About The Creative Dimension

The Creative Dimension Trust (TCDT) offers workshops, with free tuition and materials, to young people

who show potential in forging a career pathway where precise hand-eye co-ordination, and the ability to understand and construct 3-dimensional shapes are prerequisite.

TCDT offers a wide range of workshops from stone letter carving to sign writing on skateboards and architectural model making.

The Trust is determined to show our talented young attendees the vast range of potential employment opportunities related to the transferable skills students develop through our diverse programme.

Apply for workshops here.

The Creative Dimension Trust also offers a range of work experience placements. Please click here for more information.

Our work is entirely dependent on the generosity of others. Everything we do requires collaboration, partnership and goodwill.

If you would like to help us in any way, please contact us.

TCDT workshops cover a wide range of subjects and areas, taught by world-class tutors.

Since launch, there have been workshops in the following skills:

Architectural Gilding, Architectural Model Making, Cabinet Making, Chocolate Working, Commercial Cinematography, Costume Making, Drawing, Etching, Flame Working, Floral Design, Furniture Making, Gilding & Marquetry, Gilding & Verré Églomisé, Glass Casting, Hand Engraving, Hot Glass, Jewellery Making, Leather Working, Locksmithing, Marbling, Marionette Making, Metal Chasing, Mural Painting, Parquetry, Partner a Conservator, Pastiglia,  Printing on Glass, Product Design and Making,  Recrafting Glass, Regency Waistcoat Making, Shadow Puppet Making, Screen Printing on Glass, Sign Writing, Silversmithing, Stained Glass, Stone Letter Carving, Stone Working, Table Top Puppet Making, Upholstery, Wood Carving, Word Turning, Working with Wood, Plaster and Gold Leaf

The workshops are held at various locations throughout the UK – including London, Cambridge, Nottingham, Berkshire, Lincolnshire, and Sunderland.

The teaching venues include

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Buckingham Palace, Building Crafts College, Burghley House, Cambridge University, Camden Costumes, City and Guilds of London Arts School, Dulwich College, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Fortnam & Mason, The Goldsmiths’ Centre, Nottingham Trent University, The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, Ravn School of Arts & Crafts, Sunderland University, Windsor Castle, Zone Creations

See Upcoming Workshops here

See Previous Workshops here

See Online Tutorials here

The Creative Dimension Trust also offers a range of work experience placements. Following a highly successful pilot in 2018, we have expanded to offer placements in the following areas; architecture, historical costume making, painting conservation, furniture conservation, marbling, and puppet making. Transferable skills obtained during TCDT workshops can be developed further in the new work experience programme. Please click here for more information on the current opportunities.

“Craft is a core component of the UK’s thriving creative industries, providing economic value as well as being a vital and popular aspect of the nation’s cultural and social life.” 

 Sir Christopher Frayling, Patron

The Crafts Council has published reports on the crafts sector in the UK. It estimates that in 2018, crafts contributed £3.4bn to the UK economy, with 11,620 UK crafts businesses employing 149,510 people. There are over £5bn of exports from the UK crafts sector.

However, the Crafts Council reports that there is a pipeline problem in the supply of new talent given a disconnect in craft higher education. Additionally, about 40% of those working in craft are over 50 and 80% are male.

Participation in arts subjects is on the decline in both secondary and higher education. Data on national GCSE participation indicates a 25.6% decline in arts entries over the last five years (Ofqual, 2018), with the greatest reduction in Design and Technology (-42%) suggesting a move away from material and equipment intensive teaching, and thus a reduction in the focus on 3D learning. The decline in uptake of arts subjects in schools has been associated with the introduction of educational performance frameworks, perceptions of the value of arts education among pupils and parents, and a political emphasis on STEM.

Research by Norwich University of the Arts has also indicated negative attitudes towards art as ‘a subject worth doing’ as students enter secondary school, alongside a lack of basic drawing and painting skills and a decline in independent thinking (Last, 2017). More broadly, there has been an ontological separation of the head and the hand (Guery and Deleule, 2014) resulting in the devaluing of manual activity in the rise of the knowledge economy (Gibson and Carr, 2018).

Crafts promote precise hand-eye co-ordination, and the ability to understand and construct 3-dimensional shapes – core skills for any young person considering a career in architecture, design, surgery or the engineering and construction industries.

Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical. He warns that medical students “might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew.”
In November 2019, the Crafts Council project ‘Supporting Diversity and Expertise Development in the Contemporary Craft Economy’ reported barriers for people in minority groups to become professional makers which are social, cultural, and economic. It concludes that “For those who are not from a relatively privileged background or with the necessary networks and educational level, it is particularly difficult to make a career and be adequately recognised in the sector.”

While extra-curricular courses and networks support and nurture talent in activities such as music or sport, there is no equivalent for crafts.

It is against this backdrop that The Creative Dimension (TCDT) was conceived and launched by Penny Bendall, holder of a Royal Warrant of Appointment for ceramic conservation to HM The Queen.