Wishes for Waygood

There’s never enough good art organizations such as this one. Please, carry on as you’re...

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:09:17 +0100

There’s never enough good art organizations such as this one. Please, carry on as you’re almost there.

This is terrible news.

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:08:34 +0100

In the current economic climate I can understand how this situation has occured with the city council perhaps re-thinking their use of the building, however as a recent fine art graduate from Northumbria university I would ask them to reconsider. Despite a lifelong committment to the arts I have ended up a manager in a coffee chain. I beleive that had there been more creative career opportunities during my studies in the North East I may be in a different position. Newcastle is facing massive public sector cuts and we will suffer as a region but it’s time for that gravy train to end. Please please consider the value that the creative industry has to offer the North East so that less of us trained graduates are left serving the coffee and packing the shopping bags of city council workers!

Quality regional arts organisations like Waygood genuinely improve peoples' lives.

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:54:00 +0100

Quality regional arts organisations like Waygood genuinely improve peoples’ lives. They deserve our support.
Matthew de Pulford

A Crying Shame

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:21:10 +0100

I am a practising artist living in Northumberland. Groups such as Waygood are not only the centres that artists need, but among the vital places where work, ideas, understanding are transmitted out of the artistic community. You have our good wishes and our hopes that clearer thinking will prevail on the part of funders,

Best Wishes,

Geoff Heslop, The Shipbuilders

Good wishes from Edinburgh

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 12:23:38 +0100

I first visited Waygood 6 years ago with a group of students from Ediinburgh. Since then I have followed the project and have been eagerly awaiting a first visit to the new Waygood. I wish you all the best in these difficult circumstances.

Can't believe this!

Wed, 05 May 2010 19:30:41 +0100

Can’t believe this! I’ve been following the progress of the Waygood Gallery on the web but hadn’t looked for a while….looked today and was stunned at the news that funding has been pulled. It seems such a uniquely inspirational place for both artists and public….one that newcastle should be so proud to have nurtured. So sorry for you all and hope that this decision can be overturned.

Yvonne McNally

I'm a art student at newcastle university

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:41:00 +0100

i’m a art student at newcastle university, learnt about waygood as part of one of our modules, seemed like a great place! seems crazy to withdraw funding at this stage, hope they change their minds! x

New council

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:47:08 +0100

The present tight-fisted Council’s days are numbered.Come the local elections in May should hopefully see the election of a Council who think Newcastle’s culture is worth the investment;so make your vote count.

Much love to Helen

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:46:58 +0100

xxx Annie Padwick

Support Waygood

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:46:53 +0100

Waygood Gallery has built a solid reputation that punches well above its weight, its would be a great loss for Newcastle to lose that.

Joseph Steele, Head of Operations, GOTW[!]

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:22:30 +0100

I think it’s a tragedy what has happened. A bad decision that has made a waste of the time and money spent on the project, and an art space that could have brought artists into the centre of Newcastle life.

Marianne Heaslip

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:58:31 +0100

Seems like another bout of short-sightedness from those who hold the purse strings. It takes years to build up an organisation like Waygood - and one silly funding decision to destroy a lot of hard work. I know how much effort it takes to create buildings, and it seems very unfair that you won’t be able to inhabit the building you’ve put so much good work into.

Penny Jones, BV Studios, Bristol

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:58:18 +0100

I run BV Studios, newly established in Bristol. Withdrawing Waygood’s funding at the final stage is seriously short-sighted and very difficult to understand…it shows a marked lack of joined-up thinking. BV Studios, thank goodness, exists entirely through the generosity of one business man and his vision to support artists in Bristol - relying on funding in today’s economic climate is a deeply worrying business. I fervently hope that ACE and/or your local council can be persuaded to see that continuing their support for Waygood would be of much greater benefit in the long run and a more intelligent and positive response to the current crisis.

Penny Jones

This situation sounds really unfair, you especially deserve to occupy the new building after all the hardwork you've done to create it!

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:23:52 +0000

Thanks to you Waygood I got my first start at working in the arts!

You certainly have my best wishes,

Claire O’Brien.

