C.V.
Alison Bell is a practicing artist trained at the Glasgow School of Art and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. She lived and worked for over 20 years on the Isle of Arran, where the island’s spiritual and geographical impact has made a lasting impression on her work as a textile artist. She has held numerous residencies throughout the UK. She was a Director of Craft Scotland, a Specialist Adviser with the Scottish Arts Council and has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Bell’s research explores how creative practice has the potential to reveal the experience and sensory knowledge of ageing and the ways in which they might be understood on their own terms, rather than by means of established textual frameworks which focus more on ‘adaptation’ and ‘policy’.
Qualifications
University of the West of Scotland, PhD, Exploring the Embodied Experience of Ageing through Creative Practice, 2018
Dundee College of Education, Certificate in Secondary Education, Art/Design. 1976
Post Diploma in Textile Design and Printmaking, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, Highly Commended. 1975
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, DA in Textile Design and Printmaking. 1974
Research Interests
Art-practice based research methods
Thinking through making
Sensory knowing
Ways in which creative process informs our understanding of ageing
Exhibitions
Azimuth: Sound/Image. Engaging the Human Sensorium through Art and New Technologies. Symposium and Showcase, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Miraikan – National Museum of Emerging Science & Innovation, Tokyo, CCA, Glasgow, 2016
Shorelines Exhibition and International Symposium, a collaborative research project, Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr www.cathytreadaway.com/exhibitions/shorelines-exhibition 2011
Shorelines: A collaborative research project At the University of Newcastle, NSW Australia, with Dr Cathy Treadaway, Reader in Creative Practice, University of Wales, Cardiff. www.cathytreadaway.com/research/shorelines 2010
Seasilks, Taigh Chearsabhagh, N. Uist, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, 2009
Digital Perceptions: Digital Textile Art, Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, 2006
Digital Perceptions: Digital Textile Art, Leedy-Voulkos Art Centre, Kansas City USA, subsequently in The Faculty at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. 2005
Recursions: Material Expression of Zeros and Ones, Museum of Design, Atlanta, USA, subsequently on tour in the USA 2005 – 2008.
Research papers accepted
Auto-ethnography: (re)membering, (re)cognition and regret, the 3rd British Autoethnography Conference, University of Aberdeen, 2016
Re Connect, at the 3rd International Public Engagement & Performance Conference, York, 2016
Interpreting art practitioners’ unconscious communications through modelling and metaphoric transformation, in collaboration with Blane Savage, UWS, at the HEA Arts & Humanities symbolic Learning & Teaching Conference, Heroes & Monsters, The Lowry, Manchester, 2 – 4 June 2014
Visualising an Interiority; The Self-Reflexive Process of Collage as Method, at the XV111 World Congress of Sociology, Yokohama, Japan, 13 – 19 July of 2014.
On Not Knowing, at the Living Well, International Conference 2015 Seminar, organized by Open Knowledge Group, Clements Hall, York, 9 – 11 April 2015
The Coat and the Goldfish, The Emerging Researchers in Ageing (ERA) Conference: Opening the Door to Challenging Ideas, part of the 44th Annual British Society of Gerontology Conference. Newcastle University, 29th June 2015
Publications
Bell, A. F. (2013), ‘Collage as subjective experience: Transitioning, relinquishing, becoming’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 6: 2, pp. 213–240, doi: 10.1386/jwcp.6.2.213_1
Funding
Visual Artist and Craft Maker Award: South Ayrshire in partnership with Creative Scotland, VACMA Scotland, 2018, £770
University of the West of Scotland towards research in Japan, 2017, £650
Scottish Educational Trust Grant for research in Japan, 2014, £750
Creative Futures Institute, University of the West of Scotland, conference fees, accommodation and travel to Japan, 2014, £1500
Hi-Arts for Shetland ‘Booth’ Residency, £500, 2011
NAN Bursary towards Shorelines project. £500, 2010
Scottish Arts Council Professional Development Award towards travel to Australia to install exhibition, Shorelines, at Newcastle University, NSW. £1709, 2010
Hi-Arts Award for Sea Silks Exhibition, £450, 2009
Hope Scott Trust Award £2000 towards exhibition catalogue. 2008
Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Research into Creative Digital Processes, £700, 2006
AIE Development Award for Digital Textiles, £3000, 2005
Scottish Arts Council Professional Development Award, towards travel and attendance at the International Surface Design Conference, Kansas City, US and to attend exhibitions; Digital Reflections and Recursions in Kansas City and Columbia, U.S. £800.00. 2005
Professional Membership
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
