Gaada

As part of the brilliant Stay See Share project I had a great talk with Amy Gear from Gaada. A visual arts workshop and collaborative projects in Shetland.

Gaada is a multi-purpose space working with artists of all abilities and interests over a range of art forms including printing. The space itself is located on the Burra Isle, Shetland and was started in 2018 by Amy Gear and Daniel Clark.

The space has been growing steadily since 2018 and is now a community interest company (CIC) with a host of advisory board members and volunteer directors who all help mentor and guide the space with their own knowledge and background. Just like when I was chatting with Arianna from Print Clan Amy spoke of the board and directors as a team of mentors there to guide and advise. Building the right team is crucial and Amy noted about how having the right folks can make a difference to helping build your idea. It’s important to make sure that the people around you have a vested interest in what you’re doing. I would definitely like to have a team feeling around what I’m doing as at the moment it’s just myself however I think I need to test more things out before looking at becoming a CIC company. I think mentorship is a really important part of bouncing ideas off each other and grow in your idea so it’s definitely something I’d look for to help support this project further. There is also Johan, the Financial Administrator and Vivian, the Programme Coordinator at Gaada who work part-time. Their roles are part funded through different schemes from Shetland Charitable Trust and Creative Scotland. This is interesting as I didn’t know that that would be a possibility it’s definitely something to look into once the space has grown into a capacity with it needs further help to develop to its full potential. One person trying to juggle everything isn’t really going to support the community as well as a team so it’s definitely something to think about as the textile hub grows.

screen printing at Gaada — Screen printing at Gaada

Amy talked about the space being accessible for all and I think this shows straight from their website for Gaada, where it’s really easy to access information and read through and see what is available including equipment in the facility and workshops. Some of the opportunities and workshops at Gaada include public workshops and one-to-one workshops as well as private workshops. There are also notes about how folks can fund access to the workshops. This includes their own fund of artists bursaries (6 a year), which is funded by the Shetland Art Council, pointing folks to wards VACMA funding (Visual Artist and Craft Makers Awards) and also how folks with Self Directed Support (SDS) payments can use this to help them to access facilities. I thought this was really insightful as it means the space could sustainability exist whilst helping all the areas within the community. These are definitely elements I’m going to look further into for the textile hub, as I want to have a space that is going to be there in in Aberdeenshire for years to come supporting designers, graduates and folks that may not have had access routes to textiles before to access the facility and support. I also like the way Amy talked about the SDS pathways workshops, as it really focused on the artists using the space and the support there to take from it what they want. They could come in and do a print project for example or they could come in and do some drawings and chat about what they’re doing this really felt like it was an inclusive and nurturing space for creativity to grow. Amy also noted about the practicalities around workshops and projects, about having a contract put in place so that folks know the framework of workshop or a project. What each person is getting out of it and watch each person is putting into it. I think this is something that really needs to be thought about more for the textiles hub specifically being really clear about actually this is what we are doing in this timeframe. As I always want to push and do more but in order to create the best outcome a clear frame work is needed for all.

Another great thing to happen is it Gaada is it every member can put a piece into the shop and if it sells online 50% of the sales goes to Gaada and 50% of the sales goes to the artist. Gaada doesn’t make a profit from this but what it does offer is a platform where artists can be seen and people can purchase their work. This might not be something that the artist has already it’s a great starting point for them. Plus, this website already has traffic from people going to it so could also give the artists access to a new audience. At the textile studio unit in Chapelton we have to have a small shop space within it and at the moment it has some of my pieces in it, which is fine, but something like this where members work is shown would definitely work better and feel more genuine to the idea of the hub.

Holly Graham - Glasgow Women's Library - Weemin's Wark

Gaada has also done lots of projects, including a recent one with the Glasgow Women’s Library. It is actually amazing when you look into how much goes on at Gaada, which is run really by a small team, the output and the quality of that output is extraordinary. In our chat Amy mentioned as they are a CIC company they have to do what is called a service performance report at the end of the year. It’s kind of like a report about how they’ve been serving the community, what projects, workshops etc. they’ve been doing and how the space as a whole has been working as a CIC company. I think even without being a CIC company that something like this is important to do if you’re a soul trader or a freelancer but you’re doing work with the community or projects with the community or organisations or individuals, I think it’s good to do a yearly review of what you’ve done as a whole as often we don’t see the bigger picture of things we’ve been doing. Or even recognise the things that bring us joy within our work and by doing a review at the end of the year I think it would really highlight what is important within your focus and what’s important within the work, what’s needed what’s required. So my plan is to not only just research and try what I feel is needed from this Stay Share Share project but also do a bigger review for myself and the textile studio at the end of next year to reflect back on that and see if those ideas were true or if it’s slightly altered and hopefully it will help the development of the space.

Gaada is growing and moving to a fit for purpose space! This space will include multi-use workshop space, projects space, gallery and a shop to further grow on all the elements Gaada is already offering but in a space that is more suited to its needs and in the inclusive needs of others. We had a great chat about how location is important for access as with so many things in main towns or cities this can cut access for some and how that having a rural but accessible location suits the needs of Shetland and Aberdeenshire. Read more about this fantastic developing space from Gaada here – Future Site.

Gaada logo

I can’t thank Amy enough for her open discussion about Gaada’s development, operations aspirations and her general advice. I really look forward to continuing following the developments at Gaada and hope to get up for a visit one day as the area and the space sound so creatively vivid.

Stay See Share /// Gaada