RealWorth
Topic: Article
Posted on 13th Dec 2024

Spotlight On QEST

THE FORCE BEHIND THE CHANGE: UNSUNG HEROES OF THE THIRD SECTOR: QEST (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust)

Welcome back to our Behind the Change series which aims to highlight the outstanding contributions to society being made by third-sector organisations. Each of our subjects is quietly helping transform lives for the better and strengthen their communities, and their invaluable work deserves to be celebrated. By shining our spotlight on their achievements, we hope to bring well-deserved attention to their successes and deliver much-needed support for future initiatives.

The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, or The charity was founded in 1990 and since then has awarded some £7 million to almost 900 makers across the UK in a broad range of traditional and contemporary craft disciplines. Through individual grants, QEST has supported weavers, furniture makers, building conservators, sculptors and many more in honing their skills and developing their practices. QEST also inspires the next generation of makers by offering them opportunities to develop hand skills, meet professional craftspeople, and explore creative careers through their Crafting Tomorrow programme.

Enabling Our Crafts to Thrive and Survive

1990 saw HM Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother’s 90th birthday, and the 150th anniversary of the Royal Warrant Holders Association (RWHA). In celebration of this auspicious year the Association founded QEST.

With HM The King as the Charity’s Patron, QEST remains one of the leading grant-giving charities in the craft sector, and in 2024 alone awarded £500,000 for individual grants. Today, grants are made possible by the generous support of donors. QEST offers funding for craftspeople at all stages of their careers, from Apprentice to Emerging Maker to Scholar, with training taking many forms, including university courses, vocational training, or one-to-one sessions with a master craftsperson.

Partnerships and collaborations are crucial in helping the charity expand its reach and impact. In 2020, The King’s Foundation and QEST launched the Building Arts Programme — a 6-month, practice-based learning programme that explores the interdisciplinary nature of architecture, the decorative arts and traditional craft.

The Building Arts Programme

Empowering the Next Generation to Explore Craft Careers

QEST’s Crafting Tomorrow programme is laying the foundations for the future.

“Building a diverse pipeline of talented professional makers is central to QEST’s work, now and in the future, and partnerships are key to this success. The Crafting Tomorrow initiatives break down the stereotypes and assumptions that young people may have around the craft sector. They equip young people with hand skills, showcase a variety of careers, and inspire participants to explore craft, helping us to ensure the sector is as diverse, inclusive, and sustainable as it should be,” says Deborah Pocock LVO, CEO, QEST.

In partnership with the National Saturday Club and supported by Howdens, 11 Craft&Making Clubs are taking place across the country, giving 13–16-year-olds the chance to discover craft. The Clubs give young people an opportunity to meet professionals to find out about careers in the craft, conservation and manufacturing sectors with 97% gaining better understanding of job roles and career possibilities. QEST is also working with Education & Employers, reaching over 5,000 children last year, through their Making the Future events.

Making the Future: Bedminster Down School in Bristol

Image: Judith Parkyn Photography

Their Know-How Craft Studio with Intoart, meanwhile, empowers people with learning disabilities with the skills to develop their practice for commissions and exhibitions. QEST are continually looking for ways to connect with communities across the UK where there are barriers to participating in craft activities and are currently working with Novus, experts in prison education, to run hands-on activities with young people at HMYOI Wetherby. By breaking down barriers and improving awareness of and access to the craft sector for marginalised communities, they are ensuring that heritage and contemporary craft skills continue to thrive and evolve within our society, benefitting all.

“Our Crafting Tomorrow programmes showcase and celebrate the breadth of craft. With woodturners, puppeteers, stonemasons, and thatchers, to name just a few, we aim to demonstrate to young people that craft and conservation are viable and fulfilling career paths.” say Katherine Dunleavy, Head of Programmes and Partnerships at QEST.

