Abigal Ria

Abigail is a cartoonist and illustrator who graduated from the University of the Arts London, working in traditional and digital mediums. She has experience leading and supporting workshops for adults and children. Encouraging curiosity and creative thinking through visual storytelling exercises, including collaborative comics tasks, wordless comics, and zine making.

Her illustration practice is narrative-led, and her drawings highlight the relationship between human feeling and the wild/natural world through unspeaking characters who shift and change with the experiences and trials they go through. Often inspired loosely by South Asian narrative art forms and early 20th-century Cartoonists.

Visit Abigail’s website to find out more.

Amanda Silk

Amanda Silk is a ceramicist, artist, maker and educator based in Bedfordshire. Her practice now predominantly involves ceramics, glass, mixed media and drawing. As a qualified teacher she has passed on her knowledge, skills and passion for art and design, delivering specialist workshops, for Bedford Creative Arts, carrying commissions, exhibiting regionally and tutoring for art organisations, such as The Harpur Trust, Pride of Bedford, The Culture Challenge and Crafts Council.

Publications of her work is included in Ceramics Review, Boardroom Magazine and The Guardian Newspaper.

Find out more at amandasilkceramics.com

Aminia Pagliari

Born and raised in Bedford, Amina is a Loughborough University Fine Art graduate specialising in mixed media, set design, and installation. Amina’s work has been exhibited in London and New York and she is the 2023 recipient of The Edward Sharpe Prize and was shortlisted for The Alpine Foundation: Visual Arts Award 2024.

Her artistic practice explores the interconnectivity of the past and present through 3D mixed media installation. She is fascinated by the unlimited potential of materials such as thread, beads, plaster, wood, and fabric, using them to communicate stories.

Find out more at Amina’s website.

Anne Marie Abbate

Anne Marie Abbate is a mixed media artist, who has delivered quality, inspiring art workshops to students of all ages for 15 years throughout Beds, Bucks and Herts. When she returns to schools she will always try to deliver a different workshops so that schools do not have the same displays and experiences.

Her students range from preschool, primary school, secondary school, SEN settings, safe houses and community groups right through to care homes. She said she thrives when supporting students and watching them excel and realise their true potential and worth. She is an associate artist with The Higgins, MK Gallery, MK Art Centre and John Bunyan Museum.

Find out more at www.annemarieabbate.com

Callum Abbott

Callum Abbott works primarily in the field of abstract drawing. He also creates collages, sculptures and performances. Drawing, however, is the red thread that flows through his practice.

For the artist, the immediacy of mark-making has taken him on a journey into abstraction where organic forms dance between angular lines and planes of colour to create depth and balance. Abbott’s work is tactile, visceral and gestural. Through spontaneity and intuition, he feels each piece is only resolved when “equilibrium is reached”.

For further information visit Callum Abbott’s website.

Claire Bliss

Claire Bliss is an artist who creates mixed media work, incorporating materials such as silk, wire, wood and found items, as well as pen/pencil drawings and paintings. She loves to push the boundaries of the materials and experiment.

She has provided art workshops at a number of organisations, working with a range of people, including children, people with learning disabilities and head injuries, as well as adults and the elderly. Claire also currently runs her own private sessions.

As well as this she has recently qualified as an Art Psychotherapist, studying at Hertfordshire University, which has informed her art practice and she is currently exploring Jungian, anthroposophical, inter-disciplinary, philosophical, bilateral, spiritual and transpersonal approaches.

Find out more at Claire’s Instagram page.

Emily Baxter

Emily is a Bedford-based artist with a background in illustration and moving image.

Her work often explores the small, in-between moments of everyday life, using a variety of mediums including oil pastels, ink, paint, and digital tools. Emily is passionate about encouraging creativity in young people and enjoys helping students discover new ways to express themselves through art.

Visit Emily’s Instagram page for further information.

Fiona Wilson

Fiona Wilson is a Bedford–based artist passionate about encouraging experimentation, self-expression and exploration through inspiring and accessible classes and workshops. Working from life or using music to draw on memories, imagination and the sub-conscious, her approach is expressive and semi-abstract with a foundation in observational drawing, mark making and art history. Her aim is to help capture emotive energies and draw on my experience in visual communications to aid pictorial design and visual narrative.

She exhibits regularly, has work in personal collections, undertakes commissions and is a Director of Balcony Art & Design Studio.

