Ruthin Craft Centre is reinstating its school visits programme this autumn after Ifor Williams Trailers donated £5,000.
The programme, which gave pupils the chance to visit the centre for workshops with artists, ended in 2019 because of a lack of funding. Director Samantha Rhodes appealed to local businesses to help bring it back.
The donation has helped unlock a further £3,000 from Arts & Business Cymru, through its CultureStep Investment Programme, to pay for artists and artist assistants at the workshops. The funding will cover eight school visits over the next six months.
Samantha Rhodes said: “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 aim to involve schools from across North East Wales. Pupils, normally in class-size groups, will see the current exhibitions with a lead artist before taking part in a related workshop in the centre’s education space.
Ms Rhodes said: “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.”
Joe Pardoe, marketing manager at Ifor Williams Trailers, said: “The arts are such an important aspect of people’s lives and to the communities we have served for many years.”
Gwenno Angharad, North Wales Partnerships Director for Arts & Business Cymru, said: “CultureStep exists to enhance projects that companies have invested in to support the arts in Wales.”
Textile artist Bethan M Hughes, the centre’s Associate Artist, who lives in Ruthin, and glass artist Verity Pulford, from Eryrys near Mold, are among the artists taking part.
Bethan M Hughes 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.”
Ms Rhodes also thanked Ruthin-based civil engineering firm Jones Bros, a long-term supporter of the centre, which supports its Caffi Celf programme promoting the learning of Welsh through the arts.
