So much has been said about artists’ residencies and how beneficial they can be to our practices. But only after you have been offered one is that you understand what that really means.
Over the last year I’ve been Artist in Residency at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham as part of Artists Make Space, a programme supported by Richmond Arts Service that offers studio space to individual artists and collectives looking to grow their practice.
I’ve bored you all to death with my weekly posts on social media and my diary of an artist in residency, in which I have been explaining in detail my research, my experimentation with different materials, and every single step of my process.
I’ve written extensively in those posts about how beneficial this residency has been for my practice, how many new pieces I’ve produced, how much research I’ve made, and how Orleans House has influenced my work in ways that will take me years to understand.
But, what you haven’t seen in those posts is what it actually felt like to have been given this opportunity. How Julia DeFabo and the staff from the Richmond Arts Service (Dawn, Andy, Andrew, Fahim, Zoe, Millie) went above and beyond to support me during my residency. Or how welcoming Lu, Catherine, Amalia, and the rest of the staff and volunteers of the House were and how they made me feel like Orleans House was also my house every single day.
I haven’t mentioned either how the Richmond Arts Service and Orleans House have created an array of artists’ networks that bring together incredible local practitioners from every discipline imaginable, who keep in touch through a programme of events that strengthens the Richmond arts scene.
And I definitely haven’t explained enough all the incredible opportunities that have come my way thanks to the extended networks that both the Council and the Gallery have put me in touch with. This has been by far the most incredible, career-changing experience of my artistic practice. I’m eternally grateful.
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