The Aon Community Art Award programme offers support to emerging artists at a pivotal moment in their careers. Aon has a group of colleagues and external mentors who assist with whatever questions the artists may have. This support is not only available to the current cohort of artists, but also to our to alumni.
We also encourage past artists to remain involved in the programme. In recent years, we have invited former participants to speak at mentoring events sharing their journey, experiences and knowledge. The current cohort always find these talks extremely inspiring and insightful.
Manchester Art Gallery Workshop - March 2019
We were joined at the Manchester Art Gallery by 30 artists for a day of mentoring and workshops. This was not only open to those artists on the current programme but we were also joined by a small group currently studying at Leeds Arts University.
Our different speakers hosted five interactive sessions throughout the day to help the artists work through many topics including their business and brand, communication skills, behaviour and selling themselves.
There were breakout sessions in the afternoon with mentors where delegates had the opportunity to rehearse their elevator pitches, practise their sales techniques and record a video on camera that they can use to promote themselves.
It was a fun, informative and rewarding day for everyone.
We were also delighted to be joined live on a video link from Israel by Sara Cutler who was one of our artists on the programme in 2016. Sara was working on a project and took time out to give an insight into her progress since being on the programme and offered advice to the artists in the room.
"Being selected for the Aon Community Art Awards programme has..
…given me a big boost in confidence having just left university. Having my work recognised is a huge honour, the programme gives me a lot of support to continue what I am doing and to know it is a journey I am on”
Kate Waddicor – Manchester School of Art
…been really supportive to me. It has such a sense of community, being able to meet new people, new creatives, to hear about their processes and ideas, especially people who have also recently graduated and are in a similar position. It is nice to have people around me to inspire me and to bounce ideas off”
Marina Rennee-Cemmick – Glasgow School of Art
…really helped me to be confident in my own work, to continue with projects, to try new things and really push them out there. I probably wouldn’t have done that before”
Chloe Bromilow – Manchester School of Art
“As one of the Aon colleagues who mentors the artists on the programme, I was delighted to take part in the event at the Manchester Art Gallery. The day was full of energy and it was wonderful to see the creativity and enthusiasm from the artists throughout the day. Mentoring is such a rewarding experience from a personal level, it also benefits me in my day to day work in terms of networking and leadership skills. I am proud that Aon supports this programme and that it has given me the opportunity to be involved in so many different ways”
Janet Penny, Client Manager, Aon, Manchester