Episode 19: Jan Doherty, Textile Artist

INTRO: Welcome to the Trailblazers Podcast series by Periplum, sharing the experiences of trailblazers living and working in the Tees Valley: the innovators, activists, workers and adventurers as told in their own words. Episode 19 Jan Doherty, Textile Artist Claire [Interviewer] So, Jan, where were you born? Jan [Interviewee] I was born in Dundee, in Maryfield Hospital. Claire [Interviewer] And where do you live now? Jan [Interviewee] And I now live in two locations. I'm living in County Durham and down here in Leeds as well. Claire [Interviewer] So where else have you lived? Jan [Interviewee] Oo, I spent when I was 17, a year in America, in Georgia, at college there, and at the tender age of 17, when I'd been there for a year, I decided that America was not for me. And I came home [laughs] because I think I was a wee bit homesick. Yeah, I'm probably a little bit young to go to America. I then went down to Loughborough in Leicestershire, to art college there, and spent quite a lot of time living in Leicestershire following my time at college. And then I got my first full time proper job, which was up in Nottinghamshire in the former coal mining villages up there, and ended up living in one of those villages.I then went up to Durham and we are now in the process of moving permanently to Leeds. Claire [Interviewer] So going back to growing up. Did you grow up in Dundee? Jan [Interviewee] Yes. Claire [Interviewer] Can you tell us about your childhood? Jan [Interviewee] Well, I don't have an awful lot of memories about that, really. My mum and dad were obviously just postwar when they got married. Yes. My dad worked for the National Cash Register and he and his best mate, Bert got offered really, really good jobs. They were engineers, but my dad got an international job - going and working across Europe and then eventually into America- and Bert got to manage the whole of the Dundee operation, which was a major employer in Dundee in those days: National Cash Register. So my dad wasn't home very often, so it was very much a matriarchal household that we grew up in- me, my brother and sister. There was three of us. He felt like a visiting uncle every now and then, bring presents for the kids, you know, and things like that. And eventually my parents divorced, I was about 14 at the time. And my mum was great. She was a really, really strong woman in the way that she kind of brought us up. And yeah. Two grandmothers who were quite important as well. My paternal grandmother - my mum loved her - I think they were really very, very close and I don't think she ever forgave her son for what he did to my mum.You know. [laughs] So she was important and she was a tailor and I never knew either of my grandfathers, because they died before I was born. So it has been quite a female upbringing that I've had. Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] What were you like at school? Jan [Interviewee] I think I was quiet, I was very mousey. And at primary school, I was the tallest girl in the school, which made me feel very awkward. I didn't really like it, and er I think I wasn't very confident. I could remember just think, oh, I'm not doing very well in my exams and…quite negative, I suppose, about myself really. Yeah. And when I moved to secondary school, there was a girl that was taller than me and that was great. [laughs] So we became friends. And actually we still keep in touch very, very rarely. She's over in Australia now. So not particularly academic. Had always focused on the arts and specialized in what was called Dress and Design and Creative Fabrics. And I always got the school medal every year for that [laughs] but not particularly academic in terms of other things. Claire [Interviewer] Do you remember when you first developed an artistic interest? Jan [Interviewee] From a very young age, my mum was a sewer. I can remember from being a very small child and I was 14 when I first went out shopping for bought clothes. On my 14th birthday I was allowed to go and buy something. Up to then we'd always made our own clothes. My mum would go out and buy fabric patterns and then she would work with us to make our own clothes. So she always made our clothes when we were very small. And when we got old enough, we would make our own things. And I was always designing things for dolls and that type of thing. So working with fabric and then at school, when I actually did Art, in the end, I asked if I could do textile work rather than painting and drawing. And so the teacher there was really keen for me to kind of explore that. So yeah, always been there all my life really. Yeah. Post school I went off to do - it was called Costume Design in America for a year at this Junior College, which was a very, very bizarre situation. And I felt a little bit out of my comfort zone there. And so I did Textiles and Fashion following that at Loughborough College and then stayed around after college and had a child not long after I left college and just spent time with him for a lot of the time. And when I was at college, I was specializing in machine knitting with domestic knitting machines, so I tried to set that up as a small business after I left college and do some exhibitions and craft fairs and things like that. And as a result of that, I met some other