The Hide, located in the Cotswold area of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, is an artist retreat founded by Alice Sheppard Fidler and Piers Leigh. After moving to Gloucestershire, Sheppard Fidler sought to create a supportive artistic community post-lockdown. In 2022, she initiated The Hide Installation and Sculpture Showcase (THISS), showcasing sculptures in her garden and addressing themes of adaptability and environmental concerns in art. This year marked the first Arts Council funding for the event, enabling compensation for participating artists.
"I realised that, as someone on their second career, as a working mother, holding it all together, I needed friends, allies," Sheppard Fidler tells The Art Newspaper.
This year's ran over two weekends in June, with ten artists from London and across the south-west responding to the theme of adaptable matter, and the environmental implications of making permanent sculpture today.
This is the first year that Sheppard Fidler has secured Arts Council funding for THISS, which is part of the Site Festival around the Stroud Valleys.
"I need to be able to pay people and pay the artists because I'm so fed up that artists do so much for free."
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