CABN Advocates
The CABN project covers a range of artforms and key to understanding the different sectors and designing and delivering relevant support is through the work of the Advocates. The Advocates are experienced and respected practitioners in their field and their input is invaluable.
The Advocates host and deliver events, initiate partnerships and advise on project development, and are available for 1:1 Advice Sessions. The Advocates are working with us on a freelance basis for 4 days in 2026.
If you would like to connect with one of the Advocates, or speak to them about a particular project, please complete the Advice Session form and email it to the CABN team at hello@cabn.info
The eight CABN Advocates are:
Lisa is an experienced media and youth arts practitioner with a background in press, radio, and community film. She has led a number of youth media projects, including VOMO and Wired on Radio Borders, and is now Project Manager of Bloom Media at Borders Book Festival — a dynamic programme that helps young people develop creative and technical skills through hands-on media production.
Lisa also coordinates Children and Youth Arts Advocacy (CYAA), a national collective of 34 leading arts organisations working to ensure all children and young people in Scotland can access inclusive, empowering arts experiences. Alongside this, she provides PR and marketing support for arts-focused charities and is the founding editor of Newstead News, a community magazine produced entirely by local residents — recently recognised as a Scottish runner-up in the UK Creative Lives Awards.
Looking for advice or support on youth engagement in the arts? Get in touch at hello@cabn.info
Passionate about reducing textile waste, Flora Collingwood-Norris provides visible mending workshops, materials and tutorials to help you make your knitwear last. Flora also creates ethical, handmade knitwear using natural fibres from her studio in Galashiels. Her work has a strong emphasis on colour, inspired by Scottish landscapes.
Flora’s areas of expertise are:
- Craft workshops, online and in person
- Diversifying income streams within a creative practice
- Social media and email marketing
- Costing/ pricing your work
- Understanding of the time and dedication it takes to run a craft and design business, whether selling your own products, or working freelance
- Successfully applying for craft fairs
- Textiles and Fashion, specialising in knitwear and repair
- Presenting work online and in person
- Self-publishing a book
- Setting up a small business
- Creating a collection of work
- VAT
Kerry is Creative Director of Moving Images Cinema Caravan CIC, a founding member of Moving Image Makers collective and Films for Change. Kerry is an arts educator, filmmaker and festival programmer for Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2016 - 2022. She is passionate about experimentation and out of the box creative possibilities.
Kerry’s areas of expertise are:
- Networking /creating networks
- Hosting & organising events/exhibitions
- Funding
- Making ideas happen
- Working across sectors & in collaboration
- Training
- Access to venues & equipment
- Self care and brain food.
- Community & Participatory projects
https://www.kezzajones.co.uk
https://www.movingimagescaravan.com
Lara Greene is an artist based in Selkirk. She has a background in sculpture and public art, as well as freelance educational work. She runs Transform Arts which provides creative art opportunities for children and young people. Lara has a wide ranging knowledge of many materials and processes including casting, woodwork, painting, sewing and mechanical/kinetic art. She has specialist knowledge in the field of public art with regard to its commissioning process, funding, pre-planning, fabrication, installation and technical details.
www.laragreene.co.uk
https://www.transformartscic.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/LaraGreeneArtist
Photography Credit: Copyright Cassie Potts
Clare Prenton - Director, Writer, Lyricist
Clare is a critically acclaimed UK based theatre director, playwright, and musical theatre book writer and lyricist with experience from West End, Off West End, Regional Rep theatres.
Directing credits include work for: Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, English Touring Opera, Sir Alan Ayckbourn/The Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough; Liverpool Everyman Playhouse Theatres; Battersea Arts Centre, Greenwich Playhouse Theatre, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Stafford Festival Shakespeare, The British Shakespeare Company, The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Play, Pie and a Pint, Glasgow.
Men Don't Talk, Clare's first full length play, toured Scotland in Autumn 2024 and plans a UK tour in 2026. Clare is developing a new theatre work in conjunction with Andys Man Club UK and composer Craig Adams (LIFT with Cynthia Erivo, Therese Raquin, Defect, A Clockwork Christmas with Kerry Ellis).
Clare has also taught and mentored actors and writers as a visiting tutor and has worked on the MA programme at Arts Educational Schools London and the BA Actor Musician course at RCS, Glasgow. She was an Associate for British Youth Music Theatre and National Youth Music Theatre for 20+ years as a writer, director and lyricist.
She is a co- founder of the Made in the Borders collective with Ellie Zeegan (of Firebrand Theatre Company) and Jane Houston Green (Treading the Borders Theatre Company) to build capacity and connecting artists and raising the profile of making professional theatre work in the Borders, for performance in and export out of the Borders.
Clare's areas of expertise are
- Directing
- New writing - plays and musical theatre (book and lyrics)
- Open air theatre/Shakespeare
- Comedy/the work of Alan Ayckbourn
- Fundraising and small scale producing
- Funding application writing
- Youth Theatre
- Adaptation from novels into musicals
- Mentoring and being a mentee
- Script reading and writing/reporting
- CV and social media image/promotion (actors and creatives)
- Press and PR experience /qualification
- Teaching
Gary has been working as a visual artist since 2009, bringing a rich and diverse background in engineering and IT to his creative practice. Alongside a busy professional life, he explored self-directed study in etching, illustration, geology, music, and photography—experiences that continue to inform his work today.
In 2013, Gary made the leap to pursue art full-time, going on to graduate from Edinburgh College of Art with degrees in 2019 and 2021. Since then, he has focused exclusively on painting, developing a distinctive practice rooted in observation, discipline, and curiosity.
Now based in Stow in the Scottish Borders, Gary works from his home studio and remains committed to his artistic practice.
Want to connect with Gary? You can request a 1:1 advice session or learn more about our Advocate programme by contacting us at hello@cabn.info
Emma Whigham is a visual artist based in Selkirk. Her practice is rooted in material exploration, working across printmaking, sculpture/installation and collage.
Over the last few years, she has become particularly interested in neurodiversity within the arts and is currently dedicating time to reflection and research, aiming to deepen her understanding of both her own strengths and challenges, as well as those of others.
She is currently studying at Leith School of Art on the Contemporary Art Practice course, where she is exploring what it means to be a neurodivergent artist working today. Through this process, she hopes to foster new connections and help build supportive communities grounded in care.
As CABN’s access advocate, Emma brings lived experience of navigating spaces as a neurodivergent artist, mother and carer with recent experience of:
- Access to work fund
- Working with a support worker
- Access riders
- Member of the Neuk Collective (a community that brings together, supports, and advocates for neurodivergent artists in Scotland)
If you’d like to connect with Emma for a chat, please get in touch at hello@cabn.info