Into the Studio
North Lands Creative
Interview with Karen Phillips, Director, North Lands Creative
For 25 years North Lands Creative, based in the small village of Lybster, occupying the old Victorian school, has been one of the world’s leading centres for artistic glass and creativity.
Flameworking Master Class in the North Lands Creative Studio lead by Artist Eric Goldschmidt, USA
Founded to continue Scotland’s unique 400 year old proud tradition of glass-making and open up specialist skills to local communities, visitors and a worldwide family of leading glass artists who travel from across the globe to teach, learn and experience the dramatic and beautiful Caithness landscape.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you have been involved with North Lands Creative?
I grew up in West Lothian, but I have family links to Caithness & Sutherland, some of my earliest memories are long car journeys north and the visual treat of the stunning coastline and beaches.
I was always interested in art from an early age; I did a BA Design in Textiles at Glasgow School of Art and then went on to Goldsmiths College in London to do a Masters in Fine Art.
After graduation I landed a dream job as one of the first Craft Development Officers in Scotland, located at An Tuireann on the Isle of Skye. Then I moved to Ireland where I have spent time on everything from commissioning to supporting artists’ development and leading at a policy level which included launching Ireland's largest interdisciplinary arts centre RUA RED in Dublin.
I joined the team at North Lands Creative in 2016 as their new CEO. The main thing is that I have never lost my childhood inquisitiveness for the arts and the environment.
North Lands Creative is a very unique and special arts organisation which enables me to work with artists from all over the world and also create meaningful relationships, friendships, partnerships and opportunities in this beautiful part of Scotland.
One enters North Lands Creative past the large sliding red doors of the hotshop, down an outdoor corridor of old stone and timber cladding, a sort of in-between space that enables you to ‘take in’ the landscape outside.
North Lands Creative Studio, Lybster, Caithness
It’s hard to think of North Lands Creative without thinking about the significant and powerful sense of place. The taste of salt air, the smell of bogland. The studio activity spills on and out onto the village street, and shares views towards the Morven hills and horizontal skyscape at the rear.
The studio co-exists between the flux of international glass art and the rich seams of Caithness culture, landscape and life. More than this, the studio is littered with traces by those who have visited, the evidence of their craft explicitly on show, of the tools, materials and moulds, smaller trial-pieces of glass, fragments and samples of glass material, preparatory designs, artists’ books and drawings, the eternal acts of making and occupation on display.
Why do international artists choose to come to the North of Scotland, out of anywhere in the world, and what are some of the things they love about North Lands Creative and Caithness?
I think the draw for international artists to North Lands Creative is that it provides a world of possibilities for them. To be able to make work in close proximity amongst the most stunning environment is phenomenal for artists' creative development.
You can get up in the morning and be walking along the cliffs and then in minutes be back in the studio after absorbing all that inspiration which is channeled into the making of new work.
We often hear from artists that their time with us was life changing, or the start to a fantastic new artistic journey or it gave them the support to confidently push themselves.
Friendships and relationships are also very important. Many refer to the cohesively learning exchanging ideas and how these connections continue.
Working in this special medium seems to thrive on how people connect and interact with one another. The freedom and time to contemplate and create and to come away with enough memories and visual imagery to feed creative fires.
Images left to right: North Lands Glass Nexus, Bruno Romanelli - Northern Lights, Thomas Hogben - SOAS Stills, Ray Flavell - Sting, North Lands Beach, Joel Philip Myers - Untitled
Robert Maclennan, the person responsible for establishing North Lands Creative, believed that art, literature and learning should be available to all, not only the privileged few.
Passionate about the arts and equally about Caithness and Sutherland, where he was MP for 35 years (latterly also for Easter Ross). He felt that making and appreciating art was a vital part of life.
Robert Maclennan
It was in this spirit, and with the vision of making Caithness an internationally renowned centre of excellence for contemporary art made in glass that he and his friends Dan Klein, Keith Cummings, Alan Poole, Iain and Bunty Gunn, in conversation with Denis Mann and others, founded North Lands Creative Glass in 1995, now known as North Lands Creative.
North Lands Conference
Their shared vision was of a haven for artists to work without constraints of time or money, inspired by the Caithness landscape, history and community.
How would you recommend that someone who is interested in exploring glassmaking takes their interest from idea to action?
The story on how people arrive at working with the medium of glass varies immensely.
Artist stories inspire us so much that we now run a weekly spotlight feature on the website. I would encourage anyone who is interested in glass making to take a look, there are so many inspirational ideas and routes to become involved.