people who were doing similar things, doing other art forms - lots of people doing pottery, for example, and painting. And we set up a little group, I think it was Leicester Artists and we used to meet once a month in the pub and have a little chat about opportunities and things, and then one of the people there, Frank, I can remember his name, he said that he'd just come back from Oxfordshire where they did an event called Oxfordshire Art week, and he said it was really, really great because artists around the county opened up their homes and studios and invited the public in to kind of see what they were doing. And he said, why don't we try and do that around Leicestershire? We all thought that was a great idea, and I offered to help coordinate that, which was my first bit of organizing of the arts, I suppose you'd call it. And so we set up this project, and I think we did it for three years. And I said that I do it as a volunteer. But if we manage to raise a little bit money to get paid for some of the work I was doing, until eventually we did get grants to do it. And I think the third year we had about 60 artists around the county, and that was my first foray into Arts Administration and Arts Development.So at that point, I had a small child. Jamie would have been about five at that time. Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] And how were you earning money? Jan [Interviewee] My husband, my now ex-husband, was working - he was the breadwinner of the family at that point. So having done Leicestershire art week, I really, really loved it and had got a contact at a little gallery called the Lowesby Gallery, which was run by the city council. So I was doing almost like voluntary work there, for a while, and I decided that I really loved this kind of work. I thought I was quite good at it, and so my husband and I decided that I would try and get a job to try and eke our income out a little bit. And so I got this job down in Gloucestershire, down in Cirencester Workshops. As their I think it was Assistant or Deputy Director but responsible for Exhibitions, and it was okay for the year, and I learned an awful lot and put on a couple of nice exhibition, but after a year down there, I'd had enough. It was the time of yuppieism, and there was a very expensive craft shop there, and the clientele in the shop- they were aspiring royals and things like that. Yeah. So I came back to Leicestershire and decided that I would try and find other work around there. And so that was when I got more work at the Lowesby Gallery as their Craft Co-Ordinator. I got the money from Crafts Council to work with the Lowesby Gallery team to set up this new, larger gallery. So we did a craft section of it and so I co-ordinated that for two years, I think, and we did amazing exhibitions there- that was really, really good. And as a result of that, I was asked if I would be interested in doing this Flags and Banners festival for the Nottingham Festival, which started off my link with Nottinghamshire, and that was again based around the City Council. They did an annual arts festival, which was a mixture of community stuff, as well as the kind of classical music and big exhibitions in the galleries, and they liked the idea of having artists to make these flags and banners that went up in the centre of the town. There were special poles put up for them, there was pillars in the front of the council house that just became a gallery of textile works that local artists would make. So I did that for a few years, and then decided that - it's all very, very, very time limited - it’s all just about deadlines have to be met and it gets quite stressful-just kind of having to work really, really hard to get something done just on time. There was no chance to kind of take a breather and kind of think, oh, how would that be better done? Or what can I do following that? And so I started looking for a job that might give me a bit of time to kind of develop things and kind of er take a bit of time to think about what might be a good thing to do and.. So this job came up in north Nottinghamshire in the former coal mining villages there for an Arts Development Worker to set up a new Community Arts Organisation to work in about half a dozen villages. And I thought that just sounds great, and this was money that came available through the closure of pits- it was money for former coal mining villages for their redevelopment. So - got the job and it was linked to Newark and Sherwood Council - and so they had worked with the Community Centre in this village called Blidworth to base this new organisation there. So I turns up on my first day and sets up in this little space, which is really nice - everyone's really lovely and very enthusiastic about this new venture that's coming to their community, but what nobody had told the people that run the Community Centre was that the space should be for the use of this new organisation permanently. So, you know, at the end of my first day, somebody came up to me and said: “oh, what time are you finishing then? You’ll need to pop your stuff away.” And I would say “oh.” So I then started the journey of getting a permanent space and doing work there. I worked there for seven years and it was the most amazing time that I had I think. I've got such fond memories of the people that I met