Martin has thirty years experience with site specific theatre group Welfare State International. He has created art works throughout the British Isles on beaches, in woodlands, city centres and galleries, including the building and firing of sculptural kilns at Tate Modern, National Theatre and for the Gold medal winning potters garden at Chelsea last year.
Martin gained fifteen years experience working with Stour Valley Arts, maintaining the sculptures in Kings Wood forest and working as workshop leader and educator. He is currently community artist in residence at the Thames sailing barge Raybel restoration project at Lloyds Wharf, Sittingbourne.
BA Hons in Three Dimensional Design Ceramics.
P.G.C.E Art and Design, Artsmark Award, Arts Award
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Peter is a musician, photographer and film maker. His main instrument is the saxophone and he plays all kinds of music. With a camera he covers events, takes portraits, creates films and makes sound and image installations.
Peter’s project work includes digital media, recording sound, photography and film. He also performs with music groups, jazz ensembles and big bands. He organises and lead projects, performances, exhibitions and events often focusing on a theme or a Community’s needs.
Funders of Peter’s work include English Heritage, Creative Partnerships, the BBC, Youth Music, Chalkfoot Theatre, Sounds New Music Festival, trust funds and Arts Council England. He is a Project Leader and photographer for Sounds New Contemporary Music Festival and Artistic Director of the charity New Moves, which promotes music and dance with people of all abilities, and in particular people those with learning disabilities.
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Tracey Falcon is an artist and arts professional with many years experience of working with community groups in diverse locations starting with youth groups and Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong in the mid 1990’s. She spent a number of years as a practitioner and lead agent with the Creative Partnerships programme, working with a range of ages and groups including SEN and PRU settings.
Tracey worked with Stour Valley Arts as a practitioner and project manager. She has also worked with Turner Contemporary, Canterbury Museums and People United and as a sessional lecturer at University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University. Tracey has a successful record of grant applications, match funding and in kind support.
Tracey’s practice is about making connections – connecting ideas to materials and people to locations through the natural materials and resources available at a specific site. Her Already Read series of work uses newspaper to comment on the tension between man and nature and the impermanence of meaning. She created a floating art gallery in a collaboration with Whitstable Yacht Club, called White Horses Whitstable.
B.A. Fine Art
M.A. Arts Criticism
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Andy works across the fields of Architecture and Landscape, as a designer, artist and educator. He studied Architecture at Manchester Metro University, followed by a post graduate diploma at KIAD Canterbury, which led to 10 years of working within the profession. With a strong interest in the landscape his professional practise has since focused on ‘place making’ projects, working with both urban and natural environments. As an educator, his emphasis is on engaging people in the landscape through ‘hands-on’ art and design exploratory experiences.
Hope Fitzgerald is an artist, bookbinder, and workshop leader with Bindfulness Bookbinding. Hope also works with Kent Adult Education in Canterbury as a Partnership Tutor teaching bookbinding for craft and recreation. She is currently one of the Outdoor Studios Board members.
Alongside workshop facilitation, Hope has worked as a freelance artist, photographer and filmmaker. Hope’s photography and video production skills allow her to work in an observational unobtrusive documentary style to tell stories through photographs, moving image, and sound, creatively capturing the essence of educational and engagement programmes. Observing these programmes in action offered insights and knowledge that contributes to her workshop delivery style today.
Hope has worked with Stour Valley Arts, KCC, Artswork Bridge, Royal Opera House Bridge, Royal Opera House/Thurrock County Council and Turner Contemporary, using video to provide a powerful tool for advocacy and valuable evidence for research and funders. Hope has an MA Fine Art (Distinction) and PGCE.
Hope’s film Down Time was distributed with Lucy Medhurst’s 2012 research publication Science Nature and Identity – Understanding the Value of Experiential Learning in a Land Art Context.
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Gemma is passionate about working in and taking inspiration from the natural environment.
“In a world dominated by technology, it’s a rare and valuable opportunity to share the experience of being creative in nature, bringing people together in a magical way.”