Wishes for Waygood from Bochum (Germany)

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Dear Waygood-artists, members and staff, when I heard of the serious trouble for the Waygood Gallery I was really shocked. Regarding your successful work since years on such a high level I can’t really believe it. Because of my work as an artist in different Countries I everytimes made the experience how well-known Waygood in the European-wide art-scene is. I really hope the heads of the Newcastle City Council becomes aware that a Metropolitan-Character of an area highly depends from an contemporary art-scene like it is represented, established and ongoing developed by Waygood. I like Newcastle very much. It is such a wonderful town! It should not become provincial! All the Best! Matthias Schamp

John O'Rourke - Lecturer / Course Leader of a Foundation Degree in Fine Art at Tyne Metropolitan College.

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:13:54 +0000

I’m an artist creating works to commission, with very little knowledge of Arts Council funding mechanisms. However, I do have positive experience of Waygood - mainly through my role as a 0.6 contracted Lecturer / Course Leader of a Foundation Degree in Fine Art at Tyne Metropolitan College. As an organisation, Waygood has my support. Jude Thomas, in particular, has been very helpful. Enhancing the student’s research for their Professional Studies module, she conducted a tour, showing them artists’ studio spaces as well as outlining Waygood’s plans for the future - a gallery and so forth. Her talk was excellent and the students (two have been involved in voluntary work experience there) were very appreciative of the morning spent with her.

John O’Rourke

Think global, act local

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:23:31 +0000

Upon arriving in Newcastle from France in 2007, Waygood hit my map immediately as one of the main drivers in the magic of Newcastle, where a local, grassroots scene interfaced with an international scene in a mutually productive, organic way. I hope that this essential cultural identity of Newcastle will continue.

Atau Tanaka

Culture lab

The Waygood, when it was still in the town centre, organised some really good discussions.

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:19:24 +0000

The Waygood, when it was still in the town centre, organised some really good
discussions. I still remember a meeting, which must have been in 2004 or 2005,
to discuss notions of ‘popular culture’ as part of the debate surrounding
Newcastle and Gateshead’s bid to be City of Culture. It brought together arts
practioners, public sector officers in relevant areas, and academics; the
debate was both wide-ranging and deep. Both the overall strategy of the
Waygood and its location make it an excellent place for this kind of
arts/politics discussion. And the Waygood management of that time was
evidently inventive and entrepreneurial in setting up such meetings.

Jamie Gough

I wish Edinburgh had a Waygood!

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:40:13 +0000

When visiting Newcastle from both Edinburgh and Norway where I am originally from, I always made a point of visiting Waygood. I always thought Newcastle was lucky to have such a place, and wish that Edinburgh had such an artist led gallery/studio complex. This is why I could not believe the news when I heard that funding was being withdrawn by the Arts Council and Newcastle Council. A gallery is more than it’s buildings, it’s about the people that run it and their vision. With it’s varied and interesting exhibition programme, the team at Waygood have created something special that should be cherished and valued, not thrown away.

The possibility of one day joining the Waygood community in Newcastle would make me consider relocating from Edinburgh. However, without Waygood, my visits to Newcastle will be all the more rare!

Kjersti Sletteland

Artist

Edinburgh and Norway

Bethan Maddocks, Artist

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:52:45 +0000

I first encountered Waygood in 2005 in my second year of University when Helen came to talk to my fine art course about the redevelopment in High Bridge. It was great to hear that opening soon after my graduation would be a contemporary artist run space in the centre of town. After graduating I got in contact with Waygood who gave me paid employment at events. When I got offered my first exhibition after graduating it was again Waygood who I went to to enquire about a space to create work. They offered me their hanging space where I developed ideas, rent free for a month, ultimately leading to me creating work that I would have been unable to make without this space. A few months later I got offered a studio space at Waygood in Harkers, where I have now been for 2 and a half years. It may be a cold, dusty old warehouse but I relish the chance I get to spend in my studio and the conversations I have there with fellow Waygood studio holders and staff.

I am now a fairly successful artist in the region and have no doubt that this is down in part to Waygoods support. It will be a great shame if this same sense of support is withdrawn by the Arts Council, as I really believe Waygood is one of a kind.