there- their history, learning about the pit closures, the strike, the strength of the women, what they did in the villages, and just the strength of the women full stop - the young people in those villages were really angry that their jobs had gone. And there was a lack of ambition and education. People just wanted jobs, and they wanted to work down the pit and those jobs weren't there anymore. So those young people were very, very angry really. Those young men in particular, the young women were easier to engage with. I think they were much more interested in education. One of the things that we tried to do was to get the young people to expand their horizons, so they might see that there's nothing wrong with leaving their community but coming back for the right reasons. Rather than thinking: I've got to get out of this place and thinking, right, I'm going to go off and explore this but actually, I'm looking forward to coming back and being proud of being part of these communities. So - big learning process for me. And after seven years there, I decided that I needed new challenges. I felt that I'd kind of done what I personally could there. And so I went up to Durham - job up there, almost like a similar thing - it was linked to the City Council, even though it was an independent organisation and I was the Arts Development Manager. So that was working in the City of Durham as well as the former coal mining villages in the Durham city area. And it was at a time that they were very, very proud of redeveloping the city centre And the focus for my interview there was about setting up this new Millennium Centre with the new theatre and the new library and everything, and that seemed to be all that the city council were interested in during the interview. And so when I started doing my presentation about all the work that I would want to do out in the former coal mining villages to re-develop them, the city council looked a bit kind of gobsmacked, but it was Rueben Kench, who I then worked with in Stockton - he was Northern Arts, I think it was at that time, and he was the one, I could just see him nodding and he was kept going on like that as if to say: “carry on, carry on you're saying all the right things.” And in the end I got the job. [laughs] And that was seven years there. And that was great. That was just fantastic. I started off, I think, there was two of us there - me and an administrator and we ended up with a team: a Festivals Manager, who's still a great friend, Alison, we got two digital artists- a photographer and a musician who were actually on the team you know [laughs] That was great. And we had a Public Art Officer as well, Christian, who was doing all kinds of things with the city to try and get them to put money into public art around the borough. So that was an amazing job, that was. And again, I think I felt that I had done my seven years there and it was Adam Sutherland who worked for Arts Council, who was the Lead Officer for the organisation Durham City Art. And he said Stockton is looking for a new Head of Arts. Why don't you apply for it? So I did, I applied for the job and got the job and ended up working there in Stockton. So that was the first time I'd actually worked for a local authority rather than alongside one, because I always had my independence. I could always be just that little bit more, if you like, maverick - being a little bit independent, which just made life easier really, to try new things out. So going into Stockton and suddenly finding myself under policies and strategies for the first six months, I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life. I don't know how I'm going to get through this, and eventually I was given a little bit more freedom. For instance, I would become the Lead Officer for ARC the Arts Centre in Stockton, so I would go along and sit at their board meetings and be able to talk to them about what they were doing. And at one point, ARC went into financial difficulties and their director left. And so I said, well, I think I should go in there and just be an interim director because we were the main funder, really, of it, and see if we can get this place sorted out. So I did that, but having to kind of look at people's jobs, we had to terminate contracts of a few people, which was really awful, but that was making sure that we did a good process. And then we appointed Annabel, Annabel Turpin as the director there, and Annabel, amazingly, she came into an organisation that was massively in debt, but she turned it around. And actually we became such good friends and colleagues through the time I was there and through the time she was there and managing the way the council were financing things and managing how she was developing ARC as well. It was really interesting. She would see everything as an opportunity. You know, I would go in and say how are we going to manage that, she said “leave it with me” and she would come back with a plan, and her plan really was to open it up to artists to come in and make their work. She wouldn't charge them for it. She would make space available. She would help them get grants. So she would sit down and help them write funding applications. And then they would come in and they would do a sharing, or they would do a performance for the public. And she also introduced things like pay what you can and found that actually people, when they really enjoyed something, they were very generous. So all these things which for some venues now are becoming quite normal place. Annabel was kind of trailblazing and she did make a name for herself nationally, and ARC thrived under her guardianship for those years she was there. It was fantastic. I really loved working with her. Yeah. Also, through that time, I got more involved with Stockton International Riverside Festival [S.I.R.F.]