we are SCOPE and maybe you are too?
We are a collective of many varied creatives some with years and some with just days of experience in our chosen disciplines, brought together by our want to make Renfrewshire a more supportive and sustainable place to exist as a creative person.
Maybe that's what you want too?
Take a gander at our profiles below and get in touch if you fancy joining us at one of our monthly 'ART CHAT' meetings.
EMMA OWEN (she/they)
FASHION/INTERIOR DESIGNER & MANUFACTURER
Emma Rebecca Owen is a fashion manufacturer and designer. They graduated from Fashion and Textiles at Gray's School of Art in 2017.
Since then Emma's practice has had a strong environmental focus be that in the form of garments made from second hand textiles and accessories fashioned from found objects and materials that would otherwise polite our earth and oceans.
Emma's most recent collection of garments were made from ethically sourced materials and they were nominated fabric from the Harris Tweed collection with which they hand made a half kilt contemporary dress that show's the tension in the polarised gendering of hughstreet trends.
MARK SWAROOP (he/him)
PHOTOGRAPHER
Born and brought up in Bangalore, Mark moved to Glasgow after marrying the love of my life. Inspired by his life motto, ‘make a life, not a living’, he travels to shoots around the world.
His journey as a photographer has taken him to the most surreal venues from Rajasthan all the way down to Kerala, from Mombassa, Kenya to the heart of Virginia, USA. He's witnessed beautiful moments in small marriage halls, as well as grand palaces. But, regardless of venue, it’s the people that he's come to cherish. Mark has made some fans out of clients, some believers out of Thomas‘ and mostly friends for life. He truly believes that being part of someone’s big day is a special thing.
Mark's work has been featured in Vogue India, national Indian newspapers and blogs like Wedding Brigade and Grey Alley.
INDIE MCCUE (he/they)
VISUAL ARTIST/FACILITATOR & PRODUCER
Indie McCue is a creative practitioner, facilitator and organiser looking at participatory work as a wider focus. He is under the firm impression that in order to affect social change and sustain creativity you must include everyone in the planning, conversation and physical outputs, whatever they may be.
Indie’s existence as well as practice aims to create continuous conversation and action about community, playfulness and the importance of each individual’s role in the rebuilding of creative idealisations.
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Indie is the lead artist for scope - during the first covid lockdown and Indie's first year living in Paisley, they felt creatively isolated and felt a need to connect creative in the area to act as support for one another during a time of heightened mental health issues and social uncertainty.
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Indie is also co-director of 'BIDE CIC' (alongside Mark Swaroop), a social enterprise which focuses on access to the arts and affordable, resourceful studio spaces for creatives in Renfrewshire.
JENNIFER MCDONALD (she/her)
TEXTILE DESIGNER & OWNER OF PURE BARKIN'
Jennifer McDonald is an artist and designer, operating under the brand name Pure Barkin and PB Print Design. Jennifer has a background in merchandising, fashion, textiles and jewellery, and more recently graduated from Heriot-Watt University, with First Class Honours, in Printed Textile Design.
Pure Barkin developed from Jennifer’s graduate collection, which involved creating a faux brand which produced two different menswear collections - focussing on the reinvention of formalwear - "'reactivated formal”. Blurring the lines between dressing professionally and dressing creatively. Since graduating in 2020, Jennifer has evolved Pure Barkin from an idea, to a small online shop and ongoing creative project. Pure Barkin’s brand identity is bold, bright and clashing prints, developed from mixed media sketchbook work and photography, witty slogans and a Scottish flair.
In 2021, Pure Barkin evolved into PB Print Design; a bold and graphic design company, available for freelance print, graphic and textile design. While Pure Barkin remains as a fun, creative project, PB Print Design exists as an outlet for custom professional work. Inspired by Pure Barkin’s brand routes, PB Print Design is bold and offbeat, but adaptable.
