Vend: from deep in the forest
August 2023
Vend: from deep in the forest (online woodland installation)
Vend is an experiential, temporary installation. Audiences receive a token and very little explanation. They adventure through the woodland and discover an unexpected vending machine deep in the forest. It dispenses small, original artworks.
At its core, Vend encourages reflection and discussion about how we commoditise and value both rural contemporary art and the natural world.
The artwork dispensed is a tiny freestanding sculpture, Forest Floor, small original linocuts printed on chunks of reclaimed floorboard. Our natural resources coming full circle. 
Vend was conceived as part of ROAM (West), an experimental project to explore the potential for ambitious contemporary art in rural western Galloway. Anne worked in collaboration with Upland CIC and six other artists whose work was also exhibited. The project was supported by Creative Scotland, Upland CIC, and the artists themselves. Kilsture Forest and its trustees hosted the pop-up exhibition.
Learn more about Vend through Anne's online micro-installation, Vend: from deep in the forest
Funders: Creative Scotland
Upland CIC Website
Photo credit (hands holding wood block): Colin Tennant for Upland CIC
Embed yourself
August 2023
Embed yourself (online micro-exhibition)
An installation of three unexpected hammocks in the woodland, each with an instruction on a ‘door hanger’ reminiscent of hotel signage. The instructions: hunker down, look up, listen out.
Embed encourages audiences to get horizontal, hang out, lounge around, feel at home, and give the forest their time and attention. Building new, reciprocal relationships with the natural environment.
Embed was conceived as part of ROAM (West), an experimental project to explore the potential for ambitious contemporary art in rural western Galloway. Anne worked in collaboration with Upland CIC and six other artists whose work was also exhibited. The project was supported by Creative Scotland, Upland CIC, and the artists themselves. Kilsture Forest and its trustees hosted the pop-up exhibition.
Learn more about Embed through Anne's online micro-installation, Embed yourself.
Funders: Creative Scotland
Upland CIC Website
Visual Arts & Crafts Makers Award
January - May 2023
REP^IR: Forms for the Future (online exhibition)
Anne used this funding award to spend time in residence at Cove Park, researching and experimenting with sustainable 3D papermaking techniques to complement her existing printmaking and sculptural practice. Seeking sustainable ways of building forms was a key objective.
This project has moved her practice forward quite considerably. She has innovated, created new knowledge and new formats for her work. Explore the process, outcomes and work in progress through her online exhibition, REP^IR: Forms for the Future.
Funders: Creative Scotland, Live Borders, Dumfries & Galloway Council
VACMA Website
Lead Artist: Young Creatives Development Programme
From March 2023
Working with The Catstrand in Galloway, Anne facilitates an inclusive, supportive, monthly setting for young people aged 14-25 to make art.
At each session she introduces a new creative skill. Participants can choose to explore this in depth or use the time to work on personal projects. She offers relaxed creative guidance, structure, and context, encouraging participants to be playful and ambitious, to experiment, to try out new ideas.
Through this collaborative partnership Anne can advance her advocacy and encouragement for high quality creative opportunities in remote, rural settings.
BOOK HERE
Partners: Catstrand Young Creatives
Funders: The Holywood Trust, Glenkens Community & Arts Trust, National Heritage Lottery Fund
Image description: A marketing flyer for the programme plus three images of a camera on a tripod in a landscape setting, an abstract collage, and a butterfly on a computer screen
Research: Musgrove Kinley 'Outsider' Art Collection
The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, February - April 2023
As part of a group supported by Outside In Arts, Anne is exploring the Whitworth's Musgrove Kinley 'Outsider' Art Collection, specifically examining the work of artists using found objects and recycled materials.
Inspired by makers such as Francis Marshall, Anne is working to augment and consolidate the research attached to the collection. She is drawing out themes which will inform a new body of her own sculptural work.
