Supporting artists - catching up with Edwina Bridgeman

In 2020–21 we provided employment for 37 freelance artists and facilitators across our programme.

Artist Edwina Bridgeman worked with us to develop our creative activity box offer and to adapt our production of Igloo into a story book. We caught up with Edwina to find out what the opportunities to work with Travelling Light on these projects meant to her during the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the challenging year of 2020, what did the opportunities to work with Travelling Light on the Igloo book and the Creative Activity boxes mean to you?

It meant a huge amount on many different levels. Obviously financially it was wonderful to have the work particularly with a company I know and like so much. Overnight, on the night lockdown was announced, so much of my work was cancelled. To have this opportunity was fantastic and to be able to do something that felt like it had real value makes a massive difference as well – I feel like I can throw myself into work like that. I was really missing working with young people because that is what I do a lot of the time. To have the opportunity to work with them indirectly was really great.

What did you enjoy most about working on these projects?

With the activity boxes I really enjoyed working directly with Heidi (Travelling Light's Artistic Director) and the conversation we had about what we were trying to achieve. How could we represent Travelling Light through the boxes and all the things we care about? I really enjoyed working on that and we decided on quite a narrative angle, so within the box it wasn’t a prescriptive box with a list of outcomes, it was more of an invitation to play – I really enjoyed that – the way we slightly developed that with each successive lot of boxes – I felt that there was a huge amount of life in that and it felt very true to what Travelling Light believes in. That was wonderful.

Also, because I wasn’t able to be with people in real life, it felt very important that I actually made something myself to go into each box – it was very much this idea of it being a gift. And we didn’t want it just to be a gift that we had chosen from a website – it all had to be crafted and personal. I really enjoyed that part of it.

Again, as far as the Igloo book was concerned, I really enjoyed working with Heidi. We spent quite a lot of time over Zoom discussing what were the key elements, thoughts on how to transform a play into a book – new territory for both of us and that was exciting.

The actual process of both projects was really enjoyable – still thinking creatively but in a slightly different way. It was great.

What did you find most challenging about working on these projects?

The first project with the boxes we were very new into lockdown and on a very practical level I was worried about whether materials would arrive on time and would I physically be able to make all the things that I wanted to in time for the deadline. But both of those were OK.

Igloo was challenging because I have never done illustration before and my computer skills are very limited.  That was a challenge – from me doing my drawings hard copy to actually going to print was difficult.

There were obviously thousands of different ways I could have done the drawings but again we wanted to stay true to it being very direct and accessible. Keeping the drawings really simple, making the children recognisable so that children could see themselves in the pictures and recognise behaviour – that was very important. Because I’m not an illustrator – that was again challenging but enjoyable. It’s tough when you’re learning new things but never wasted.

Did the work help develop your creative practice? If so, how?

Really very much so. There were two things that were new so there is an inevitable development of practice through that. And also as an older artist, I’ve been working for a very long time, it was great to have the opportunity to do things that were new to me and find that all the experience that I’ve had over the years, with a bit of tweaking and a bit of imagination, I could bring into the new work. And also with the support the company.

One of the things that I really love about working with Travelling Light is that it is a very supportive company and they truly understand process and the importance of process and have that firm belief of having the child at the heart of everything. Even when I was thinking, I’m really not sure if I can do this, always being reassured.

I do feel it has developed my creative practice and in fact doing the drawings for Igloo has made me really get back into drawing – it has reawakened my interest in drawing.

For me, the time before lockdown felt very linear - you’d be on a track and you’d go and do this and then do that - but it has become much less linear.

Having the opportunities that I’ve had (with Travelling Light), has allowed me to go off in different directions. So it has been brilliant.

The day we came together to assemble the boxes - when we were in the height of the first lockdown) – that was really great because we hadn’t been able to get together at all, so that was really good. It was special because of our circumstances.