With a background in Fine Art and having developed her skills to embrace more craft-based mediums, Gemma enjoys working with a range of techniques, including drawing, printing, painting, collage, model-making, ceramics and appliqué. In her career to date, Gemma’s been devising and delivering creative workshops and projects – as well as coordinating them – for a wide range of audiences, gaining a grounding in Museum and Gallery Learning – often working with their outside spaces. Gemma’s led sessions regularly with children from Early Years upwards, schools, families, Young People, Older People, Vulnerable Adults, people with Dementia and Alzheimer’s, stroke victims and community, Special Educational Needs, ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) and Blind and Partially Sighted groups.
Lucy Medhurst is Strategic Manager for Artswork in its role as Bridge organisation for the South East and with responsibility for the Kent area. Lucy was previously Head of Education for Stour Valley Arts (SVA) for eight years, where she developed a high quality education programme in response to site specific commissions, including “Marks Measures Maps and Mind” with South East Dance and Turner Contemporary and Matthew King’s “King’s Wood Symphony” with Wigmore Hall and Trinity Guildhall. Following a place on engage’s Extend leadership programme, she was Acting Director during SVA’s transition into NPO status.
Lucy designed and developed the Down Time five-year action-research training project; part of the national Chances 4 Change initiative, focusing on wellbeing. SVA worked with a variety of disengaged and disadvantaged young people including Young Carers, Young Offenders, a Health Referral Unit, special schools and transition groups. Her research is published as Science Nature and Identity – Understanding the Value of Experiential Learning in a Land Art Context
Prior to this, Lucy worked for South Kent Education Business Partnership, as a freelance artist educator in schools and housing associations and is also a qualified wall paintings conservator. Lucy brings her expertise to the group in an advisory, mentoring and fundraising capacity.
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Tim Norris graduated in 1995 from Sculpture at Canterbury School of Art. He has since undertaken commissions and residencies for both private and public collections throughout Britain, Europe and America. His work can be found at the Grizedale Forest, Stour Valley Arts, and along the Irwell Sculpture Trail. Tim specializes in large scale outdoor sculpture made from natural materials. He was awarded a student bursary by Stour Valley Arts in 1994, creating a piece for the forest, and has been involved as technical support for a number of the commissioned artists in King’s Wood. Tim has been leading workshops in King’s Wood since SVA started. He is a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
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A practising artist with a fascination for natural history, Amanda has a BA in Painting, a post-graduate diploma in Painting at the Royal Academy Schools and was awarded a painting Scholarship at the British School at Rome. Her work can be found in many private and some public collections. Working with an experimental approach, Amanda enjoys engaging people from all backgrounds and ages in both the dynamic and intricate elements of landscape and natural forms through open-ended drawing, painting, writing and playing with materials; where the learner is at the heart of their learning experience.
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Laura Thomas is a practising artist who uses photography and printmaking. Laura has a BA in photography from Brighton University and a MA in photography from LCC. Laura has an interest in nature, human presence & relationships; her work can be found in the millennium photographic library and she has been exhibited at a number of galleries across Kent & London. Laura is trained to Gold level in delivering Arts Award to young people and works regularly within schools delivering these courses. Laura worked with Stour Valley Arts for 15 years, delivering workshops and managing projects. Laura runs ARTmoves organisation offering monthly art nd photography workshops to adults and children.
Sara Trillo’s practice uses historical, geographical and material research to explore the impact of the sea on specific coastal sites. She makes expeditions seeking out elusive littoral places including visiting fleetingly exposed channel sandbanks, walking isolated marshland sites which were formerly islands, and locating settlements either lost to the sea, or abandoned with a receding coastline. She sets herself particular trials to undertake in the spirit of a quest; these tasks usually involve gathering specific found matter to form into sculptural artworks or working at a particular point in the tidal, lunar or calendar cycle.
Sara’s three-dimensional work takes the form of improvised tools, place markers and hoax archaeological fragments, mixing found materials with plaster, textiles, latex, and fired clay. Her research notes become readings/publications/blogs, weaving the diverse project components together.
Instagram: sara__trillo
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