Find out more at www.fionawilsonart.com

Katie Allen

Katie Allen is an illustrator based in Bedford who specialises in printmaking, typography and design. She has experience in art education since 2010, working with Key Stage 2,3 and 4 and has a particular interest in cross-curricular work.

As a working illustrator, she is passionate about making routes into the creative industry accessible, and enjoys working with students on ‘live’ commissions. Katie also provides art workshops for community groups and has extensive experience working with people living with learning disabilities. She also works with people who have experienced immigration detention, and loves finding common ground through creativity.

Find out more at www.katieallen-illustration.com.

Lisa Tilley

Lisa is a trained textile designer, interdisciplinary artist, maker, arts educator, community engagement artist and an inclusive arts practitioner, who has amassed a library of skills to aid both her practice and community engagement work. Lisa is mainly known for her sustainable accessories brand ‘U Old Bag!’ but also creates art using her wide range of skills mainly in textiles and up-cycling.

Alongside her own personal practice, she has been an arts educator of mixed arts and crafts for 20 years, in and around Bedford, Luton, Milton Keynes, Corby, Wellingborough and further afield, to all ages and abilities. She has taught in many local Schools, Colleges, for Councils, Museums and organisations.

Lisa also works regularly on the Inclusive Practice in the Arts Programme at MK Gallery and as part of the programme, was selected her to work on a special development project at The Pace Centre, Aylesbury, which is a SEND school that specialises mainly with children that have severe neuro disabilities such as cerebral palsy.

Find out more at Lisa’s website.

Paige Denham

Paige is a socially engaged artist and educator whose practice focuses on bringing colour, creativity, and community connection into everyday spaces. Alongside creating murals, installations, and participatory projects, Paige has extensive experience working with schools, museums and community groups to deliver inspiring and accessible creative sessions.

She is trained in delivering Arts Award and has worked across primary, secondary and SEND settings, designing workshops that support wellbeing, imagination and inclusive participation for all abilities.

Find out more at Paige’s website.

Philippa McDonald

Philippa is a qualified art teacher and founded Creative Days in Bedford in 2012. She has broad experience working with children of all ages and abilities and feels passionately that art is for all. Two of her own three children have additional needs.

Her workshops provide a warm, inclusive and non-judgmental space where everybody is made to feel valued. Her projects are inspired by the changing seasons, the world around us as well as different artists and cultures. Continually seeking out new ideas and approaches she loves working with a wide variety of materials and techniques.

Alongside the much-loved workshops she runs at The Place Theatre she also delivers clubs and one-off projects in schools, works with other organisations including The Higgins Bedford and Inclusive Performing Arts, and enjoys collaborating with local artists too.

Find out more at the Creative Days website.

Ross Bolwell-Williams

Ross is an art psychotherapist and participatory artist based in Ampthill who specialises in creating unforgettable creative engagement experiences for children, young people, adults and communities. He works locally, nationally and internationally and has been making art with people for over 20 years in schools, public spaces, festivals, libraries, community centres, arts venues and museums.

Curiosity, collaboration and imagination are the cornerstones to his practice. He uses everyday materials to create striking and playful imagery and experiences which involve other people helping to co-create it. This may be a drawn 2D image, a 3D interactive art installation, a miniature sculpture, or an art trail.

Ross regularly works with cultural partners which include: MK Gallery, A New Direction, Full House, Royal Ballet & Opera, A Line Art, Fuel Theatre, Fun Palaces, The Higgins Bedford, Museum of London and Frameless. He is now a HCPC registered Art Psychotherapist specialising in working with children and young people, using the medium of art to support his service users’ mental health and strengthen their wellbeing.

Find out more at Ross’s LinkedIn.

Sophie Gresswell

Sophie is an artist and poet exploring interconnected ‘living’ heritage. She aims to encourage us to sit with unknowns and finding space for a deeper sense of connection which transcends our individual lifespan, amplifying the way our human stories intersect through generations, over cultures and between historical narratives to bring us to the current moment in time, and inform the very people we are today.

Sophie has had her work featured on BBC Arts, Radio 6 Music and exhibited in UK, China and on St Helena Island. In 2024 she exhibited work and facilitated sharings for ‘On The Wings of a Wire Bird’ exhibition at The Higgins Bedford.

Find out more at Sophie’s website.