The New Atlantic Wave featured in a full page article in the March 7 2024 edition of the North Devon Journal. The article, (text below) chronicles the work of Phil Parker and Hilary Beecroft in their journey to establish ArtMakers.uk. ArtMakers is the not-for-profit company set up during Covid to support local artists and makers in northern Devon – the New Atlantic Wave.

The North Devon Journal article.

“Devon, with it’s spectacular coastline and countryside scenery, is one of the leading places to retire in the UK voted the third best place in the UK in a survey by Fenetic in 2022. It was the most popular county in the UK to move as Covid-19 was sweeping the nation according to the Office for National Statistics and it regularly is up there with the top three counties people would like to retire to with 8500 moving there from within the UK in 2020 alone.

So what better location would there be, you might think for a phenomenally busy International Content Development Consultant to settle down after thirty years curating new talent in creative industries. Following an illustrious career in screenwriting working alongside the BBC, Dreamworks, Aardman Animation to name but a few, and many other collaborations across borders with creatives in Germany, Chile, Czech Republic and India, you’d think this globetrotting screenwriter, best-selling author and founder of a London MA Screenwriting course which regularly sees Oscar nominations and BAFTA/Palme D’Or winners would have been glad to swap, like so many do, the fast pace of London for a quiet retirement and the good life of rural north Devon.

Yet, life had other intentions with Phil Parker and his long-term partner Hilary Beecroft as they shifted their lives in 2017 away from the fastrack back to the slower pace (or so they thought) of life in rural Devon with a return to Phil’s home county. Nestled on the banks of the river Torridge, Instow is just across the water from the famous Appledore Book Festival, and 7 years on from that move back to new but very familiar pastures, the quiet retirement they may have envisaged there is far from happening any time soon.

They became the founding directors of a Community Interest Company, ArtMakers UK, that has one of the largest groups of artists and artmakers in the county – now with over 150 – and they are the driving force behind the resurgence of local art in the Bideford and north Devon area attracting a lot of local attention and also a first invitation from the Affordable Art Fair, to exhibit in London last Autumn.

Phil Parker explains the reasoning why he and Hilary with additional director Jess Pearson felt the urge to form the CIC: “We carried out some extensive research into England’s largest community outside of London and Cornwall (according to the Arts Council England) and we found that this community of extraordinarily talented artists was largely invisible outside of north Devon. It’s like the very nature of working in a rural location was undermining their efforts to promote and sell their work, or even be ‘seen’ by the very industry they were invested in. We needed to change this injustice as we saw it so we set to work”.

And that is exactly what they did. After two years of seeking and receiving funding, major projects including exhibitions, workshops and seminars, and the development of the first ever walk-through virtual contemporary gallery for regional artists in the UK, the Art Council of England recognises the ‘New Atlantic Wave’ group of artists and makers identified by ArtMakers UK as the third largest grouping in England.

Not bad for two years of hard work, blood, tears and quite a bit of sweat as the programme of projects for 2022-23 developed by the ArtMakers directors saw them participate in exhibitions at the famous Appledore Book Festival, a series of exhibitions at National Trust property Arlington Court nestled on the edge of Exmoor, and the invitation to Battersea Park to the Affordable Art Fair – a real coup especially for the five artists chosen to exhibit for the first time. The group also now has a permanent base in their Art Upstairs gallery in Bideford overlooking the pretty quayside area, which is home to continually changing exhibitions and art workshops throughout the year.

With two years of incredible growth behind them, looking forward to 2024, the ArtMakers are taking stock. New ventures are in the pipeline including the creation of two new art business awards for north Devon in conjunction with Business Action, North Devon Arts and Creative UK. And Phil’s career continues unabated too. For him 2024 will see the fifth year of CEE animation workshops and the development of twelve new animation projects for him across Europe. The long anticipated retirement in the rolling green hills of Devon on that wild North Devon coast will just have to wait.

For more information on the amazing work of the ‘New Atlantic Wave’ artists, go to www.artmakers.uk.”