At the end of March last year, a rather unusual event took place in Dursley library; after the doors closed for the evening, the Dursley team, the creative catalyst and selected members of the Dursley community embarked on two hours of mindreading training! 

The Creative Mothers programme is an initiative between Art of Libraries and artist Lizzie Philps, supported by Procreate Projects and inspired by the Mother House Studio.

Feral Productions tour Forest Libraries as part of Art of Libraries 

In the first of our blogs leading up to the Art of Libraries Celebration and Learning event we would like to share the experience of Feral Productions when they tested out a new version of their production of Follow Me in Coleford and Lydney Library in the Forest of Dean. 

Join us for a daylong event to listen, share, exchange insights and experiences around the potential of libraries as creative, playful spaces for children, young people and families to take their first steps into arts and culture in Gloucestershire. 

As Create Gloucestershire delves more deeply into data and how it can support innovation and collaboration in the arts and cultural sector, we are delighted to welcome Tim Davies as a Digital Catalyst to our team.   

This post explores the many different relationships between data and art, and introduces out plans for a data-art hack event later this spring.

Create Gloucestershire is working in partnership with Real Ideas Organisation (RIO) to deliver a highly subsidised in-house training session for schools, independent artists, makers, employees of arts organisations, museums, libraries and music education hubs who want to become Discover and Explore Arts Award Advisers in Gloucestershire. 

Join us for our next Pop Up meeting where we'll b exploring the Opportunities & Challenges of Digital Technology - 11th September 10am - 12pm, Moreton in the Marsh

Sir Nicholas Serota heralds a new creative chapter for Matson and meets community leaders involved in setting up GL4 and Culture Matson.

Create Gloucestershire was fortunate to be involved in an life changing initiative, the Creative Employment Programme which supported 40 young people as paid interns and apprentices in 20 different creative organisations/SME’s in taking their first step into working in the creative sector. Of those 40 young people, over half of them were kept on by their employer or moved on to further study. 

The GEM Project aims to engage with and support individuals within Gloucestershire who are currently dealing with circumstances that are potentially causing barriers to work and move these people closer towards education, training, volunteering or work, including self-employment.

We are delighted to be profiled as one of two case studies (the only one in the South West) in the new Universal Culture Offer for public libraries - which was launched in Hull at the end of October.

The Art of Libraries test programme is coming to the end of year one.  After a hectic summer programme of events aimed at children and young people, we took to the road with the Detective Story Bus with artists, Jacqui Grange and Fabi Williams, taking creative activities literally to the doorsteps of families in more isolated parts of Gloucestershire. 

If you want some ideas about how to engage Local Authority partners in arts and cultural activity,  take a look at this new online resource from ACE (Arts Council England) and LGA (Local Government Association) –  LGA is the national voice of local government, working with councils across the UK to support, promote and improve their offer.

Art of Libraries goes out on the road this summer.  With the generous support of the Summerfield Trust we will be bringing this year’s Summer Reading Challenge literally to the doors of families in the more isolated areas of Tewkesbury and Coleford.  Look out for the Share a Book library mobile like you have never seen it before and dare to step inside! 

Ten months ago, I started as Project Manager for a new flagship project, Art of Libraries (AoL) in Gloucestershire, taking on a different and innovative challenge of setting up and managing a three year pilot involving six libraries spread geographically across the county.