Creatives unite in new Perth facility

Perth Creative Exchange is a fantastic new hub for artists and makers in the Fair City. Gayle Ritchie finds out more

Art can transform lives. That’s the thinking behind Perth Creative Exchange, a £4.5m project to create the city’s first creative hub. The new facility, based in the former St John’s School building, is an inspiring home for artists, makers, creative industry professionals and the general public.

A partnership project between Wasps (Workshop and Artists Studio Provision Scotland) and Perth and Kinross Council, Perth Creative Exchange is Wasps’ 20th building in Scotland, and their first studio building in this area.

To date, 24 creatives have moved into the building, which opened earlier this month. An official launch ceremony is also expected to take place on February 26.

The project marks a key moment in the expansion of Wasps – a national charity and social enterprise which aims to offer affordable studios and workspaces for more than 1,000 tenants across Scotland by the end of the year.

Dinosaur illustrator Jon Hoad, whose work is used globally to show people what fossilised plants and animals were like when alive, is over-the-moon to have a studio in the Perth facility.

“It’s a brilliant opportunity,” he says. “My pictures have been commissioned for use in museums, books, magazines and on TV, but now I want to expand my business to start producing things like T-shirts and posters.”

Jon has a particular interest in promoting discoveries made in Scotland and recently worked with the Edinburgh University team that discovered footprints of huge dinosaurs, such as sauropods, from more than 170 million years ago on Skye.

Ceri White, a ceramicist from near Dunning specialising in colourful planters, had previously been working in a small wooden shed.

“I kitted it out when I moved to the area, but in winter it’s barely usable because it’s so tiny, cold and damp,” she says. “These days I need to work more efficiently and to have more space, so this studio is perfect.”

Children’s author, illustrator and art therapist John Halverson is another creative to enjoy a new studio.

A graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone, John draws on his childhood struggles and experience as a foster carer to take his stories into schools. He has taught therapeutic art classes to people coping with personal trauma, worked with adults with learning difficulties and the homeless, and turns his hand

thecouriermagazine to pet portraits. Taking his stories into schools is, according to John, a way of combining his passion for writing and illustrating with his love of children.

“Whether my books get published or not doesn’t matter – it’s connecting to people that’s important,” says John.

“Also, kids like fun – it’s positive and empowering for them. There are those that hang back and those that come right up front to engage with the puppets, and that’s all fine.”

John’s studio at Perth Creative Exchange is his fourth attempt at a studio – one burnt down, one was a death trap with blackened power sockets and floors that flooded, and the third was in such a dodgy area that police advised him to leave.

Meanwhile, Perth-based visual artist Pamela Atan, who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2018 with a BA (Hons) in Sculpture and Environmental Art, has created a homely-yetfunctional workspace in her studio.

She works with different media including film, sound and sculpture to create large-scale site “responsive” works.

“My recent work, The Pairing was influenced by music and literature,” she says. “I was working out of my house, but I think it’s important for artists to have dedicated spaces for their art. Moving home from Glasgow, I felt the loss of being part of an artistic community, so it’s great to be in one space where everyone can be together.

“There are opportunities to chat to people, to collaborate and bounce ideas off each other.”

Other artists to have secured studio space include Helen O’Brien, Su Grierson, Libby Scott, Kate Bell, Barry Allan Scott, Alison Price, Jenna McDonald, Roberta Pederlozi and Susan Hutchison.

As well as studios, Perth Creative Exchange will provide 13 workspaces for creative businesses, a teaching space, hot-desking area and meeting rooms plus a public café, gallery and project space. It is also home to The Famous Grouse Ideas Centre which is dedicated to incubating creative businesses.

Audrey Carlin, Wasps chief executive officer, says opening Perth Creative Exchange is a “landmark moment”.

“Wasps has come a long way since it opened its first studios in Dundee back in the 1970s,” she says.

“We are now supporting Scotland’s creative community in facilities from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway.

“The facility could make a real difference to Perth and the surrounding area, providing a much-needed boost to the artistic community”.