Fred Brookes / Career

Career

Introduction

This section of the site sets out my curriculum vitae in considerable detail, for the benefit of those who want to know more, and for my own benefit, in case I forget things.

Summary

For more than forty years I have worked in the cultural and creative industries as an artist, craftsperson and teacher, in arts organisation and management, as a development consultant and researcher, at a senior level in the arts funding system, and as an investor and company director.

Since 2000, as an independent consultant and an associate partner in Comedia, I have undertaken a wide range of contracts for public and private sector clients including several pioneering research studies of the creative industries, cultural and arts strategies, evaluation of local and national projects, organisational reviews of arts projects, substantial funding bids to regional and national sources, acted as advisor to a leading private foundation, and contributed to policy development at local, regional and national level. Until 2006 I took part in the management of the Creative Advantage Fund, the cultural industries venture capital investment fund for the West Midlands, for which I raised £6M of capital funding. I am currently (2009) working with Creative Leicestershire as Business Development Adviser for small creative enterprises, and with Cultivate as Interim Development Director.

Information about current and future projects can be found on the projects page of this site.

I undertake consultancy and research work on my own account, in my role as a Comedia associate, and in collaboration with others, as suits the specific job in question. I like a varied diet of projects and to work at different scales, small and large, across a range of disciplines and spheres where I can bring my extensive experience and knowledge to bear. I am a freelance, essentially solo, operator with no corporate status or ambitions. All the work I undertake receives my personal attention, I have no staff other than some part-time administrative support. I only take on work which interests me and to which I feel I have something of value to offer. While much of what I take on comes to me by recommendation, I also bid for tendered contracts where they are relevant to my interests and capacities.

My principal fields of freelance activity currently are:

Cultural and creative industries research and policy development
Evaluation of arts and cultural programmes and projects
Preparation of cultural and arts strategies for public and private sector clients
Organisational reviews and business plans for cultural organisations
Arts and cultural input into urban and rural development and regeneration programmes
Feasibility studies and production of funding bids for arts and cultural projects

There is lots more of this, so you can stop here if you've had enough.

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Education

1954 - 1961 Herbert Strutt Grammar School, Belper, Derbyshire 1961 - 1963 Derby College of Art
1963 - 1967 Department of Fine Art, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Qualifications

1963 Intermediate Certificate in Arts and Crafts 1967 BA Fine Art (Honours) Class 2 Division 1, Newcastle University

Exhibitions

One-man exhibitions
1969 Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle;
1970 Calouste Gulbenkian Gallery, People's Theatre, Newcastle
1971 DLI Museum and Art gallery, Durham
1971 Serpentine Gallery, London
1971 Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1972 Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
1973 Ceolfrith Arts Centre, Sunderland
1975 Wolverhampton Polytechnic Gallery

Some group exhibitions
1959 Open Exhibition, Derby Art Gallery
1964 & 1965 Young Contemporaries, London
1967 Northern Young Contemporaries, Manchester
1969 & 1970 Pernod Northern Arts Painting Exhibition, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle (1st prize)
1970 Some Recent Art in Britain, Leeds City Art Gallery
1970 Mid-Pennine Open Sculpture, Accrington Art Gallery
1971 Pernod Awards Exhibition, Chelsea Town Hall, London
1971 Sculpture, York Museum
1971-2 Art Spectrum North, touring Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester
1972 Ceolfrith Artists of the North East, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1975 The Secret of the Universe Revealed by Artists, Oval House Gallery, London

Public collections
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
IBM UK Ltd
Bradford Corporation

Employment History

Since 2008 Interim Development Director, Cultivate
Since 2008 Business Development Adviser, Creative Leicestershire
Since 2000 Freelance consultant and researcher, self-employed
Associate Consultant, Comedia
2000 – 2006 Investment manager, Advantage Creative Fund Ltd
1993 – 2000 Director of Planning and Development, Eastern Arts Board, Cambridge
1988 - 1993 Freelance consultant, self-employed
Associate Consultant, Comedia
1984 - 1988 Director, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne
1981 - 1984 Director, Midland Group Arts Centre, Nottingham
1979 - 1981 Crafts Organiser, Sunderland Arts Centre
1978 - 1979 Arts and Crafts officer, City of Newcastle Recreation Dept
1975 - 1978 Self-employed potter, Newcastle Potters' Workshop
1967 - 1975 Teaching posts in several British art schools, including Newcastle University, Sunderland, Liverpool, Wolverhampton and Teesside Polytechnics, Senior Lecturer at Canterbury College of Art.

