Short Biographies.
Sue Gill was born in Yorkshire and educated in Hull and Cambridge.
After working as Head Teacher of the smallest village school in remote North Yorkshire and lecturing in Bradford Art College Sue evolved to an author, performer, secular celebrant, cook, saxophonist, truck driver, co founder of Welfare State International (1968-2006) and grandmother. After WSI was archived she was, for one year,the Director of Ceremonies for Lanternhouse International. From 1998-2006 she was the course leader for WSI's groundbreaking MA in Cultural Performance created in partnership with Bristol University She is an.Honorary Fellow of Cumbria Institute of the Arts.(2001) and was Celebrant for the Ceremony of Remembrance for Great Ormond Street Hospital.(2001) Co-author of the Dead Good Guides- books on Funerals and Baby Namings.Presently leads ROP summer schools across the UK with Gilly Adams,and works as a secular celebrant and funeral officiant.
John Fox. Born in Hull. National Service in West Africa, Hons Degrees in PPE at Oxford and Fine Art in Newcastle.
After lecturing in art colleges co founded Welfare State International in 1968( with others) and was Artistic Director, until he archived the company in 2006. Printmaker, poet, author, artist, theatre director, occasional musician, lecturer and cultural provocateur with numerous awards for “ innovative contribution to the arts”. His large woodcut triptych, commissioned by English Estates 1998 is a permanent mural in The Trinity Enterprise Centre in Barrow in Furness . In 2006 at Arts 06 he received the first Arts Council England (NW) "Life- Times Achievement Award " and an Artist /Time/Space /Award for his cross disciplinary research project “Pick up Sticks” .He also held a retrospective exhibition “Graphics and Gifts" of his woodcuts and linoprints “ for Mid Pennine Arts. “ Eyes on Stalks “his roller coaster autobiography about WSI was published by Methuen in 2002 .Co–author, with Sue Gill,of the Dead Good Guides.
"An immense influence on three generations of artists ,teachers and administrators, both in this country and throughout the world."
Northern Electric Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts."
Honorary Fellow of both The University of Cumbria and The University of Central Lancashire.
June 2008 Awarded Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts by Arts and Humanities Research Council
( AHRC) . This senior Research Fellowship will last three years and be undertaken in partnership with the Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Art (LICA) at Lancaster University. It will facilitate the exploration of links between ecology, place and performance on the shoreline of Morecambe Bay.