Culture centre built on a firm Foundation
Thanks to a very substantial legacy from Marchmont's Hugo Burge, the foundation founded there in his name is providing an impressive range of support for artists in many disciplines.
I'VE BEEN TALKING with James Fox, Creative Director of the Hugo Burge Foundation. It's a dank, dreich February day, and James is far away, so we are on the phone, but, really, I can tell, he'd rather be in the walled gardens at Marchmont.
It's nearly two years since the devastating loss of Hugo Burge, far too young. Having made a fortune with his highly successful web-based travel search business, he established himself at Marchmont, a stunning estate deep in the Scottish Borders.
Not just to house his growing collection of contemporary art, but also, more unusually and significantly, to be a living centre of creativity, and to realise his vision and conviction that, for humanity to thrive, survive even, it was essential to encourage and provide space, creative, mental and physical, for artists of all kinds to recognise and reconnect with the natural world.
He nurtured traditional makers including potters, silversmiths and furniture makers in the arts and crafts tradition, as well as providing studio space for residencies in the beautifully restored courtyard, re-purposed from the garage and stables.
All within the richly wooded grounds of the estate, and refined in the walled gardens close by the house, together with imaginative plans in the pipeline for a creative community centre at Earlston, a town near Melrose.
Thankfully Hugo left a legacy with clear guidelines for future development. The Foundation manages a substantial capital fund, sufficient to enable some £300,000 to be distributed annually. It works with schools, charities and educational institutions to increase young people's access to creative learning, support apprenticeships in traditional crafts, and offer generous grants to artists and makers, community events and festivals.
It offers free and affordable studios and workspaces, along with funded and self-funded residencies. It runs events, takes courses, runs workshops and arranges open studio weekends for visitors.
The Trustees are Chair and Founding Trustee Alan Martin, with Hazel Smith and James Fox. Alan's financial expertise helped Hugo develop his business enterprises. Hazel brings experience of community education, helping women, young people and children, promoting egalitarian values, and empowering vulnerable people to be leaders.
Acclaimed art historian James's book The World According to Colour, a Cultural History is high on my reading list. He's also a curator and BAFTA-nominated broadcaster. In Nature and Us, a History Through Art on BBC iPlayer, he outlines how artists have interpreted, celebrated, respected, and valued nature, including us... and our gardens. As under-gardener on our cottage plot, I understand his enthusiasm and passion. Half the HBF team are gardeners.
The Foundation are inviting applications throughout May (and again in September) for grants of up to £15,000 for educational and community projects, and for residencies, living on site, and being inspired by its magic, including the gardens!
Wisely they've kept the application criteria and process simple, compared with the tortuous goal-driven processes of so many funding bodies. They offer opportunities for anyone working in the creative and cultural world to take time out to develop new ideas, hone and embellish existing ones, or just make space, stand back, and see what happens... or doesn't. Their willingness to encourage risk is so refreshing.
This open approach feels particularly important just now. As James says "Creativity is the lifeblood of our society. It has the power to transform lives and communities." Cultural vitality, innovation and impact are vitally important to help retrieve the country from "The truly dire state of our arts" that Charlotte Higgins wrote of in the Guardian on February 1, referencing too many schools no longer supporting the arts or music, cuts to the British Council, and closure of more libraries. A change from 1983, when the then Chairman of the Arts Council, a certain Sir William Rees-Mogg, announced a strategy entitled "The Glory of the Garden". Heady days indeed! But it's no good just sowing seeds, you have to nurture, feed and protect them.
Cutting funding to future generations, especially creative initiatives that will generate significant monetary, educational and social wealth is madly counter-productive, isn't it?
Hopefully a combination of private and public initiatives will encourage a Scottish vanguard to lead Britain out of this mire. So it's good that Angus Robertson, the Scottish Culture Secretary, gets it. Announcing extra funding for Creative Scotland, he confirms that "Scotland's arts and culture are at the very soul of our nation."
A stark contrast to past cuts in England and Wales. That said, as I write there is news that Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, in a nod to Jennie Lee's transformational white paper on the arts in 1964, also gets it.
Now a £270m Arts Everywhere Fund, will "support jobs and create opportunities for young people to learn creative skills while helping to boost people's sense of pride in where they live"
Hats off to change agents like the Hugo Burge Foundation... more power to their collective elbows, spades, forks and rakes!
NICK JONES
