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Bobby Baker, Artistic Director of Daily Life Ltd, names those who have inspired and guided her.

Bobby Baker
Photo: 
Maisie Broadhead and Jack Cole

 

Mrs Burgess

In my secondary school I had an art teacher called Mrs Burgess. She was a remarkable teacher; a stern and imposing character, who wore flowing bohemian clothes and ran the art room like a professional artists studio. Her friends were artists and she was a Liberal unlike all the Tories in my life then. Her lessons were the highlight of my time at school. She praised my efforts and work, and I yearned to be her favourite pupil. One of my good friends, Frances Spalding, now a well-known art historian, was also good at art. Even though Frankie was not remotely competitive, I felt compelled to compete for top spot and pretended to know what Liberal values were. Mrs B gave me a prized yellow campaign badge, which I hid.

Sarah Pickthall and Jo Verrent

I first encountered the work of these two women when they were running their pioneering SYNC Leadership Development Programme in 2006. Their work is informed by their personal experience of disability/impairment and extensive knowledge of the disability arts sector, and they were, and continue to be, life-changing people to know and work with. In 2010, as part of the final cohort of SYNC training, and got to know great people like Liz Carr, Jenny Sealey and Dolly Sen. Through SYNC I discovered some personal strengths which fostered my ambitions to run Daily Life Ltd to promote the abilities of other creative practitioners like myself, who are experts by experience of the mental health world.

Marc Steene and Mark Williams

I am ‘Guru Greedy’ – and both Marc/ks are an ongoing inspiration. Marc Steene is now Co-director of Pallant House Gallery, which hosts Outside In, an extraordinary thriving national resource and programme that provides opportunities for artists facing a barrier to the art world for reasons including health, disability or social circumstance. When I first met Marc in 2011, he told me that the vision for Outside In stems from his experience of running workshops in Brighton for people in Day Centres, where he observed that artworks by participants he considered brilliant were routinely thrown away each week. Mark Williams, Artistic Director/Chief Executive of Heart n Soul, is a musician who started running creative sessions with a group of people with learning disabilities at a day centre early in his career. These two organisations are quite different, but collaborative practice, excellence and fostering exceptional talents are threads through all their work, alongside sound business models and systems. We are starting to work with both organisations, and I’m pinching good systems tips along the way.

Lee Corner

Last year we applied to be part of Arts Council England’s ‘Developing Cultural Sector Resilience’ scheme run by Anamaria Wills and CidaCo. The programme is for arts organisations based in East London and Birmingham. As Artistic Director of Daily Life Ltd, working with a small talented team, it was clear to me that we had found our feet as an organisation and developed a vision and programme, but needed more support to develop systems and skills to manage our work effectively. The scheme has more than live up to my expectations, with training on leading change, business modeling, diversity, digital, and sessions on fundraising. Lee Corner, an arts consultant with many years experience of running arts organizations, has been assigned as our mentor. She is top notch and has a great sense of humour –  we are a passionate team and can be rather earnest at times. We receive a stream of invitations for work and it’s a challenge to make decisions about what to pursue. She told us about ‘Lee’s Triangle’ – where the three points represent Profile, Money and Art. She recommends that two out of the three points need to be ticked in order to accept any invitation.

Jude Kelly, Louise Jeffries, Jenny Waldman, Ruth Mackenzie, Moira Sinclair, Liz Forgan and more….

I told you I was greedy… At St Martins Art School studying painting in the early 70’s I had a secret fear that someone would tap me on the shoulder and say “But you can’t be an artist, you’re a woman”. Back then there was scarcely a sign of women in the arts - anywhere. Although there’s a long way to go in terms of equality, it’s fantastic to see senior women of this calibre heading up national organisations. I recommend that everyone gets ‘guru greedy’ too, as there’s no set rules to what makes a great ‘arts professional’.

Bobby Baker is Artistic Director of Daily Life Ltd, an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation based in Stratford, East London. Daily Life Ltd creates powerful art that changes the way people think about mental health and promotes the talents and insight of artists, performers, writers and musicians with personal experience of mental health issues – online and on the ground.

Daily Life Ltd are running The Expert View, a 2 day micro festival exploring expertise in arts and mental health from the perspectives of all concerned. It opens with a double bill performance with Laura Jane Dean and Selina Thompson on Thursday 7 May (7.30pm) at Queen Mary University London E1. On Friday 8 May The Expert View Symposium Day runs at Bromley By Bow Centre London E3 from 10.30am – 4.30pm with guest presentations and site-specific works from artists. There are evening performances in Kingsley Hall London E3 with live music, spoken word and Bobby Baker’s ‘Ballistic Buns’ performance.

Full details at www.dailylifeltd.co.uk
 

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