A trailer firm has stepped in with £5,000 to bring back a school arts programme axed because of funding problems.
Youngsters from across North Wales will once again get the chance to work with leading artists after Ifor Williams Trailers answered the appeal for help from Ruthin Craft Centre.
The centre’s school visits programme ended in 2019 because of a lack of funding which meant pupils lost the opportunity to visit the internationally renowned contemporary applied arts centre to take part in workshops.
But director Samantha Rhodes appealed to local businesses to help reinstate the scheme this autumn.
The £5,000 donation from Ifor Williams Trailers has helped unlock a further £3,000 from Arts & Business Cymru to pay for artists and artist assistants at the school workshops.
The funding will meet the cost of eight school visits over the next six months.
Ms Rhodes said: “The funding is so welcome and I am absolutely delighted Ifor Williams Trailers have offered their fabulous support.
“It is just wonderful when local businesses invest in our young people and our communities.
“The funding will pay for a mixture of things including the fees for the artists who will actually run the workshops for the children, the cost of transport where required for the schools to get to Ruthin Craft Centre, and the cost of materials for the workshops.
“The programme will try to involve schools from across North East Wales, and the children normally come in class-size groups.
“They will come and see the exhibitions that are on at the time of their visit, and then the lead artist will take the children and their teachers into an exhibition and talk about the work, and the themes or techniques they are then going to draw upon during the workshop.
“They then go back to our education space and the artist will facilitate the workshop that relates to the exhibition they have just seen.
“Schools are facing barriers to experiencing the arts in general, and certainly facing barriers to visiting our centre, not least because of our location in rural North East Wales.
Ms Rhodes added: “The schools programme will allow our young people to consider a career in the creative industries.
“We work with local artists, some live just 15 or 20 minutes away, and that shows our young people that art can offer them a viable career.
“The programme is not about making everybody an artist, it is about the wonderful skills that being creative brings, and they are valuable life skills.
“It is so important to me that local people see Ruthin Craft Centre as a place for them, we are not elitist at all and we want to make it accessible as possible.”
Joe Pardoe, marketing manager at Ifor Williams Trailers, said: “We are proud to be a community-minded company and to play an important role in all aspects of life in North Wales.
“The arts are such an important aspect of people’s lives and to the communities we have served for many years.
“We are delighted to be able to support the school visits programme which will give our young people a chance to come to this fantastic centre and learn more about the great work that goes on here through the artists themselves.
“I think we are so lucky to have a world-leading craft centre here in North Wales and it is so important that everyone, including schoolchildren, has a chance to experience it.
“The school programme could well inspire the leading artists of tomorrow, and as a company deeply-rooted in the region we are thrilled to be playing a role in that.”
Gwenno Angharad, North Wales Partnerships Director for Arts & Business Cymru, said the group’s grant of £3,000 came through its CultureStep Investment Programme which is designed to encourage and support collaboration between business and the arts.
She said: “CultureStep exists to enhance projects that companies have invested in to support the arts in Wales.
“I am extremely pleased that Ifor Williams Trailers has committed such a significant amount of money into Ruthin Craft Centre, which has a national and international reputation.
“Ruthin Craft Centre is a very special place, it is the leading craft centre in Wales.
“It is really important that children and their teachers have the opportunity to go into the gallery and learn from such fantastic artists.”
The craft centre’s Associate Artist Bethan M Hughes is one of the creatives who will be taking part in the school visits scheme.
Bethan, who lives in Ruthin and who is a textile artist, said: “I think the schools programme is all about sowing seeds, and if you don’t sow the seeds, you won’t get any growth.”
Glass artist Verity Pulford, from Eryrys, near Mold, will be leading workshops in the school visits programme.
She said: “It is vital that we have young people visiting this centre because it means they can see it is absolutely possible for them to be an artist.
“It gives the children an important pathway into experiencing arts and crafts.
“And even if they don’t become artists, culture is an important part of all our lives.”
As well as thanking Ifor Williams Trailers, Ms Rhodes gave special thanks to Ruthin-based civil engineering firm Jones Bros who are long-term supporters of the centre.
The firm supports the centre’s Caffi Celf programme which promotes the learning of the Welsh language through the arts.
She said: “Jones Bros have been and continue to be wonderful supporters of the centre, and we are hugely grateful to them.
“We would absolutely encourage other businesses to contact us to look at what partnerships we can form going forwards in the future.”