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Directorships and Appointments

since 2005 Director of Nottingham Playhouse Trust Ltd
since 2004 Director of Advantage Creative Services Ltd
since 2002 Director of Nottingham Media Centre Ltd (Broadway)
since 1992 Director of Comedia Research Centre
1986 - 1989 Director of Artic Producers Ltd
1988 - 1989 Director of Northern Arts Marketing Ltd
1988 - 1989 Board Member of English Dance Theatre Ltd
1984 - 1990 Board Member of Northern Arts
1984 - 1990 Director of North East Media Development Trust
1984 - 1988 Member of Tyne & Wear Arts Marketing steering group
1983 – 1985 Chair, National Association of Arts Centres
1982 - 1987 Panel member and assessor for ACGB Combined Arts, East Midlands Arts, Merseyside Arts, LHA and West Midlands Arts
1982 - 1987 Governor of Wolverhampton Polytechnic

Consultancy Projects

I resigned from the Tyneside Cinema in August 1988 to take up work as a freelance consultant. I undertook consultancy projects on my own account, and through becoming a principal consultant with Comedia, and for a time with Adrian Ellis Associates. I left consultancy to join Eastern Arts as Director of Planning and Development in 1993 and returned to it in 2000. Since 1988 I have undertaken a wide range of consultancy and research work including the following:

Creative consultant for major urban extension programme in North Northamptonshire, Arts & Business, 2007
Wansbeck Creative Industries study, 2006-07
Evaluation of Arts & Business projects 2006-07
Arts in the Local Area Agreement, programme and evaluation for Northamptonshire County Council 2006-08
Organisational review for Derby Children’s Festival 2006-07
Organisational review for Oundle Festival of Literature 2006
Evaluation of Creative LeicesterShire for Leicestershire Arts Partnership, 2006
How Artists Make Great Places - pamphlet for CABE and A&B (Comedia) 2006
Creative Industries Quadrant Wolverhampton - Development Study 2006-07(Comedia)
NG7 Community Cultural Industries Area – feasibility study, Nottingham Partnership Council 2006
Creative Industries and Arts study for Northamptonshire County Council, including bid to ACE Thrive! budget 2006
Successful funding bid to Invest to Save Budget (ISB) for a partnership of Regional Cultural Consortiums, 2005-6
Creative Industries and Subsidised Arts study for Gloucestershire County Council 2005–06
Monitoring and evaluation of Under Scan, emda international public art commission, 2005-06
Monitoring and evaluation of Three Cities Urban Cultural Programme (Derby, Leicester, Nottingham) 2005-06
Feasibility study for a Cultural Observatory for the East Midlands for CEM (Comedia and De Montfort University) 2005
Derby Festivals Review for Derby City Council 2005
Evaluation of PROJECT – engaging artists in the built environment, for Public Art South West (Comedia) 2004-06
What can culture do for the Regional Economic Strategy? for emda 2005
Organisational review for Theatre Writing Partnership 2004
Culture and Regeneration, for CEM 2004 (Comedia)
Evaluation of the Evidence for the Value of Culture in the Regeneration Context, for CEM 2004 (Comedia)
DCMS creative industries snapshot statistics, for Culture East Midlands and for West Midlands Life 2004.
THREE – the Three Cities Cultural Consortium’s successful bid to the Urban Cultural Programme, on behalf of Derby, Leicester and Nottingham 2004
Leicester, Leicestershire and Welland Creative Industries Study, for Business Link, local authorities and Welland SSP 2004 (Comedia)
Creative Industries in Herefordshire evaluation – Herefordshire County Council 2003
Virtual Collect virtual art gallery project – Experian Ltd and Arts & Business 2003
Feasibility Study for Cultural Centre in Derbyshire - Belper Derwent Partnership 2003
Q Arts, Derby - Organisational Review 2003
ArtsInfo – the national arts data project, Arts Council of England, Comedia 2003
Economic impact study of the cultural festivals in Cheltenham – Cheltenham Borough Council (Comedia) 2002-03
East Midlands Creative Industries – strategic research programme for EMDA (Phase 1 and 2), Comedia 2000-01, 2002-03
Cultural and Creative industries research programme for South East England Development Agency (with DPA Ltd) 2002-03
Cultural Strategy for Yorkshire and the Humber – for Yorkshire Cultural Consortium 2001
Cultural Strategy for Derbyshire – Derbyshire Cultural Partnership 2000-01
Core Cities – creative industries and cultural economy research for UK Core Cities Group, Comedia 2000
Local Cultural Strategy for Cambridgeshire local authorities 2000-01
Strategy adviser for review of the arts in Cornwall for South West Arts Board 2000
Arts Development Study for Elmbridge Borough Council
Blackburn Museum South Asian Gallery - project evaluation for local authority and area museum service, OAL funded.
Business Plans for two of Hampshire County's arts centres
Cardiff Bay Opera House - major feasibility study and development plan for Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (with Adrian Ellis Associates)
Derby Photography Festival - feasibility study, festival steering group and East Midlands Arts
Development plan to revive St Stephen's Theatrespace, Cardiff, for Welsh Arts Council
Elsham Hall Opera House - feasibility study, South Humberside
Feasibility study for a central arts facility for Middlesbrough Borough Council
Film and Video development strategy for the City of Manchester
Holborn Performing Arts Centre - ILEA and Camden Borough Council - feasibility study
Media Industries Development Strategy for Hull City Council
Out of Hours. Team member on a major Comedia research project, supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, investigating ways of reviving and developing public social life in city centres, covering thirteen cities over two years
Regent Centre Christchurch - marketing and development plan, Christchurch District Council and Southern Arts.
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Arts Development Plan.
TARDIS - feasibility study and development plan for an internet-based arts information system, Arts Development Association