Britain’s Legacy of Crafting Excellence

Britain has a long and influential history of craftsmanship, dating back to Neolithic times circa 4000 BCE. Then, Britons combined functionality with artistry in their stone and pottery tools and ceremonial items. From the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, British makers honed their skills, producing intricate utensils and designs. Elaborate Celtic motifs and distinctive patterning were seen in pottery, metal, and textiles, with new techniques incorporated after the Roman conquest in 43 CE.

In the Medieval period, guilds formed all over the land, championing makers and regulating crafts as varied as weaving, woodwork, metalwork, and masonry. British wool was a highly prized export, and the works of weavers and dyers sold for a premium across Europe. Gothic architecture gave us ornate and highly detailed stonework on churches and cathedrals, marvels that inspire wonder to this day.

By the Renaissance, fine British silverware, furniture, and tapestries were prized globally, reaching the Americas and Asia. Spearheaded by figures like William Morris in response to industrialisation’s mass production, the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 1800s promoted a return to and focus on artisan-made goods. Emphasising handcrafting pieces with high-quality materials, the movement placed the craftsman at the centre of the creative process, prioritising artistic integrity. Its influence quickly spread across Europe and the United States.

The late 1900s, however, saw a marked decline in British craftsmanship, with automation and large-scale manufacturing offering cheaper and more efficient means of fulfilling global demands. Crafting apprenticeships declined and workshops closed as young people pursued careers in more modern fields. It is with initiatives such as QEST, that value of craft is being understood and championed once again. Thanks to their work, spurred on by increased interest in sustainability and appreciation of handmade, quality goods, a new generation of skilled makers has emerged. Today, craft is a key part of the UK’s creative industries, contributing £3.4 billion to the economy annually.

Louis Curtis, QEST Benefact Trust Scholar and Historic Timber Conservator

Fostering Innovation and Sustainable Practices

QEST’s focus on innovation and sustainability ensures that craftsmanship continues to evolve in response to contemporary challenges. The QEST and Heritage Crafts Sustainability Award recognises makers who are pioneering environmentally friendly methods in their work. The 2024 winners included Allister Malcolm and Rachael Colley.

Based at Stourbridge Glass Museum in the West Midlands, celebrated glassblower Allister has made significant changes to his practice, focusing on reducing energy consumption to lower the workshop’s carbon footprint, while sharing his insights with glassmakers globally. Rachael, a jeweller and metalworker, celebrates materials and making through her practice. Based in Sheffield, her work not only challenges notions of value and consumption but also inspires future generations of makers to explore sustainable materials and processes.

Allister Malcolm, Glass Artist

Some of the rarest crafts (such as passementerie, the art of creating decorative trimmings) are practiced by just a handful of people in the UK, and without QEST’s support might be at risk of dying out. Elizabeth Ashdown, combines traditional and endangered craft skills with a contemporary aesthetic in order to create innovative passementerie. In 2023, she received a Scholarship to visit Paris to further her skills under the teaching of master craftspeople, and now has developed her practice to run masterclasses, teaching passementerie to young makers.

Master craftsmen and QEST Scholars Manuel Mazzotti and Oliver Hymans have each been chosen as participants for the Michelangelo Foundation’s Homo Faber Fellowship programme in 2024/25. This prestigious programme sponsors the transmission of craft knowledge and skills from one generation to the next, by pairing master artisans with early career makers. Such a global exchange of artisanal mastery further builds on QEST’s work, guaranteeing the longevity of such techniques long into the future.

Oliver Hymans, QEST Stanley Picker Scholar and puppet maker.
Image:
 Yola Sornsakrin

In our technologically advanced society, traditional and contemporary craft and conservation gives us a tactile connection to the artistry of our cultural heritage. If you’d like to contribute to strengthening the future of the UK craft sector for generations to come, consider supporting QEST’s work or donating to them- find out how here.

Lastly, if you know of a third-sector organisation whose work deserves some time under RealWorth Spotlight, please let us know- with a short (max 500 words) explanation of the great work they are doing- to VSCE.Spotlight@RealWorth.org.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crafted in Liverpool by Kaleidoscope