I was recently invited to contribute to the 'Week in my life' feature by Prolific North magazine - which aims to 'celebrate, connect and inform the North's creative and digital sectors'. As a freelancer with a varied and ever-changing portfolio of work, it's sometimes a challenge to summarise what I do. As such, this was a nice opportunity to share and reflect on a (fairly) typical week.
Kathryn Welch is a freelance creative producer based in Scotland, currently helping creative and social-purpose-driven organisations to work effectively and collaboratively.
She previously led Creative Scotland’s flagship Culture Collective programme for its first 2.5 years, which supported 26 participatory creative projects across Scotland and won The Stage award for Community Project of the Year in 2024.
Here, she shares a recent week in her life…
Monday
I treat myself to a Monday morning lie-in, after a busy and tiring weekend training with my roller derby team. When I had an office job I considered myself a bit of an early bird, and was often one of the first in the office. It’s been interesting to see how my working patterns have naturally shifted over the years I’ve worked for myself, and I always appreciate being able to adjust my working day around the rest of my life.
Once I’m up and caffeinated (though still in my pyjamas), I get started by scheduling calls and meetings for the week ahead. I’m working on a long-term evaluation of an arts funding initiative, so I get to work arranging interviews with artists who’ve received grants over the past few years. The aim is to understand why and how the funding worked (or didn’t) in supporting their practice, and to think about how it might be improved in future. It’s a fascinating opportunity to hear from artists and creatives working on really interesting projects, mostly aimed at making work that’s more accessible, diverse, or representative of a wider range of experiences than we often get to hear from. I try to leave a gap between calls to clear my head, grab a cuppa or get some fresh air – though working around other people’s availability means that doesn’t always quite work out.
I also organise some admin associated with a conference I’ve been invited to speak at in London at the end of the month. I’ve been sent the draft programme to review, and it’s packed with really exciting and well-known speakers. I spend some time updating the description of my session, which is about everyday creativity and social activism, to make sure it sounds enticing enough to attract plenty of attendees! I’ve just completed a part time Masters degree specialising in arts, protest and social change, so this conference is a nice opportunity to connect academic theory with my working life, and to find different ways of presenting my research for a new audience. In the evening, I rehearse with our local choir, who conveniently meet just across the road from my house. It’s a lovely way to rewind after work, and to spend time learning something new with really lovely people. I volunteer on the organising committee too, so a committee meeting after rehearsal means I’m not home till 10pm.
Tuesday
I spend the morning writing a talk I’ll be giving on Friday, which will close a week-long conference designed to help new university graduates build a career in the arts. It’s a talk I’ve given a few times before, but I spend some time looking through the group chat to see what topics have been coming up most amongst the students this year. I update my speaking notes to try to make the talk as useful as possible to the participants, to help them process what they’ve learned and make a plan for putting all their new knowledge into action.
In the afternoon I join a hastily-organised Zoom call with other freelancers working in the arts in Scotland, which is a chance to discuss the [at the time] imminent closure of Creative Scotland’s main funding programme for artists. People are worried and angry, and we spend time sharing concerns, offering ideas and making plans together. I volunteer to help two artists write and submit their funding applications in the last few days remaining before the fund closes. It’s reassuring to be able to tap into a really strong network of other freelancers, all rallying round to support and champion each other. People sometimes ask me whether freelancing gets lonely, but today’s conversations are a good reminder of the networks I’m part of, and an illustration of how nice it is to support, and be supported by, people who work in the same field.
Wednesday
Today I’m at the Scottish Parliament, attending an event on international cultural ambition. I specialise in working on community-led, hyper-local projects, and it’s really fruitful to build international connections between projects responding to really specific local needs. It’s always surprising to see what people find in common, and what they can learn from each other, even in places that seem very different at first glance. Local and grassroots projects often don’t get the time or space (or money) to build international partnerships, and I’m passionate about trying to create and support opportunities that make international collaboration possible for more kinds of organisations.
The parliamentary event is a great chance to catch up with people across the sector – I chat to people I’ve worked closely with for years, meet some new contacts, and put a ‘real life’ face to a couple of people I’ve only ever worked with online. I chat to someone I’ve worked with once or twice about a possible new opportunity to collaborate, and make a note to follow up with one of the event speakers about an international project they’re working on that sounds really interesting.
When I get home I see I’ve been sent a final draft of a handbook for an arts initiative in Ireland that I’ve been researching and writing over the past few months. It’s been an ideal gig to work on – an interesting brief, plenty of independence, fascinating conversations and a chance to be part of a really groundbreaking community-rooted arts project. I make a few minor edits to the text, then approve the draft, which is also an opportunity to submit my final invoice – bonus!
Thursday
Today I’m mostly getting on with the online interviews I’d scheduled earlier in the week. I’m speaking to artists based all over Scotland, working through some semi-structured interviews to understand how this particular funding opportunity impacted their work, and how it might be improved for the future. It’s good to have really frank, open conversations together, and the interviewees have really interesting feedback about what it takes to support more people to be able to make art. Given the current arts funding landscape, these conversations feel timely and important.
Between interviews, I’m trying to get a tender proposal complete, ready for submission at the end of the week. This proposal is for a really interesting piece of work, and is a joint bid between me and three other collaborators. I dig out some examples of previous similar projects I’ve worked on, write a timeline, project plan, budget and risk assessment, and speak to the team to agree on allocations of time, money and workload. We’re trying to strike a balance between writing the strongest proposal we can, whilst balancing other projects and not investing too much (unpaid) time on a project that might not come off. Freelancing is a constant juggle between current and future workloads, but I’m excited about this project and the chance to work with a group of brilliant women I’ve admired for years.
Friday
In the morning I take my little niece to her swimming lesson – she’s almost three and we’ve been swimming together since she was tiny. It’s lovely to have the flexibility to fit an hour of singing, jumping-in and chasing inflatable ducks into my week. After that, it’s back to my desk to deliver the talk for early-career artists I was planning earlier in the week. There are 120 expectant faces on my screen, and I’m thankful that the organisers are all over it in terms of facilitation of the group and the technical side of presenting, which makes my job much easier.
The students have had a packed schedule all week, covering everything from finance and marketing to networking and goal setting, so my job is to help them process what they’ve learned and make a plan for putting it all into action. My allocated hour goes by in a flash, and I spend some time on the group’s discussion board afterwards sharing links and answering questions. Clocking off at 3pm, I head out for a short run to clear my head and get out of work mode ready for the weekend. With no official ‘commute’, it’s nice to find ways to create a transition from work-time to relaxation-time. The run will help, and a glass of wine in the garden afterwards will complete the job!