Funders: Outside In Arts
Details from Francis Marshall's sculpture: Jean aime Claire mais n'ose pas lui parler
Image description: Three square photographs showing details from a sculpture - a face and body parts made from stuffed tights and sack cloth, with moth holes and damage, tied with string and stuffed into a rough wooden crate. The text on the crate reads in French: Jean loves Claire but he doesn't dare talk to her
ROAM (West)
October 2022 - September 2023
A 12-month group residency exploring how contemporary art practice can be developed and nurtured in the rural western part of Dumfries & Galloway. This includes building collaborative relationships and a new body of work.
Partners: Upland CIC, fellow artists
Funding: Creative Scotland
ROAM Project Website
2D and 3D sketches, working into shapes and voids (Gracefield, 2022)
Image descriptions: 1) a plaster and wire construction on a black background, 2) an abstract black, white and orange pastel sketch, 3) crumpled black and white paper forms
Lead Artist: West Cumbria Rivers Trust Youth Panel
September 2022 - September 2023
A participant-led project, working with the WCRT Youth Panel to develop a public creative response to a fragile river catchment. Working outdoors in Walkmill Woods.
West Cumbria Rivers Trust
Bushcraft projects and live creative writing in the forest (Walkmill Woods, 2022)
Image description: Two square images of teenagers doing bushcraft activities in the woods, one with long blond hair is looking through a picture frame she has made, and an installation of creative writing hanging in a tree
TIDAL: Digital Artists Development Lab
December 2023
Anne was selected for this exciting micro-residency focused on developing digital skills and networks, around the central themes of climate change and coastal environments.
Partners: Signal Film & Media
TIDAL Project Website
Fieldwork, Walney Island and Barrow-in-Furness, 2022
Image description: A black and white photograph of three young artists in a derelict military installation, and a coloured photograph of a derelict wall and scaffolding
Moss of Many Layers
January – September 2022
An innovative, multi-disciplinary environmental project, artist-led and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. Through work with schools, scientists and other artists, Anne is helping a rural community rebuild their relationship with a local peat bog as it is restored to become a National Nature Reserve after a long period of peat extraction. The artist team are using site-based exploration, printmaking, co-creation, film and photography.
Partners: University of Cumbria, Natural England, Somewhere-Nowhere
Funding: UK Research & Innovation / Natural Environment Research Council
Project blogs
Determined Pasts: creative processing and grounding
Many Layers: the benefits of our multidisciplinary approach
Hand in Hand: throughts on collaborative engagement
Moss of Many Layers Project Website
Creative immersion in a peat bog: Bolton Fell Moss, 2022
Image description: A montage of eight small square images depicting children and adults outdoors exploring a peat bog, and colourful printmaking inspired by their visits.
Artful Ways
June – September 2021
Mapping and understanding regional creativity by walking out across our boundaries and peripheries; connecting with the outside and looking back in; creating sculptural ‘books’ and a short film to tell the stories.
Partners: Cumbria Arts & Culture Network, Somewhere-Nowhere, Tullie House
Funding: Arts Council England
Artful Ways Commissioned Artists
Watch Her Line in the Sand, Anne's short film poem shot on an old iPhone documenting the first day the public crossing of Morecambe Bay's shifting sands was guided by a woman. Part of the Artful Ways Commission.
Florence Arts Centre
June 2021 - September 2022
As Director of this grass roots arts centre in west Cumbria, Anne saw it through a period of transition as we emerged from the Covid pandemic.
Her tenure saw strategy redrafted, the board restructured, a staff team established, essential renovations undertaken and a revision of programming objectives. This included refocussing and redeveloping the Florence Paintmakers project, creating high quality artists materials from natural pigments.
Through open calls and curated group shows, she engaged over 100 artists across 10 temporary exhibitions, slowly rebuilding the artist community around Florence with a focus on inclusivity, sustainability, fair pay and breadth of practice. She continued to curate selected collaborative projects for the centre after her departure as Director. 
Florence Arts Centre, 2021-22
(Artwork top left by Kate Maltby)
Image description: A montage of six square photographs of activities at a community arts centre: an outdoor exhibition, children gardening and showing off their paintings, a band playing, and people making reddish inks out of iron ore pigment