CAITLIN MOONEY (she/her)
MIXED MEDIA CREATIVE & OWNER OF CAMPERPLANTS
Caitlin is the owner and creative behind camper plants - Handmade, crocheted and felted houseplants - no water or sunlight required! Perfect for those with kids or pets.
Caitlin started crocheting in 2017, but it wasn't until 2019 when she was sat in her campervan in a rural Dutch campsite with her dog, that she crocheted her first cactus. Since then, she hasn't stopped making little plants!
CamperPlants: From the Dutch word ‘camperplaats‘, which means ‘camping place‘, where she crocheted her first ever plant.
As well as creating crocheted plants and cast/handmade plant pots, Caitlin also runs a makers space 'Slaister' in Johnstone, Renfrewshire.
PHILIPPA TOMLIN (she/they)
VISUAL ARTIST/THEATRE MAKER & FACILITATOR
Philippa Tomlin is a creative visual artist, theatre maker and facilitator living in Johnstone Renfrewshire
works with National Theatre of Scotland. She graduated in 2004 from QMUC with BA hons in Drama and Theatre Arts.
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One of her recent bodies of work is 'MY PLACE IN THE CROWD' an installation of visuals that capture the missed, taken for granted moments of attending live gigs. Created in a time when our access to live gigs was unachievable due to covid.
MURIEL ANN MCLEOD (she/her)
MIXED MEDIA ARTIST & PRODUCER
Muriel Ann Mcleod is a multi-disciplinary creative and producer from the Isle of Lewis.
She is the director of Rural Nations and works across film, theatre and hosts strong artistic and cultural connections with Scandinavia and the Atlantic fringe.
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Muriel Ann is lives and works in Paisley as well as further afield, she currently holds the position of place partnership producer with OneRen where she is producing a number of exciting new projects for Renfrewshire's Place Partnership, including Outdoor Arts Commissioning for the Cycle Arts Festival in 2021 and the Paisley Film and Media Space - which is a centre for film learning and innovation, Digital Art Exhibition and independent cinema screening.
Other areas of development include taking vacant spaces in Renfrewshire to creative use and support initiatives for Renfrewshire artists. Her work also supports and promotes Green Arts practice.
LORNA SPADA (she/her)
VISUAL ARTIST AND PRODUCER
Lorna Spada is the Visual Arts and New Media Project Producer at OneRen.
She grew up in Rome, Italy where she first learned the transformative power of all things cultural, whether that was a Baroque church, contemporary street art or the perfect pizza!
Lorna graduated from The University of Glasgow in 2018 with a First Class Hons MA in English Literature and History of Art.
She has professional experience across the arts: in museums, galleries, festivals, the third sector.
Lorna has a deep passion for delivering exciting cultural programmes, Curating and researching, from medieval manuscripts to surrealist dreamscapes as well as promoting accessibility, diversity and sustainability in the arts.
ALISTAIR BROWN (he/him)
PAINTER & SCULPTOR
Alistair Brown is a skilled technical graphic designer with many years of experience in the graphics industry.
Alistair relocated back to Renfrewshire after leaving a fast paced industry in London. Since his return he has focused on creating works that take the form of resin paintings, sculpture and film bringing his charismatic and skillful personality to life through atmospheric and at times dark in nature pieces that are truly captivating.
CHRIS DUDDY (he/him)
LECTURER & PRODUCTION ARTS/TECHNOLOGIES SPECIALIST
As a multi-artform practitioner and specialist in digital arts and technologies Chris practices blending light, sound and moving images with physical structures to produce works that exist in both the physical and the virtual environment.
Through experience and research conducted while studying for a TQFE, Chris was concerned by the lack of access and support for socioeconomically deprived students and practitioners to gain a real foothold and progress to meaningful careers and employment within the creative industries as a whole. Consequently, Chris created the LoFi Gallery project as an independent space to support digital artists and artists with socioeconomically deprived backgrounds to gain access to a space to show their work and to improve links into the wider arts network.