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Category : News

Photo by Felicity Crawshaw

Residencies in Clay artist blog

For 4 weeks across November and December Nic Green took part in Residencies in Clay, which supported artists exploring the transformational potential of clay within society and contemporary arts practice. The residency culminated in Building the Clay Commons with Eva Masterman, which brought together local community members, makers and artists from the North East and beyond. Nic shares a collection of reflections and shares memories that she has connected with whilst experimenting with clay. All words by Nic Green. I […]

Notes on ‘A Residency in Clay’ and ‘Building the Clay Commons’

For 4 weeks across November and December Mina Heydari-Waite took part in Residencies in Clay, which supported artists exploring the transformational potential of clay within society and contemporary arts practice. The residency culminated in Building the Clay Commons with Eva Masterman, which brought together local community members, makers and artists from the North East and beyond. Mina shares a collection of reflections along with some beautiful photos from her time at SSW. All words and images by Mina Heydari-Waite. A […]

Photo by Felicity Crawshaw

Coming up at SSW in 2024

This year marks Scottish Sculpture Workshop’s 45th anniversary, on this landmark year we’re sharing our future direction and programme updates as well as a new multi-voiced leadership model set up to underpin this. Expanding the possibilities of what sculpture can be At SSW we want to expand the possibilities of what sculpture can be, continuously working towards positive social and environmental change. We’re doing this by rethinking material and skills-based learning, prioritising process and opening up our workshop space as […]

Job Opportunity: Technical Manager

The deadline for applications have now passed. We’re recruiting a Technical Manager, an exciting new role at SSW, vital in leading the organisation to achieve our vision and new leadership direction. Job Title: Technical ManagerSalary: £32,000 – £37,000 (pro-rata) depending on experience, valid certifications and trainingContract: 0.8 (4 days/ 30 hours per week) permanent may include working weekends and evenings as requiredLine Manage: Technical Team made up of Ceramics Technician, Visiting Technicians/ Specialists, Cleaner Place of work: SSW, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, […]

Photo credit: Felicity Crawshaw

Building the Clay Commons: In pictures

From 26 November to 1 December Eva Masterman facilitated ‘Building the Clay Commons’ bringing together local community members, makers and artists from the North East and beyond. Together they co-created a set of values and actions that better understand and imagine how community ceramic studios, like SSW’s, can offer alternatives to traditional craft education systems in the UK and be a force for social good. Over the week we spent time collectively making, thinking, discussing, walking, listening, sauna-ing, journaling and […]

Rural School of Economics Summer Camp - Photo by Felicity Crawshaw

The Community Making Space is 1 year old!

It is our Community Making Space’s 1st anniversary in December 2023. Together with our collaborator, artist group Myvillages, we opened the former shop exactly a year ago, with the intention to make new connections and more space between us as an arts organisation and our home village Lumsden. We are excited to share some of our achievements as well as how we plan to collectively imagine what we make happen here in Lumsden in 2024 and beyond… Images by Sam […]

Some of the SSW team outside Slag Hammers

Out and about: SSW team travels

Here at SSW, building connections and learning different ways of working is an important part of what we do and it’s often not visible. So, we’d like to give a snapshot into where the team have been and who they have met between May to November 2023. In May we had a team away day to Glasgow to research how other organisations run their spaces to be inclusive and welcoming and the processes they put in place to do this. […]

The Bothy, photo by Felicity Crawshaw

Announcing the next phase of capital development at SSW

We are delighted to share that SSW has been successful in securing funding from both the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and from the Rural Communities Challenge Fund to continue development of our buildings and facilities. With this support we will be able to further our commitment to practically improving access and environmental sustainability here at SSW. Through this next phase of our capital project we will be; converting and extending the bothy store into a new accessible bedroom and bathroom […]

Jere Vainio Portrait 2023

Announcing Ecologies in the Making: Sculpting Futures, 2024

We are very pleased to announce that artist Jere Vainio has been awarded the 2024 Ecologies in the Making: Sculpting Futures Residency. This four-month residency is the third in a four year programme developed by the Academy of Fine Arts Uniarts Helsinki, Cove Park and Scottish Sculpture Workshop (SSW). Each resident has the opportunity to work at Cove Park for 8 weeks before travelling to Aberdeenshire to be in residence with us for a further 8-week residency at SSW. Jere […]

Selected artists for Residencies in Clay

Image credit: 33 Seeds, Mina Heydari-Waite Our inaugural Residencies in Clay programme is taking place throughout November and we look forward to supporting Mina Heydari-Waite, Josie KO and Nic Green through this residency programme. During their time at SSW Josie, Nic and Mina will be taking time to grow their practices and material knowledge by testing processes, sharing skills and pushing the possibilities of clay. Nic Green says, I am really delighted to be headed to SSW. For a while […]