Jodie is a creative projects manager working with cultural organisations across Scotland. She is passionate about breaking down barriers to participation in the arts and has gained valuable experience across communities in Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway and Renfrewshire. 

Jodie is committed to using creative practice as a tool to support individuals to engage with their community, environment and the wider world. She believes a community-led  creative practice approach gives people agency to build and enjoy culture in their own communities, positively impacting both the person and the place. Her work to date has seen her personally engage with hundreds of artists and cultural practitioners and programme, organise and deliver cultural activity for attendees aged 4 to 65+. She is experienced at coordinating programmes in settings where opportunity to engage creatively is limited, such as care homes, hospitals and prisons.  

Jodie’s first experience with creative placemaking in Scotland was in 2021 where she was a Creative Associate in the Creative Spaces programme at The Stove Network in Dumfries and Galloway. She developed and delivered professional community arts workshops, talks, and other creative activity aimed at engaging local young people alongside a team of three other exciting emerging young creatives. This experience lit a fire to further explore opportunities to engage with communities and enabled her to see how she could utilise her skillset in the most personally fulfilling and meaningful way. 

Since then, Jodie has worked on freelance programmes and projects for Creative Renfrewshire, Rig Arts, and Refractive Collective. She has been part of the  Communities team at Edinburgh International Book Festival since February 2024, first as Communities Programme Assistant and now currently as Creative Learning Manager  (Maternity Cover). There she both leads and supports on a range of projects to improve  literacy outcomes, engage with communities and individuals who feel the arts is ‘not for  them’ and bring the joy of the festival to people who cannot attend in person. She sat on the Craft Scotland advisory board between 2021-2024 and is delighted to sit on The Stove board since May 2022, where she is now Vice Chair.