. because that was one of the main events in Stockton Borough Council's calendar, and it was, oh it must be about 35 years old now, but they invested in it quite heavily every year, and Arts Council invested in it as well. And those were the main sources of funding. So in the beginning I was, if you like, the Executive Director for the Festival. So looking after the logistics, the money and working with the teams within the council to do things like road closures and all the technical things that you needed to do to present a major festival in the centre of a fairly small town really. Yeah. We had an external director who was on a freelance contract, and when that contract finished and the council was in the process of needing to save money, then I was given the option of writing an options analysis for how we would manage the festival in the future. And so the options were that we would have another external director, that we would do it in-house, or we would just not do it at all. So I'd done the options analysis and the councillors go for in-house and we were a very small team, I think there was three of us in the team. And I said, well, I think from the team, the only person that could do it would be me. And so it was through my at that time, current position as Arts Development Managerthat I ended up with that job- as the best person at that moment in time for the job, and that was it. I was, from that point on, I was the Artistic Director of S.I.R.F. [laughs]. I'd never done anything like it before. I have to say, having been involved in the festival as Executive Director, and been interested in the festival, prior to that. I did have an insight into street theatre but I don't have a theatre background, and I had been going along to the Without Walls meetings on behalf of S.I.R.F. prior to becoming Artistic Director, but, all in all, it was just the most amazing opportunity. I think when I look back now that I've never had, you know. I did feel a sense of responsibility, quite a big sense of responsibility -having worked as Executive Director on the Festival, just knowing its position in the country, as well as internationally to companies in Europe in particular, it was seen as- oh, we love going to Stockton and the way they were looked after, we always looked after artists and it was a nice environment. They got to actually meet other people from other companies and it was also a big feature of coming to the festival was that time that people had to meet each other. I think the first programme was quite nice, if you like it. I think I almost followed the way that things had been done through my predecessor, and I think after that I began to think that I want a little bit more for me.I want to use this. I'm not somebody that sits down and talks about my life like feelings and politics and things like that. I tend to sit back on that and just kind of wait for the right moment. So it was lovely to be able to think that I can work with these people who've got the passion and skills to create these works that are important to them, and they become important to me and my ability to put them on in front of audiences.So that was really what I loved about being the Artistic Director. And the one thing that I learned as well about Stockton is that - in going to lots and lots of other festivals in this country is- there are no other audiences like Stockton audiences. They are just the most amazing, and they truly represent the community of Stockton, which it has had an awful lot of deprivation in the past. But the festival has always been free, everything has been free for them, and people have always embraced it and loved it. And even during my time as the Director of the Festival, because I was based in Stockton, there were a few times when I might walk across the town to go and get lunch or something like that, and somebody would just yell over: “Oh what’s on the festival this year?” you know, you think that's brilliant. That is really brilliant, you know? So you just stop and say, oo, I've got some really nice things for you to have a little chat with everyone. So that was lovely. Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] Did you come up against any obstacles? Jan [Interviewee] It was a very male dominated sector when I joined it and quite competitive between some of those males, and I think it was through the time of kind of budget cuts, as much as anything, that directors realized that actually working together and sharing resources was much better than being in competition about trying to get the best programme and… So partnership working started to become a big thing. I wasn't daunted by the fact that I was sitting around the table largely with men who were quite competitive, and I was so thrilled with my opportunity to actually try things out that I wanted to do, that, that was enough for me, really. I think that I didn't play the game if you like, but I think more women were beginning to come involved as well, which made it easier. Claire [Interviewer] Were there any standout performances or moments for you? Jan [Interviewee] Oh, lots and lots of them. And I'll say that you, Periplum, would be a couple of those - I think what I tried to do, and what I was allowed to do as well, was to develop shows, which had, if you like, issues that interested me. And we did the ‘Homecoming’ event, which was a partnership right across the Tees Valley, which was just such a great success and a very strong story as well. And one of the other ones that you did ‘The Glass Ceiling’ around the women' s emancipation which again, was such a strong story and the presentation was very powerful. So I have been really proud to be part of those shows, just highlighting these events in our past and also some of the social thinking- thinking about the Graeae show that we did. ‘This Is Not For You’ - that was the title of the show, and that was about service men and women who had been damaged through conflict and felt that they had been not well supported by society in things like Remembrance of the Wars. It was the dead that were remembered and not those that are living with the results of conflict.That was a powerful story to tell them and very emotional when the show was being presented -to just see these people who had limbs missing, were blind and needed support to get round, and performing in front of an audience. Yeah, I was really, really proud of that. We did that right in the centre of the town and it was really, really strong.So location was really, really important for a piece of work here. Stockton Council was at that time a very unique council and the Chief Executive at that time, Neil, loved the festival and he would support it to the hilt, really. And there's a lovely story about when Stockton was about to undergo a regeneration. They were going to add a fountain to the marketplace area and repave it and make it all beautiful and everything like that, and we had a show that was coming to Stockton called ‘Prometheus’, and it needed lots of infrastructure in various places around the marketplace area and the Town Hall area. And after the festival, it was all going to be hauled out anyway but nobody knew that except me, really, from the Festival. And one of the Production Managers said: “God, it would be really good if this lamppost wasn't here, we could put this bit of infrastructure here.” And so I said: “Oh, leave it with me.” So I went and phoned up the relevant council people, and within that day that lamppost had been moved [laughs] to and there was other bollards that were removed as well.And so I think I got a lot of street cred to make that possible for that show to take place. So that was quite good fun. Claire [Interviewer] Did you travel? Jan [Interviewee] Yes. Loved the traveling. Yes. It was an expected part of the job, I think, in those days. And so the main places I did go to were France and Spain - Catalunya mainly, China.And I loved the work that we did in South Korea. It was really fantastic. Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] Can you tell me about the South Korea experience? Jan [Interviewee] Yes. I got to know this man, Jong Seok Kim, who had been coming to Stockton for a number of years. He always said that Stockton was his favorite festival and so invited me out to South Korea. And we went with Without Walls as well. So quite a large group of us went out there to see the Seoul Festival, and that was a really interesting place. We were put in this hotel right in the centre of the city, and outside our hotel was probably about 8 lanes of roads, but we went to see a lot of shows and it was interesting - just Seoul itself. It's a huge city. It's covered in, and I'm seeing them now in other cities in this country now, big screens in the centre of the city, which just change every minute or so with the show, or the bit of imagery or the advert that's on it and they’re all round you. It feels very fast moving in that way, and just walking along and getting to these crossings to try and cross these 8 carriages, there's a sign there saying: ‘don't look at your mobile phone’ because everybody at that time was just walking along like this, nose in their phone. It wasn't quite like that in this country at that time, you know. [laughs] Claire [Interviewer] Did you take any UK acts out internationally or did you bring any international shows to Stockton? Jan [Interviewee] Yes. Going back to South Korea, we worked with a festival called Ansan Festival, which reminded me a bit about the industrial-ness of the Tees Valley. It was about half an hour train drive from Seoul, but very, very different. Fabric dyeing had been the industry there. And again, one that was coming to an end and things were being done differently. So- got to know that festival director Jong Yeon Yoon, who I think he's gone on to be Seoul festival director now, but it was so lovely to work with Jong Yeon and they have really good funding schemes out there and we managed to get an exchange grant, so we did a partnership between Australia, South Korea and the UK. Australian company called Stalker, who I'd seen their work years before, so Jong Seok Kim was