At the start of a new year, we are reflecting, planning, collaborating and configuring, but most importantly, we are launching!

The Creative Resilience Programme is one of our new initiatives that we are hoping will be a big hit with artists, businesses, statutory organisations and the general public alike for years to come. It has been developed by artists and business experts and has a focus on personal resilience. We will be delivering the first ever session this Friday in Bath to a willing group of artists, whom we hope will be giving us much welcomed feedback in return. The programme is centred around a unique model that contains seven elements, or tools, of resilience that can be used in a wide-range of situations at work, or in everyday life. It is delivered creatively, and also has creativity itself as a central theme of resilience. We hope this programme will, in particular for artists, empower them to take further steps to having fulfilling and sustainable careers, without the anxiety and doubt that often surrounds the freelance lifestyle in the cultural sector.

Alongside this programme, we will also be launching a new enterprise programme for artists, imaginatively called (for now!) Enterprise Works. This again, aims to support artists in their careers and will focus on the socially engaged artist as social entrepreneur. We hope to be delivering this in collaboration with the University of Bath who will bring a huge amount of their experience and expertise to the table. It will explore business and enterprise tools, and also taxing matters such as, er…, tax. I am very excited about this programme as I believe that artists, indeed everyone who is trying to make a living by working in the arts, could benefit from being a bit more savvy in terms of seeing themselves, and selling themselves, as a business. This in no way means having to embrace the profiteering, corporate ideology most of us spend our lives railing against, rather it embraces our passion for making great art and social change at the same time and being able to support ourselves and our families whilst doing so.