QEST Scholarships
Malice in Wonderland cups, Bethan Lloyd Worthington
The latest round of Queen Elizabeth Trust Scholarships (QEST) have just been announced and the eight new scholars include a ceramist, a paper craft artist and a stained glass painter.
The QEST awards (ranging between £1000 and £15,000) are designed to help applicants fund further study or training, and ceramicist Bethan Lloyd Worthington has been given £11,140 to do an MA in Ceramics and Glass at London’s RCA. She finished her BA in Three Dimensional Design at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2006 and has since then been making quirky domestic tableware and wall pieces from her workshop in Salford. She won an award at New Designers and was picked out by James Beighton (Curator of Craft at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) as one of the craft names of the future for Crafts Magazine’s 200th issue in May 2006. Now she wants time to learn new skills and experiment with old ones.
Other QEST scholars this year with a decided craft bent are Cai Jia Eng and Eleanor Bird. Eng, who makes hand-made cards and intricately cut and folded paper models, has been given £2,620 to finance a one-year diploma at the University of the Arts in London. She hopes it will teach her new production techniques such as screen printing, book-binding and letter press work which will help expand her practice. Stained-glass painter Eleanor Bird will use her award of £7,840 to do an MA in Glass at the University of Sunderland.
The five other awards went to carpenter and joiner Simon Foulser, muralist Marina Hughes, sculptor Andrian Melka, easel painting conservator Laura Mills and calligrapher Martina Scott. The deadline for the next round of scholarships is 5 June (there is no age limit for applicants but they must live and work in the UK).
www.qest.org.uk
