Latest QEST grant funding round opens

Glass artists wanting to hone their skills and take their craft to the next level should apply for the latest round of grants offered by the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST).

There are three fund categories available, with grants of up to £18,000 for Scholarships, up to £10,000 for Emerging Makers and up to £12,000 for Apprenticeship training.

Applications close on Monday 12 February 2024 at 5pm.

Find out more about these great opportunities and apply via this link.

Successful applicants are often supported beyond their funding and training by QEST, with the chance to show their work at prestigious venues and gain valuable publicity.

For example, the QEST Northern Ireland Showcase Exhibition, from 1 February to 22 March 2024, highlights QEST alumni from the island of Ireland. The exhibition will be held in the Craft NI Gallery, which is Belfast’s only dedicated craft venue. Glass artists Scott Benefield, Laura Quinn and Andrea Spencer will be taking part. The Gallery is open Monday to Saturday from 10am-5pm. It is located at 115-119 Royal Avenue, Belfast, BT1 1FF, Northern Ireland.

In addition, QEST alumni will be exhibiting at the leading annual Collect 2024 at Somerset House in London (1-3 March 2024), which will be celebrating its 20th edition. Among them will be Sophie Southgate, who recently completed her MA in Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art with the support of a QEST Britford Bridge Trust Scholarship. On this course she transitioned from a purely ceramics practice to casting in glass, developing a new material-led methodology to explore geometry, architecture and places of transience. Working with blocks of cast glass that are joined to become segments, Sophie finds a playfulness in the infinite colour combinations and iterations.

QEST will be at stand W5 in the West Wing during Collect. Tickets go on sale on 15 January 2024 here.

Image: ‘Drift’ cast glass by Sophie Southgate. Photo credit: Sophie Southgate.