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Employment and Experience

Artist

I first exhibited a work of art in public in 1959 as a teenager. After Derby School of Art and Newcastle University I began to exhibit and to develop a career as an artist. Some examples of the kind of thing I was doing can be found in the Interests section of this site. My art work was driven by some prevailing ideas: systems, analysis, reductiveness, a search for the essential in art, the desire to touch lightly on the world. I worked in painting and sculpture and some film-making. The high point of my exhibiting career was probably the show at the Serpentine in 1971, in which a collection of 200 concrete blocks, beams and slabs were put through a series of spontaneous structural permutations over the period of a month, in a kind of slow strenuous dance, before returning to stock.

The desire to find the irreducible essential elements of art eventually led to a complete cessation, and some head-scratching. I decided to see if I could find a kind of creative activity which could demonstrate a measurable value, and so took to pottery.

Teacher

Between graduation from Newcastle in 1967 and the mid-70s I held a range of full- and part-time teaching and lecturing posts in various British art schools, including Newcastle University, Sunderland, Liverpool, Wolverhampton and Teesside Polytechnics, Senior Lecturer at Canterbury College of Art. I also did quite a lot of visiting lectures across the country, often related to my interest in the artists Kurt Schwitters, of which more can be found in the Interests section of this site.

Potter

With three colleagues I set up Newcastle Potters’ Workshop in 1974. We found a site in a back lane in the Westgate Road, courtesy of the architects Ainsworth Spark Associates, set up the workshop, built the kiln and set about discovering how to make pots. The project was an exciting one, and I just about scraped a living, supported by part-time teaching. Our real innovation was the Mobile Pottery. Drawn from Leach’s recollections of Japan, we created the first mobile Raku pottery in the UK, using newly-emerging insulation technology, a big bottle of propane gas and a trailer. We worked arts centres and museums, and the summer playschemes, sometimes sending away 300 children with a twice fired, glazed made-it-myself pot in a day. It was a pretty strenuous business.

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Newcastle Recreation Department

In 1978-9 I worked for Newcastle City Recreation Department setting up a centre for a wide range of performance, music, art and crafts activities for children and community groups in the city. The work involved locating and evaluating possible sites and buildings, planning the range of facilities and collaborating closely with the relevant local authority departments on the design of building conversion.

Sunderland Arts Centre

In August 1979 I began work as crafts organiser with Sunderland Arts Centre, responsible for developing the centre's crafts programme, including exhibitions, workshops and educational activities. Greatly expanded the centre's crafts activities and organised a total of 24 exhibitions, many of which I toured nationally, notably 'A Wood Exhibition', a major exhibition of work in wood by over sixty craftspeople, which ranged from musical instruments and jewellery to furniture, buildings and boats. I acted as secretary to the Crafts Network, a national crafts exhibition touring project. Member of Sunderland Arts Centre council of management 1981. Left to become director of the Midland Group, November 1981.

