Felicity has designed and delivered a large range of community workshops over the last 20 years.

Before training as a Blacksmith, she started her career as a youth worker and has a natural ability to connect with and support a diverse range of people.

She co-founded ‘Forge Forward CIC’ with Frances Plowden which teaches blacksmithing and metalwork skills to marginalised groups such as refugees, vulnerable youth and women. Giving them a sense of empowerment and a creative outlet.

She has worked with numerous charities and organisations on inclusive participatory projects which creatively tackle issues such as knife crime.

She established the environmental art collective ‘No Time to Waste Arts’ which creates touring large scale recycled sculpture, runs creative workshops and storytelling sessions. The project aims is to inform and empower young people about issues, such as single use plastic, climate change, and sea life protection so they can make choices to care for and protect our planet.

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PROJECTS INCLUDE;

 

Makers Asylum, Goa, India. Myself and Annie Chapter ran a 2 day metalworking skills course ‘Women Teaching Fabrication’ which culminated in a collaborative permanent sculpture. The workshop was aimed at women and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

 

Forge Forward Workshops After receiving funding from the ‘Ironmongers Guild’ Myself and Frances Plowden ran a series of 2 day workshops teaching blacksmithing and creating a personal project. We worked with youth from ‘The Grove’ playground, Refugees in collaboration with ‘Care for Calais’ and a women’s group ‘Drama for Healing’ survivors of human trafficking.

 

Tree Sculpture project Working with the charity ‘Achieving for Children’ who provide safe places for teenagers to live. I created a tree sculpture for one of the residential homes and ran workshops for the residents to help build the sculpture.

 

Tool Repair and maintenance workshops Working with multiple community farms and growing projects to teach skills such as sharpening and rehandling tools. 

 

Tree Musketeers Gate Project A collaboration with the Eat London charities ‘The Wickers’ & ‘Rise Up East’, who aim to reduce gang and knife crime by providing young people opportunities. Teaching metalwork skills which culminated in a creating and installing tree themed gate design for a local community tree nursery.

 

Super Roots Forest school metal craft and welding workshops with children.

 

Blacksmith Taster days with Frances Plowden, London,

 

Traveller workshops Three week creative fabrication course for Irish Traveller boys with the London Gypsy and Travellers unit. 

 

‘Hello again Hackney’ Blacksmithing workshops with local young women as part of campaign to get people out and about in the borough post Covid.

 

Let’s Beat Knives, Newham, London.

Myself and two other local Blacksmiths, Mike Turner and Frances Plowden ran a powerful workshop in collaboration with Flanders field community group. We were given crates of confiscated knives by the police and with the help of local people from all ages and backgrounds who’s lives had been affected by knife crime, we shaped and textured them in the forge to form a Beetle sculpture on a pre fabricated frame we brought. This then got mounted in the community garden to send a message of transformation and hope.

 

Arcadia Spectacular - London, 

Working with ‘Arcadia’, a large scale performance art collective who
combines sculpture, pyrotechnics, recycling, lighting, circus and music. I organised and ran a series on hands on recycled art workshops for local children and young people from Grenfell Tower in conjunction withtheir show at the Olympic Park in London. 

With the team I put together, 150 children used metalwork skills, welding and tyre crafting to produce recycled spider creatures.

 

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