working with them in Seoul, so we wanted to bring them to Stockton. So that was part of the funding application. But we also got a two piece dance company who did beautiful pieces, and then Ansan asked for Whalley Range All Stars [laughs] so we took Whalley Range out there, which was great. And Company, Chameleon, the dance company. Claire [Interviewer] How can different cultures make deep connections through arts? Can you describe that? Jan [Interviewee] I think that the one thing that the arts does, particularly that others will find difficult, is not so much a need for language. So I think you can share things that don't depend on you being able to speak the language.Things could happen without dialog, just visually or movement and sound, and they could have quite an impact on people's enjoyment as well as their understanding about different cultures. I think there's also a lot more curiosity within the arts than there are in some other fields as well. I think people want to learn about the different cultures, and I think that Bradford City of Culture is quite a good example of what can be done with understanding different cultures with the program that they've got there - with quite a lot of the Asian communities presenting work within the city alongside other people like David Hockney. Claire [Interviewer] What years were you Artistic Director and what was it like handing on? Jan [Interviewee] 2013 was my first year and 2018 the last - so I think it was six years, and it's funny, at the end of that time, I felt ready to go. I felt, do you know I’ve done loads of nice things, but also I had my own ambitions of things that I wanted to do as well and I had made it clear to Rueben, who was still my boss after all those years, and we'd become great friends, that I wanted to retire at 66, probably. And so we had a good year lead-in to me going. I was determined that I was going and it would be after the 2018 festival, so we had plenty of time to put a succession plan into place. And that was a really important part of my last year at Stockton, and I was working with Juliet, who's now taken on that role, and we got on well from the day that she joined the team at Stockton. So to me, I felt that she was the natural one to hand it onto. And in an interim period, we brought in Jeremy Shine to do the festival - but also to almost mentor Juliet in terms of taking it over after a year or so. I think Covid got in the way of a lot of these plans, but I handed on to Jeremy and Juliet after 2018. Yeah, and that was fine. And I've not regretted it since because it was such a wonderful time, and it wasn't at a time where somebody was saying, well, I think it's time for you to leave. And at one point Reuben kind of said: “Are you sure you want to go? Are you sure?” You know. And I said “ Yes. Let me go and let the festival move on as well.” So for me, it was a good time and the end of the festival was lovely. That very special firework display on the river. It's just great, you know. Claire [Interviewer] And that was by Paul Bryce and Frank Earle-Whiffen, I think. Jan [Interviewee] Yes it was. The idea was to do a kind of battle of the pyro artists because we've got these two amazing pyro artists that had done work for us, and they loved the idea of doing this.I think it was called ‘Going Out with a Bang.’ Yes, I absolutely loved it. So I took that as my leaving present really. [laughs] And retirement is just wonderful…Well it's not no, no, it's not retirement.[laughs] In fact, we're going through the process of trying to sell our house at the moment, and we were feeling very, very tired. And both Nigel and I said, well, I thought it would be great to retire from in retirement. Yeah. Because his retirement means making music and mine is making textile work and going to a studio here in Leeds 2 or 3 days a week, you know. So it's just what I really wanted to do. Yeah. Focus on my textile work and just enjoy making things. And, being in the studio here in Armley is just such a joy, because I think there's now about 40 or 50 artists in the studio and just kind of being able to go into the coffee bar area and spend time with them, and them popping in and saying hello in the studio is great. And so many of them are young people, some not long out of University, Art College - and it's such a lovely, supportive environment in the studio, and there's a lot of young people that have got their challenges with their mental health and their gender identities and things like that, and there's such a lot of kindness in that place. It's a safe environment and people feel very happy about coming in there and knowing they'll be safe. Nigel has, he said - god you’ve fallen on your feet with that lot there, they really are amazing, they're an amazing group of people. Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] How is it to be a leader in cultural organisations? Jan [Interviewee] I've been in the very lucky position of being a Trustee of 2 organisations over a long period of time, and one of those was Tin Arts who are an organisation that works with people with learning disability around dance, they’re a dance organisation creating dance opportunities for all really. And so they work with people with learning disabilities and young people mainly. And I got to know Tess and Martin, the Directors of Tin Arts, when I first went to work up in Durham, and I was introduced to them by a woman who was working in Arts and Health called Gwyneth Lamb. And Gwyneth introduced me to two young dancers who had an interest in setting up some kind of workshops for people with a learning disability. So we got talking and realised that we had the same ideas about things that we can do to help make things easier for everyone to enjoy the arts. And so we did this funding application - the very first lottery applications - way, way back then. And we got, I think, £16,000 which was a huge, huge amount [laughs] We were kind of whee hee hee and that was for a project called Moving Tide, which was about creating dance opportunities in the community for people with a learning disability outside of their normal environment. And it was just amazing. And I think one of the memories I have of going to watch these workshops was just to see a group of 3 or 4 people with a little kind of music machine, sitting there having a sandwich, chattering away, listening to this music, having a laugh and a conversation. So Tess and Martin then went on to create Tin Arts and asked if I would be a Trustee of the organisation. So I became a Trustee of Tin Arts and was there a Trustee until 2022, I think, I resigned from the board, and when I was at Stockton, we worked with Tin Arts on commissioning work by dancers with a learning disability. A mixed group of dancers, and I think we commissioned 3 shows from them, and they were great. They were really good. And we took one of those shows to Fira Tarrega in Catalunya, and that was a great, great achievement to get this dancer - She was a lone dancer, an autistic dancer, and it was about Finding my Unicorn. And so she went out there and did this piece in Tarrega. So she did it at Stockton and did it at Tarrega as well. And that was amazing. That was just a really, really good partnership that we did there. So my time with Tin Arts has been fantastic. They're an amazing organisation and doing quite a lot of work outside of County Durham now and doing it nationally. They're recognized as being one of the leaders in working with people with learning disabilities on access to dance. And the other one that I was with for a long time was Watershed Workshops, which is in Slaithwaite, near Huddersfield, and it was these 3 community theatre companies that raised the money through various sources to buy an old weaving mill, and set up a community arts organisation, which the 3 companies would run. But they wanted to set it up at a charity and asked if I would chair the charity and help them set it up, ‘cause I'd been mates with them for a long time, so I knew them very very well. So I said, “Right, I'll do that then.” Yes, so we did. We kind of set it up, we raised lots of money, we put on nice things, and I stayed with them until about the same time that I resigned from Tin Arts. And over the years we’d had lots and lots of challenges there to keep the place going. There was two things - We had a fire at Watershed, which closed the place for ages, so that needed an awful lot of time spent on making sure that we got the insurance right and getting money to refurbish the place as well and get it back to the position it was in. As Chair, and a friend of the companies, I spent quite a lot of time working with them to do that, as well as during Covid, just making sure that we were raising the money to keep the place going,when the doors were closed and looking for a way to run things in the future as well. And that was quite an important time, kind of coming up with new strategies and plans, for the sort of thing that the building could become in the future following Covid when we start bringing people back into the building again. And so they’re now setting themselves up as a Centre that specialises in music, which is fantastic. And they seem to be thriving. So, it’s a wonderful resource in Slaithwaite, and I still keep in touch with them over there. So it's really, really nice. So I've been really honored to be part of those organisations and their growing success over the years. Claire [Interviewer] Is it challenging being a Trustee or a Chair? Jan [Interviewee] It is challenging. A lot depends on the Charity that you're involved with, I think, but both those Charities needed quite a hands on approach. Tin Arts - I would go along if there was things like development days. We had times where we had funds where some of the dancers could develop their own pieces of work, so there would be money there to support them. And so sometimes as Trustees, we would go along to those kind of development days and help when they were trying to work out if people can work together, kind of drawing out what they might want to do, learning new skills, that kind of thing, which was quite important. Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] What have been your biggest challenges? Jan [Interviewee] I think my confidence has been a challenge for me, and I think that doing the community arts work was a great one for building my confidence, because you just have to get stuck in, you know, and yeah, overcoming my confidence.And I think I've managed to do that. I feel a lot more comfortable in myself and my ways of engaging with people than at some point I did over the years. So that was something that was for me to overcome. I think that I've had two what I would call major things, which have kind of knocked me at the time for seven, which I've had to overcome. One was breast cancer, which was in 2002, and just dealing with that and coming out the other end, I was very lucky to have a good prognosis, but still going through the chemotherapy and radiotherapy and not isolating yourself off, which would have been very easy to do that. And I was working at Durham City at that time and having colleagues that kind of let me go in and do bits of work [laughs] when I felt I was well enough. And you know, I'm sure they kind of thought ‘oo here she comes again, you know, she’ll be on these drugs, she'll be a bit hyper for a couple of days’ It was a bit of a laugh really when they were like that. So that was something to overcome. And the other one that knocked me for seven, and which still affects my life in a very big way, was the death of my son Jamie, when he was 34, in 2009. Sudden death - no, nobody to blame, no illness to blame, no nothing. It just, it just happened. And I suddenly felt very lonely at that point because he was my only, if you like, immediate family. Got a brother and a sister really, but you know we, we would do things together. And suddenly that big element in my life had gone and I thought, I don't how to do Christmas anymore. We always had Christmas together. We always did something really mad and fancy at Christmas, and he always invited me to concerts and gigs and things like that. And so that was a huge, huge thing to overcome and stays with me forever really, Yeah. And I think that the one thing that that helped me overcome that was my partner with Nigel - his family, his daughters, just took me under their wing, really. And his four grandchildren are now, If you like, my grandchildren and they call me their Jan-ma, you know, they've got other grandparents, but nobody else has got a Jan-ma. [laughs] Yeah. Claire [Interviewer] Why is it important to make art in the community? Jan [Interviewee] Oo crikey - mikey. There’s all kinds of reasons. I think one thing it can make people look and appreciate their community in a different way.I think that it also gives people access to think - some people would never even dream of going to a theatre or a gallery or some kind of cultural venue, but when they come across something in the street, then it's kind of just giving them access to something they might not have thought about. But what I also love about it as well, that people will kind of think that ‘Oh I’ve had enough of that’ and they'll walk off and they'll go and see something else, you know? So yeah.[laughs] Claire [Interviewer] What can community arts achieve at its best? Jan [Interviewee] At its best, I think it should be giving people really, really excellent experiences. It involves people. It brings them together, gives them new skills, making a flag or something for a festival or getting together in a carnival workshop.I mean the [Stockton] Carnival I think is a perfect example of good community outdoor arts, where for the weeks leading up to the festival, people are involved in costume-making and making music and learning to dance, and the pride they feel, and their friends and family feel in coming to watch them is immense. And I think that for Stockton is a huge, huge part of the festival and the impact on the town. We had always spent a decent budget on the carnival - made sure that good artists were working with, good materials so that it looked good, good equipment for the music so that people could hear the music when they were on the move. So I think it can give people enjoyment, it can bring people together. And I think one of the things I remember from the very early days of mobile phones was there was some big show on in the centre of the town, and at one moment, because there was probably a bit of fire or something wonderful, all you saw were the phones going up, you just saw arms being raised [laughs] and you thought everyone's experiencing the same. They're thinking the same thing. They're loving that. And there was one show that we had which was on headphones - down in the Dairy Car Park and you’ll remember the Dairy Car Park, yes - you performed [Fahrenheit] 451 there, and there was a show there where we all had headphones on, walking around, and there were some funny moments in it, you know, and you would suddenly look at the person next to you and realize that they were laughing, while you were laughing. So you were hearing the same things and sharing even though you were in your own little zone at the same time. You recognise that other people were enjoying that, and you could just tell by their faces that it was a shared experience as well. Shared experience is really important I think, but also location is great for outdoor arts. It's very important for the impact it has on the people watching it, and you know that yourself from things like the recent one - The Spiral [Shore] on the Saltburn beach, just how important that location was for those that were creating the spiral, for those watching it as well. OUTRO: Thank you for listening to Periplum’s Trailblazers Podcasts funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. To listen to more of the series, and follow our projects visit our website at periplumheritage.com