Midland Group Arts Centre

In November 1981, I took up the post of director of the Midland Group in Nottingham, a large contemporary arts centre including exhibition galleries, cinema, theatre studio and shop, with an annual turnover of £400,000. I was responsible for overall control of the programme and administration of the centre, and for a programme of development of the building and its activities, and led a staff of 33. In my three years there the Midland Group greatly increased its attendances, developed its facilities and consolidated its position as an important national contemporary programming centre.

Midland Group was an extraordinary project. It was in a leading position in the development of what is now ‘live art’, it programmed a tremendous range of visual art of a very challenging nature, and promoted now renowned music and performance companies who were then unknowns. It brought the highly controversial Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition to Nottingham. It was pushing the boundaries of what was possible in a provincial city at that time, and never had the unqualified support of its funders. During my time there I was centrally involved in the development of proposals to create a media centre in Nottingham, leading to the creation of the consortium which ultimately led to the creation of the Broadway Media Centre, the board of which I nowadays chair.

National Association of Arts Centres

The association representing the voice of the arts centres movement at national level, NAAC (which became the Arts Development Association in 1989) was involved in lobbying, information and research and provided a support network to Britain's 300-plus arts centres through its conferences, training schemes and educational work. I joined its executive in 1981 and took the chair for two years in 1983. I was substantially involved in reorganising the association under a new constitution, and leading it to a point where it was able to raise the level of its activity and its membership sufficiently to maintain the employment of a full-time administrator to run its services. I resigned from chair and executive, October 1985, but continued to be involved until 1987 as advisor on the steering group of the arts centres research project by the Policy Studies Institute, funded by the Leverhulme Foundation and carried out in association with NAAC, published as Arts Centres in the UK in 1987.

Tyneside Cinema

From January 1985 to August 1988 I was directo, and company secretary of the Tyneside Cinema, a major regional cinema supported by Northern Arts and the British Film Institute, with an annual turnover of £550,000, where I was responsible for a staff of 35. The Tyneside was a two-screen cinema in the centre of Newcastle, the major independent cinema in the northern region. It was one of the pioneers of the development of regional cinemas in association with the BFI. Its present operation, under the trust which was set up to run it after the BFI's direct operation failed, began in 1976, and I was its third director. Under my management it saw a substantial overall audience and box office growth, reaching a peak annual level of over 123,000 admissions representing one in six of cinema tickets sold in the city. A successful fundraising drive made resources available for an extensive re-furbishment programme in 1985 - 6. This restored the cinema to something close to its original 1937 glory, and made it a popular attraction in its own right.

At the time of writing this in 2009, the Tyneside has just undergone a major Lottery-funded extension and refurbishment, which has combined major new facilities and more screens with full restoration of the historic 1937 News Theatre and its glorious Alexander Brothers decorative scheme.

Northern Arts

In 1986 I was appointed to Northern Arts as a nominee of the Arts Council, and I was a member both of the board and of one of its two principal sub-committees in a very exciting period, from the abolition of the metropolitan counties to the Wilding report. As a member of its Review Implementation Group I was closely involved in the pioneering re-structuring of Northern Arts, which included its incorporation and the establishment of a radically new budget structure. I resigned early in 1990, having moved out of the region.

North-East Media Development Trust

I was one of three directors of the North-East Media Development Trust, which made initiatives for the development of the region's media industry, working closely with production companies, the local authorities, Northern Arts, DoE and EEC. NEMDT was responsible for the creation of a pioneering regional media development strategy, of which the first fruit was the North-East Media Training Centre at Stonehill, Gateshead, a £2.5M innovative development providing regionally-based training for the emergent media industry on Tyneside. The Trust also initiated a media industries development agency for the region, having Local Enterprise Agency status, with three subsidiaries, the training trust, a facilities company and a production organisation.

Artic Producers

For three years from 1987 I was a director of Artic Producers, the research and publishing company which produces Artists’ Newsletter and a series of visual arts reference books, and is an important support organisation for artists. I have involved in both policy formulation and the company's management and planning.

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Comedia and Consultancy

Towards the end of my spell at the Tyneside I met Charles Landry, Comedia’s principal, who was in Newcastle doing some work for Northern Arts. We began a series of long conversations which led me to believe that my arts experience and skills, and my approach to an analytical understanding of culture, would fit with Comedia’s approach. At the time the original Comedia team was dividing in two, and the opportunity opened for me to join the practice, and a new phase of my working life began.

