lead Artist with whiffle pig 2017 – present
Since graduating I have been employed as an artist by a Community Arts and Health group, and non-profit company called Whiffle Pig, utilising the skills that I developed at University in planning facilitating and evaluating creative well-being-focused workshops.
I enjoy working with Whiffle Pig service users, both in a one to one and workshop setting. I was a volunteer for a year, before becoming a lead workshop artist in 2017. 
The workshops that I have run with whiffle pig are always person centred – so the projects are based on the interests and needs of each participant. Over the last 3 years, I’ve enjoyed working with a wide variety of techniques, from stop motion animation to gardening and textiles. 
The Whiffle Quilt is a project that I developed in 2018, in response to the workshops that I had been facilitating on the wards of The Royal Derby Hospitals. These workshops were the main part of the delivery of Whiffle Pig’s ‘The People’s Projects’ funding from the Big Lottery Fund.
As I worked on the same 6 wards once a week for 8 months or so, I began to notice that each ward was an ever changing ‘micro-community’, with a culture of its own. Of the hundreds of patients that we engaged in our creative wellbeing projects, they were all linked by a common thread – yes they were in hospital due to illness/injury, but beyond their identity as a patient, they they all had a story to tell. The Whiffle Quilt began as a response to this, in an attempt to capture and represent the real people of the wards; to look beyond the clinical setting and shed light on the moments of human connection, community, love, loss and laughter. Participants in the project included patients, staff and visitors on the wards.
Each square is an expression of an individual’s stories, memories, feelings and creative exploration which has been cut, painted, coloured and stitched together in collaboration with myself and volunteer artists. Often, these works of art came from discussions we would have about their lives, families and passions. Some people knew exactly what they wanted to create, and did so without need for much support. Others were more cautious about expressing themselves, and needed more support from us as artists to engage in the project. No two squares are the same.
The quilt has been sewn together by members of Whilffe Pig’s community group; a regular workshop for patients who have worked with us on the wards and have since been discharged. The finished piece was exhibited at the Belper Arts Trail in 2019, and we hope to exhibit it in the hospital in the future.
Alongside the whiffle quilt, I also exhibited a small body of work which I had produced, around the idea of portraiture and animation, and telling the story of someone before, during and after a life changing illness.
geoff project video finshed from Lydia Atkinson on Vimeo.
COMMISSIONED WORK 2018
This was a painting that I was commissioned to paint, following my Degree show ‘Statement as Image’. I used the same oil-on-acrylic technique, and was able to refine this further by using better quality materials.
Commissioning work is something that I would like to develop in my career, and feel that pursuing an MA in Art and Social Practice would definitely help me to build skills and expertise in this area, and learn from established artists how best to cultivate and manage this type of work.
Lydia Atkinson Art 