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.Professional Development Training

Specialist Areas

My training style is a mixture of formal lecture, group exercises, and interactive role-play with informative handouts. Lecturing at varying levels with creative people and those whom have completed or are outside formal education that are seeking to develop an occupation or set up in business.

presentation skills - getting it right

"Getting it right!"

Professional Development

  1. Strategies in how to raise finance through sponsorship, trusts, art funding bodies and self-initiated ventures.
  2. Artistic statements, personal and promotional, creative strategies explored. Marketing statements or copy for more commercial purposes.
  3. Strategies for gaining, planning, documenting an exhibition or commission from first brief/proposal to realisation, and up activity. How to approach galleries or agents.
  4. Health and Safety awareness, including, signs, risks and hazards, basic risk assessment of a studio/workshop plan, COSHH, and good studio/workshop practice.
  5. Community Arts - an overview of provision - planning projects and workshops.

Presentation Skills

  1. Confidence and persuasion in public speaking.
  2. Structuring presentation and use of creativity.
  3. Audience arrangements for impact and disability awareness.
The Marketing Campaign

"The Marketing Campaign"

There is a myth that when artists and designers have finished their college studies they are equipped with the skills necessary to pursue their practice and gain arts or design related employment. Arriving into the world armed with a student portfolio and knowledge of their own subject area they plunge into the world of applying for exhibitions, commissions, public and community arts, running workshops and teaching. Many, artists after suffering a number of rejections can easily become demoralised and feel like giving up their practice. This is why Professional Development is an important area that artists should explore - creatives from any generation leave college often with as little as 30% of the skills base they actually need to generate an income.

To gain a foothold in the commercial art world, work in arts organisations, or acquire an income from lecturing there are many skills that creative people need to have in order to make a success from their practice or business. Whether they are a recently graduated student or someone who has been out of work for some time, there are many new areas of knowledge they will find useful. These include management and presentation skills and the use of the latest technology.

Courses and workshops are offered at undergraduate/postgraduate levels and for creative people developing their practice who have completed their degrees some time ago.


To enrol on a course visit the courses page
To view a picture diary of workshops, go here
For information on presentation skills, please go here
To book Alison for running a workshop at your college or organisation, email her
Have a look at the "Seven Steps to Self Employment"(opens in new window)