Eastern Arts

I had long had ambitions to see the arts funding system from the inside, and in February 1993 I took up the post of Director of Planning and Development at the Eastern Arts Board in Cambridge. I particularly wanted to join Eastern Arts because of my regard for Jeremy Newton, who was its long-time Chief Executive, later going on to set up the Lottery department at Arts Council, and then setting up NESTA. The post involved membership of the Board's directorate team, reporting to the Chief Executive, leadership of one of the Board's five departments and the role of first-line liaison with two of the Board's seven counties. The department's responsibility included relations with the public sector, particularly the region's sixty-two local authorities, an overview of development of the region's arts infrastructure, corporate and regional planning and six of the Board's nine development priorities. The Department included designated officers dealing with the Board's public sector partnerships , the National Lottery, education and training.

I was involved in the national RAB planning officers group and represented the RABs on an Association of District Councils working party on Integrated Cultural Services. I prepared the Board's submissions in respect of the local government review and was involved in the creation and recruitment of a large number of local government arts officers and similar posts in the region. I was responsible for the Board's responses to the DCMS review, the RDA and Regional Chamber consultations, and was a member of the Eastern Region Board, the link point between the Regional Government Office and the region's development agencies.

My work included co-ordination of the Board's corporate planning process and of the application procedure for local authorities. I was a member of the working party looking into the Board's services and structures set up by the Local Government Arts Forum, and was heavily involved in the group which reviewed the Forum's constitution and subscription system. In common with Directorate colleagues, I took part of the Chief Executive responsibility during three interregnums. I led a number of significant policy initiatives, including creation of a new arts and disability development scheme, the reform of the Board's relationship with local government, the introduction of a revised funding cycle, and the development of policy and practice in relation to Lottery funding. I produced the regional strategy for the Regional Lottery Programme and Awards for All and tried, unsuccessfully, to bring about the creation of a new funding programme, aimed at development of the region's cultural economy.

Advantage Creative Fund

The attempt to set up a funding programme to help develop the region’s cultural economy sparked my interest in a scheme being developed in the West Midlands region. In 2000 I joined West Midlands Arts to work on what was then the Creative Advantage Fund, a pilot programme to create a dedicated equity investment fund for the creative industries in the region. This was a unique project in the arts funding system, backed by ERDF money. ACF bought shares in small and emergent creative enterprises in order to assist their growth. I acted initially as the front office for the programme, and as the initial pilot period came to its end I was responsible for several major financial bids, for further EU and RDA finance, to establish the Fund on a full-scale and region-wide basis. The resulting awards of about £6m made it possible to establish the fund, now called Advantage Creative Fund, as a long-term commercially-viable enterprise. I worked as an investment manager with the Fund until 2006, learning a great deal in the process. I had for long felt strongly that the traditional subsidy model of arts funding did not make the money work hard enough. Alongside the venture capital approach of the Fund, I also undertook some research into the feasibility of loan finance in this sphere, for Arts Council and for Esmé Fairbairn Foundation.

Comedia and Consultancy again

Since leaving Eastern Arts in 2000 I have returned to consultancy, self-employment and Comedia.

My principal fields of freelance activity currently are:

Cultural and creative industries research and policy development
Evaluation of arts and cultural programmes and projects
Preparation of cultural and arts strategies for public and private sector clients
Organisational reviews and business plans for cultural organisations
Arts and cultural input into urban and rural development and regeneration programmes
Feasibility studies and production of funding bids for arts and cultural projects

Employment again

In May 2008 the opportunity arose for me to work with Clare Hudson at Creative Leicestershire, an organisation I already knew well having done its mid-term evaluation, and which had drawn on the Comedia research which Phil Wood and I had done in the creative industries there. After a long spell of research and strategic work, I was glad to have the chance to get to grips with practitioners again, and become Business Development Adviser, working half the week, employed by Leicestershire County Council.

Later that year Vanessa Rawlings-Jackson, whom I have known for a long time, offered me the opportunity to work with her for a while in Cultivate, the region's agency developing arts organisations and audiences. Two days a week I am currently Interim Development Director for Cultivate.

So I presently find myself mostly a PAYE employee once again, and rather to my surprise I am not missing the freelance life much at all.

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