Exciting year ahead for Liskeard creatives
In recent years the words ‘handcrafted in Cornwall’ have become synonymous with fairly priced, high-quality products. The arts and crafts of England’s most south-westerly county have a well-deserved reputation for their extraordinary character, reflective of the beautiful and unspoilt landscapes and seascapes with which nature has gifted the region, a great culture of place, honed by its unique geography and by its centuries of proud heritage.
The lovely little town of Liskeard in the south-east of the county is home to some of Cornwall’s finest arts and crafts talents, though it has perhaps lacked the immediate glamour of such coastal resorts as St Ives.
The town has for many years enjoyed a lively community of independent retail and hospitality venues, but suffered a blow when, after a long period of decline, Liskeard’s cattle market finally closed in 2017. The market had been crucial to the growth and sustenance of the local economy since at least as far back as the thirteenth century, located right at the heart of the town and the wider rural community. Much of the site – apart from a few small businesses – has lain empty ever since.
But, today, an energy is returning to the old cattle market site, under the aegis of a regeneration masterplan driven and developed by Cornwall Council, with the support of internationally renowned placemaking consultants JTP who ran a wide-reaching community consultation in 2019.
In line with the priorities identified by local people, the site will include a major new building (currently under construction) to be called the Workshed, providing workspaces for creative and digital businesses, a new covered market area and enhanced community facilities. The site will in addition feature a complex of studio spaces whose tenancies will be open to local artists and craftspeople, as well as a hi-tech fabrication laboratory, to be equipped with the advice and support of Plymouth College of Art (based on the model of their own highly successful ‘Fab Lab’), and a ‘messy space’ to provide a hireable studio for local makers in such media as paint and ceramics.
This new facility, which is due to open towards the end of summer 2022, will also be the home of a major local project, launched in November 2021, designed to deploy engagement in the arts to promote social inclusion and social mobility for individuals and to support the economic and cultural regeneration for the town.
The Market Makers project is managed by Liskeard Town Council and supported by Cornwall Council, Community Led Local Development and the European Structural and Investment Fund.
Through 2022, Covid rules permitting, we will be delivering a series of after-school sessions in arts and crafts skills for children and parents/carers at two local primary schools. Starting in early 2022, we will also be providing courses in arts and crafts for local residents currently not in work. These courses – in such areas as woodcrafting, print-making, fabric work and watercolours – are designed to enhance participants’ wellbeing, confidence, skills and prospects in employment and education. It is envisaged that some participants will continue in education and training; some will have developed the confidence and transferable skills to enter or re-enter the world of work; and some will want to establish their own small arts and crafts businesses as creative entrepreneurs.
Our project team will work to mentor and support the development of these new entrepreneurs; and we hope that some of these fledgling businesses will eventually move into our new studio facility on the historic Cattle Market site. We will also be mentoring and promoting more established local arts businesses. We’ve already started working with a range of brilliant local artists, craftspeople and creative enterprises, supporting their business development, establishing a network of mutual support, and promoting their work more widely as part of Liskeard’s Market Makers community. We’re already talking with local enterprises about such concerns as pricing, marketing and promotion; about online content creation, retail opportunities and sales strategies; and about their longer-term business development and growth plans.
Such brilliant local makers as textile artist Adam Halls (of Circle Contemporary), ceramicist Raymond Toms, decorative artist Bibi Wilson, printmaker Sian Bush, multimedia artist Karen Burden, watercolourist Shari Hills, woodcrafter Philip Harwin, fabric crafter Jane Chidlow, doll-maker Faye Gray, puppet-maker Kellyann Horsburgh (@ItWasTheVoices), oil painter Ruth Marriott (aka Cornish-Art-with-Ruth), jewellery-maker Rachael Richardson (aka Rach Richardson Jewellery), soft furnishings expert Joanne Ballinger (aka Vardo Upholstery), upholsterer Debbie Mynott (aka the Cornish Pedlar), Tiffanie and Marlon Biddle (aka Pot Stars Studio), Dee and Abi Knight (aka DAK Art) and designers Andy and Madeline Hall (aka Design Punch) are amongst those who have stepped forward to lend their support to our initiative to create a local business network for such creative talents.
We’re also very pleased to be engaged in exciting conversations about potential collaborations with the highly regarded Sterts Theatre and Liskeard Museum, and are working in cooperation with a range of other organisations and initiatives serving the local communities, including a number of adult day care facilities, Liskeard's Lighthouse Centre and Food Bank, the Job Centre, the Salvation Army and the Methodist Church, the Liskerrett Community Centre, Adult Education Services, the Real Ideas Organisation, Pluss Health Works, the veterans charity Battling On, the social project Liskeard Together and Arts Well, the regional partnership of social prescribers – as well as with the friendly support of many local businesses. We’ve also of course been very grateful for the support of local media, in particular the Cornish Times and BBC Radio Cornwall.
In addition to the traditional media, and our use of social media channels (Facebook/Instagram: @cattlemarketmakers; Twitter: @CMMproject), we have also reached out to our core audiences by leafletting thousands of households in our target areas. (We’d strongly recommend this strategy. It may be the only way to make contact with some constituents. It’s also an excellent way to learn more about the parts of your own neighbourhood you mightn’t know so well.)
In early December 2021, we announced the first two enterprises which formally signed up to our mentoring scheme were Pot Stars Studio and DAK Art. Both are small family businesses based in Liskeard’s Old Brewery complex. This gloriously eccentric and eclectic facility is something of a hidden gem, a lively and friendly creative space in the middle of Liskeard’s central retail district. Alongside arts and crafts stalls and studios, it includes a charming arts café – appropriately enough called the Odd Spot – where its makers and traders tend to congregate, and from which craft products are sold and crafting sessions are run. The venue offers a fascinating social and creative mix; indeed, it even houses the office of a counsellor who deploys engagement in the creative arts as part of the therapeutic experience.
The Old Brewery epitomizes our little town’s brilliant and ambitious arts and crafts community. Our project is simply working to help Liskeard gain its well-deserved recognition on the region’s creative map – with the invaluable support, ideas and inspiration generously provided by the creativity, energy and enthusiasm of our wonderful local makers.