus two of our sessions on working in the Public Realm with confirmed presentations from Jill Kelly from BEAM in Wakefield and Yorkshire Artspace artist David Appleyard who has been working on a number of public realm projects in the last 4 years. We follow with two sessions on taking part in Craft Fairs with confirmed presentations from Lesley Beale from the annual ‘Lustre’ Crafts Fair in Nottingham and Yorkshire Artspace jeweller Jennie Gillwho attends many of the more prestigious Craft & Trade Fairs in the UK and will talk about how to make the most of these opportunities. We finish the day with a presentation on How (and how not) to Approach Galleries delivered by Yorkshire Artspace programme manager Mir Jansen who will attempt to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the gallery sector.

Our final session in January takes place on Tuesday 31st January and focuses on ‘You and Your Work on-line’ with presentations on ‘how to make the most of websites and social media’ delivered by Ruth Wilbur and Michael Cockle from AXIS in Leeds. This is a longer session where Michael and Ruth will taking questions from the audience focusing on individual needs and cost effective solutions.  Michael and Ruth will also talk about what AXIS does and how artists can benefit from what they do.  

Janet Paske, Director of a soon to be launched, brand new website ‘CraftFinder’ will be talking about how her initiative will promote Craft and Craftspeople in the UK. And finally we will be hearing from Andrew Pendrick from Sheffield based on-line craft selling website Folksy about what they do, who they do it for and how you can get your work sold on-line professionally and securely.