Regularly we advertise opportunities on classes and events. The activities are usually aimed at a wide local audience for all ages and abilities, some of our most successful have been aimed at people who are complete beginners and they build their confidence up by attending taster sessions to try out different glass techniques and then sign up for a more intensive course.
When our visiting artists are here on residency we invite them to deliver a community class or talk, they feel the embrace of the local community and they genuinely receive so much from connecting, it enriches the ‘North Lands’ experience for everyone.
Engagement and inspiration to take part in art can happen at any age. We promote a ‘can do’ attitude.
With a beautiful and inquisitive collection of glass objects to look after, new exhibitions to stage, welcoming international artists and classes to host, there’s always so much going on behind the scenes at the studio.
There's no doubt about it - studio life generates a palpable energy, providing opportunities for visitors to experience the magical environment found in the glassblowing hot shop and the kiln room by offering a range of class and demonstration experiences.
Live Hot Glass Demonstrations at North Lands Creative Glass Nexus Forum 2019, Artists - Emma Baker, UK, Ondrej Novotny, Czech, and Liam Reeves, UK
Our campus in Lybster indeed has much to offer for those interested in arts and culture, visitors can view our collection pieces that narrates our rich history of international arts activity, with exceptional and notable artists work on display in the studio including Bertil Vallien, Tessa Clegg; Irene Frolic, Mieke Groot, Richard Meitner, Klaus Moje, Joel Philip Myers, Dante Marioni, Richard Marquis, Jan Erik Ritzman, Paul Stankard and Ann Wolff.
Images left to right: Bertil Vallien - Untitled 5, Marea Timoko - Whaligoe, Alexandra Muresan - Levity, Nick Wirdnam - Untitled
With the winter season nearly upon us, there is still availability for those wishing to extend their stay in our newly refurbished accommodation in the Old Schoolhouse behind the studio and afford the time to relax, soak up the wonderful atmosphere and be close to a unique working glass studio.
From late November, we will be reopening our gallery programme and exhibiting work by our residency artists too.
Do you have any creative projects currently ongoing that you’d like to tell us about? Are there upcoming projects that we can be looking forward to in the next year?
We are at the start of our next 5 year programme, so we are in the first stage of development and we’ve been initiating various different conversations with locally based artists and building relationships with national and international artists.
So there is lots going on!
We are working on different models of engagement and programming so there’s a really interesting diversity to what’s on offer.
Local visitors and those from outside of the county will be able to enjoy our new community social space and cafe, see hot glass being blown, join in at our seasonal special welcome days, view new acquisitions to our glass collection and archive and with a year round calendar of creative activities on offer to suit all interests it’s advised to sign up to our mailing list to receive our regular what’s on newsletter.
We also have beautiful accommodation perfect for visitors to stay somewhere a little bit different. We are happy to suggest ideas on making the most out of your Highland creative retreat with one to one teaching and glass making experiences on offer to our guests.
Visitors to North Lands Creative say it is an opportunity to be immersed in an environment where there is sometimes no differentiation between sea and sky, where isolation is experienced in all four directions.
On a human level, the purity of the environment makes us rethink and re-imagine and brings much needed time to breathe, unplug and tap into the natural surroundings for inspiration.
What would you say that staff, volunteers and the local community love most about North Lands Creative?
This is an area that I’m really passionate about. The idea of the artist as a solitary genus sitting in a darkened room waiting for lightning to strike just doesn’t ring true for me.
Artists are part of society and a part of the community that they are responding to and the world and the politics of our times.
The studio has been reconnected to the community with our recent capital developments, in particular the central space where most of our community arts projects happen.
There will be a new cafe and more regular community classes which has been an aspiration for quite some time. In practical terms this means we have repurposed the space to make it more welcoming and user friendly, therefore easier for the local community to interact with each other and the artists that visit.
You can literally step out of the hot shop door and onto the village main street, there’s a massive potential to attract a much wider section of community interest.
We try hard to listen and understand why people feel alienated from art. We feel in Lybster that this has been turned on its head by offering life-changing interactions with such a unique material and a centre of excellence on the community’s doorstep.
I can’t think of anywhere else that the local community is as involved behind the scenes and central stage. Their passion for 25 years has been the making of North Lands Creative.
Our year-round programme caters for people of all ages and interests. Please stay in touch with us on social media insta @northlandscreative or FB @northlandscreat or by visiting our website www.northlandscreative.co.uk
Karen Phillips
Director, North Lands Creative
North Lands Creative Studio and Team, Lybster, Caithness
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