Nestled in the idyllic Cotswold hills, The Hide is a cosy retreat for visual and sculpture artists.
But this spring, founder and artist Alice Sheppard Fidler has been stepping out of the studio and working with two youth charities in Gloucester, The Venture Hub and Young Glos, to bring creative workshops to the wider community and provide an opportunity for young people to showcase their collaborative art in a professional exhibition in June.
Supported with public funding from Arts Council England, the experimental sculpture workshops are all part of the The Hide Installation and Sculpture Showcase (THISS), part of the annual Site Festival of local open studios and arts events.
Alice says she hopes the workshops boost the young people’s confidence and help break down barriers to accessing contemporary arts: “I offered to facilitate workshops at the charities’ venues, culminating in exhibitions they could invite their own communities to. Following on from that, collaborative sculptures made by the two groups will travel to the professional sculpture show in June.
“I always approach working with young people as a ‘guide from the side’. I am always impressed how they show up and get stuck in, even when making abstract art which brings up certain challenges. I feel that through art and creativity, a whole raft of skills can be obtained and these skills are completely transferable into any career choice.
“Creative engagement allows people to connect to their individuality and inner thoughts, and encourages people to stand up and be themselves, to believe that their ideas are worth having.”
The Venture Hub
One of the local charities Alice is teaming up with to bring arts education out of the studio is the Venture Community Hub in White City, Gloucester. Throughout March and April, young community hub attendees got the chance to experiment with different materials and make their own sculpture projects.
Caroline Esson, Project Manager at the Venture Hub, said she’s noticed a big improvement in the mood of young people after attending the creative sessions: “They’re more bubbly. Their confidence has grown, their engagement, they’re talking about their experiences and being honest, so they’ve grown and recognised they’re quite willing to share their feelings and share their thoughts on projects.”
The Venture Hub has provided activities and opportunities for Gloucester families for over 40 years; they’re currently fundraising to rebuild their much-loved playground.
Young Glos
Elsewhere in Gloucester, Alice has been working with young people attending the King’s Trust programme through local charity Young Glos. The 12-week course is designed to boost young people’s confidence and help them get into education or employment.
Jess Bainbridge is the King’s Trust Programme Leader and has been working with young people to build their career confidence, including organsing interview practice, work experience, and CV writing. Then the group’s ‘enrichment’ week working with Alice began. Jess says:
“A lot of the team have just not really experienced art before. But they’ve done really well. It’s really nice to see that change in a lot of them, and see how they can pull creativity into their world, even if they didn’t want to be an artist.”
Now that the Kings Trust programme is over, the young people will be moving forward on their own into education, training, or the world of work.
“Hopefully, they can remember what they’ve learned here, just like making a toolkit. Whether or not they’ll take art with them, they’ll probably be able to hopefully take that creative side as the heart of the toolkit that we’ve tried to teach them.”
The young people have been working on individual and collective sculpture pieces, exploring abstract ideas and experimenting with materials. Phil, 21, explains that the group’s collective sculpture represents 12 weeks of their journey at Young Glos.
“Each layer represents a different week. The bottom week is beige because it represents us not really communicating with each other. The next layer is when we went on residential and got to know each other a bit better, in the Black Mountains in Wales.”
As part of the project, the young people participated in bonding exercises and tried archery and gorge walking.
“The next layer, the rainbow, represents everyone’s different strengths throughout the first team project,” Phil explains.
As part of their community outreach volunteering, they painted the garage walls at an asylum seekers’ refuge, and gave out Easter eggs and cards for children at the local hospital.
“The zigzags show the development throughout the course, we’re all working in line with each other. And the last one, that’s us. It’s meant to be fireworks. Us ending [the programme], celebrating and going somewhere else.”
The group sculptures built in the workshops with Young Glos and the Venture Hub will be exhibited alongside artwork by professional sculptors at The Hide Installation and Sculpture Showcase next month. The exhibition is free and open to the public from Saturday to Sunday 14-15 June and 21-22 June, 11am-5pm. The Hide is located at Pinfarthings, Stroud, GL5 5JJ, and parking is available on Minchinhampton Common nearby.
