From art student to art gallery curator

Sarah Bowden had travelled the world with her family before thinking about art school in the 1990s. She moved to Cheltenham to attend the Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education, the predecessor of the University of Gloucestershire. And she found the environment inspiring.

“When I was given a tour of Pittville with a friend who was looking to do a painting degree,” she said, “it was packed with students creating amazing artwork, it was incredibly vibrant – the atmosphere was charged!”

“I studied BA Sculpture, which meant practice-based modules in ideas development and support with technical production, and a fine art history and philosophy course. There was an overarching structure to the course but you were left to your own devices much of the time. This was great training for self-initiated art practice on leaving college.”

Sarah had her third child during her second year, so took an extra year to complete her dissertation, graduating with Honours in 2002. “Having to fit work around raising my kids, I began practising as a professional artist on graduation, picking up public commissions and finding bursaries and artist-residencies to develop new projects. After some years I began looking to establish a studio and project/exhibition space in Cheltenham, inspired by Stroud Valleys Artspace and other grassroots organisations around the UK.”

Sarah found an old workshop building behind the new Brewery retail complex in Cheltenham, and took on the lease, financing the project with public funding in 2007. She ran the space, MEANTIME, as public programme of artist-residencies until 2014, working with hundreds of artists and putting on live music, film screenings, poetry events, etc., in the gaps.

At the same time, she started a Master’s in Fine Art at the University of Gloucestershire. “I was on a part-time programme that allowed time and space for other commitments. By this time my daughter was also studying on the Art & Design Foundation course at the University of Gloucestershire. My association with the university art school continued throughout the MEANTIME project and it was a great resource for any student interested in cultural experiences. This was recognised by the university when they awarded me an Honorary Master’s (in addition to the one I studied for!) in 2011.”

Sarah’s MEANTIME experiences developed a wide range of skills, including fundraising, project management, event management, marketing, communications, and audience development. She is now curator of the Hardwick Gallery at the University of Gloucestershire, and is keen to ensure that these skills are part of the student experience.

And she has fond memories of her own experiences at university. “I loved having access to people’s minds, to equipment and facilities that expanded what I knew to be possible, to the incredible library where I spent so much of my time picking books up at random, or researching something someone said. It was an especially precious point in my life devoted to the process of educating myself, a process which never ends.”

Read more about Sarah’s Masters in Fine Art course.