Intro to Skimstone

 24th November. Zoom. Intro with Peter Saaremets.

Today I had my first introductory meeting with Peter Saaremets, the lead musician at Skimstone Arts.

We talked about who I am, what I do and why I was interested in working with Skimstone. It was great to share my own personal interests and passions in the arts, from my theatrical background to musical instrument playing too. I'd already spoken to Peter and some of the team ahead of this meeting but we spoke about how I am learning to play the guitar now (Peter's instrument) - a new lockdown hobby! I felt very welcomed by Peter speaking about music, and we had to make sure we spoke about business matters because we could've spoken for ages! We talked a lot about jazz and bands; Peter said that in normal times it would've been good to get me playing in the Youth Band, but coronavirus... :( 

Skimstone Arts is very rich in the music it explores, and we talked about all kind of genres, from my "Radio 2 - style, drive time slot" on student radio, to location-based music and rock and pop. Skimstone Arts is so reliant on the passion of the people who work there, and it was great to be infused with some of that passion from Peter as we compared musical influences. Peter said he missed my JLS stage, but otherwise there were similarities in our musical journey! We both liked the Beatles, the Jam, the Clash and Paul Weller; Claire Webster Saaremets, who runs Skimstone was a big punk fan. We settled on talking about the qualities of Elvis Costello for a long time too! He gave a lot of recommendations like Joni Mitchell (Blue - "not a happy album, but an amazing album!"), which I'll make sure to check out!

It was very easy to talk about music but we soon got down to basics with Skimstone, and I came back to saying as well as the music and arts-based side of things, I also see myself running my own company in the future and I was looking forward to seeing how a SME worked too. Peter said it would be good to get on the management team in that case, as well as the marketing team that I had already indicated an interest in.

Diversity and social inclusion is one of the cornerstones of Skimstone, and it was good to talk about my Japanese heritage too, which Peter had links to as well. We then went on to talk about regional diversity within the UK too, and how Skimstone like to reach all parts of the country as well as all kinds of countries around the world, despite being based in the North East.

We went back to talking about my social media experience as well as experience of recording and internet radio. I gave some initial feedback on their last radio programmes, part of their last project, that I had evaluated ahead of picking the placement. I spoke about the range of stuff on their website that excited me too, and Peter seemed appreciative of the effort I had put in in advance of the placement.

We then took an in-depth dive into organisational structure and funding sources and other introductory packs to do with their internship programme.

There's the ensemble doing professional performance work, the ever-changing group of the Young Artists Collective, ECHO artists who have worked with Skimstone for a longer time. Skimstone is predominantly music-based, but there's also visual arts (photography and video work), and creative writing too, like spoken word and other pieces too.

Peter talked about the importance of direct experience in their work, and how that usually means going out and engaging with the community. This builds a really great interaction with a community that has stories to tell, and often can feel excluded without this kind of attention and engagement. Collaboration amongst performers and actors help to flesh out the inspired work from themes and experience, and I was well on board with this!

We then went on to talk about "Who Holds the Torch?" - the main project during the time I would be working with them. This was also meant to be an in-person event, but has had to be adapted to an online songbook. This is a big umbrella project encompassing the whole company, and the different branches including Reaching Out in Walker and other projects in Byker. Reaching Out (funded by Newcastle-Gateshead and Newcastle Cultural Initiative Fund - from the Community Foundation) is an outreach project with adults in Byker and younger people in Walker. The Young Artists Collective (by Youth Music and the FOGO fund, again from the Community Foundation). It was good to talk with Pete about the different funding groups and how it worked. The Young Artists Collective (YAC) was run mostly by the Leadership Team, mostly made up of ECHO artists too.

Peter talked about what I would have been doing had I been able to come in to the studios, and it was a shame that this wasn't possible, but hopefully I'll be able to come in sometime soon! Peter said normally everyone who comes in and even when they don't work directly with each other, the team is built by talking to everyone, so I will try to do that too! Peter introduced me to the 'Nation of Skimstonia', and how I would soon become a Skimstonian too!

Peter went on to run through everyone who works at the company (a lot of people) and reassured me I would soon meet the faces to place to the names. We had to read through some policies too, and I took away a pack on email, to read and send back. Peter encouraged me to come into the studios in December to do some work on-site too.

I arranged to meet the creative producer, Cristina Armstrong, Quinn Green, an ECHO artist who is an assistant-project manager running the social media channels, and Annalisa Buratti, a project coordinator. I also looked forward to joining a Reaching Out meeting, and sitting in on a creative zoom with some artists from the Young Artists Collective, and the Friday Checking In meeting too. I said it would be hard for me to come to a couple of the zooms as my uni seminars cut across some of them, but Peter said it would be ok to leave early; the main thing is just meeting the team.

Peter also told me to talk to the social media team, but also come prepared with some thoughts on the social channels as they were, and gave me some pointers to other similar companies to compare to. Peter said to particularly focus on the Instagram, which is also the platform I'm best acquainted with so this was apt. I'm also to look at the Facebook pages too.