ARTISTS TALKING

This profile is a taster to sculpture as a medium in its own right, outside public art.

It includes Grace Weir whose work employs new media and Amy Azelda Cooper, a graduate from Wolverhampton's ceramics and sculpture BA.

Amy Azelda Cooper

Some of my most important professional contacts were made through the University of Wolverhampton, as the ceramics and sculpture course facilitated not only the degree show but also opportunities to take part in nationally-recognised showcases.

I exhibited at New Designers and Fresh Art in London. At New Designers I was selected to become a licentiate of the Society of Designer Craftsmen that led to a show at London's Mall Galleries.

Meeting new people in the industry has definitely led me into new directions and generated useful contacts. I will also be taking part in the Art in Clay show at Hatfield House in August 2003. The ceramics department at the University of Wolverhampton has a long-standing link with this exhibition.

At university I undertook a large community seating commission for Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital. Having done some work for the maternity ward as part of the university professional practice module, I approached the hospital to see if they would be interested in a larger piece.

They were enthusiastic, allocated me a small fee, and asked for proposals. I was invited to attend board meetings to discuss the siting of the piece outside the new entrance atrium. This was a great chance to see how the planning and architects work, as it seems to be a different world.

Ibstock Brick sponsored the commission, providing clay, working space, firing facilities, and transport for the finished piece to travel between shows. I will be maintaining this contact, with a view to undertaking future larger-scale works.

Since graduating, I have been busy promoting myself - not something that comes naturally to me but something that is essential to any artist. I am constantly trying to make new contacts by sending out CVs and slides and use the internet to look for opportunities and galleries on sites such as www.studiopottery.co.uk.

The most useful source of info for artists is a-n The Artists Information Company. I have applied to several things listed in a-n Magazine and it always cheers me up to know there is so much going on out there.

Relocation to Hove has been inspirational and enabled me to make new contacts, helped through finding studio space and having an exhibition at a local gallery. The new environment has fed my practice directly and subconsciously.

I am taking part in the Brighton festival open studio this year, exhibiting my lamps alongside a textile artist. It's a good opportunity to get feedback on my work. The other artists in the studio are also becoming a good sounding board and I keep in touch with my tutors and technicians.

After attending a short business start-up course I now have two mentors, one from the enterprise agency and one from the Princes Trust. I have been learning to juggle since I graduating, fitting time to make work in with paperwork, publicity and applying for funding. It's all much more time consuming than it should be, but a challenging and necessary part of being an artist.

Amy Azelda Cooper did a BA (Hons) art and design (ceramics and sculpture) at University of Wolverhampton, graduating in 2002.

For an update on Amy Azelda Cooper's career go to Artists' Profiles Index

The writer

Abigail Branagan is a freelance consultant and marketing director of the Applied Arts Agency - a retail and gallery space in Clerkenwell, London. Originally trained in fine art, she has been working in the creative sector for eight years and has undertaken projects for a range of organisations, including Mazorca Projects, London.

Grace Weir

After college, like many of my peers at the time, I left the country and worked abroad for a year. When I returned to be an artist I knew that that probably meant going on the dole. I was making sculpture and occasionally getting opportunities to make public art, whilst making several initially unsuccessful bids to the Arts Council of Ireland for projects. But I've always felt that it was important to keep yourself visible in this way and to talk to people on their terms, so that you can be a credible advocate of your own position. This stood me in good stead when I was threatened with eviction from my live/work studio in Temple Bar in the 1990s. I sought good legal advice, helped to create coalitions with other artists and, after several years, secured my right to live in fixed low-rent accommodation which is vital to my ability to sustain my practice.

A one-year residency at PS1 in New York and an MSc (and much self-educating) really helped me to interrogate my work and confirmed a shift towards computers and video in my practice. Taking responsibility and actively contacting the people who should be seeing your work is very important. The first time you phone someone it's embarrassing, but at least one such call ultimately led to my work being in Venice, and it helps develop your sense of yourself as an artist working in the world.

Grace Weir represented Ireland at the 2001 Venice Biennale. She did a NCAD Dublin Dip in Design (1980-1984) and an MSc in Multimedia Systems (1996-1997).

The writers

Libby Anson is an independent professional, creative and personal development consultant, who also works as a freelance lecturer and writer.

Abigail Branagan is a freelance consultant and marketing director of the Applied Arts Agency - a retail and gallery space in Clerkenwell, London. Originally trained in fine art, she has been working in the creative sector for eight years and has undertaken projects for a range of organisations, including Mazorca Projects, London.

Mark Gubb is an artist based in Nottingham working in a range of disciplines from painting to installation to video. His installation and film commission for Grizedale Arts references classic British horror and its cross pollination with American culture. A lecturer at the University of Derby, South East Derbyshire College and a regular contributor to a-n's publications, he is also co-director of artist-led initiative Loadstar.

Wendy Mason is a designer-maker in Yorkshire who also works as an arts consultant and trainer.

Graham Parker is an artist, critic, curator and lecturer involved in artist-led initiatives in Manchester. His work has been commissioned by Henry Moore Institute and Tate Gallery, Liverpool (Artranspennine), Manchester City Art Gallery, Compton Verney, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. He has shown extensively in the UK and internationally. He is Visual Arts Officer at Salford University and co-course leader of Tate Liverpool's University Network MA course module and artistic director (with Dave Beech) of floating ip project space Manchester.

Emma Safe is an artist and writer on the visual arts based in Birmingham.

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