Governance
The Digswell Arts Trust is a registered Charity (No. 1150915) and is a company limited by guarantee (No. 8282859). The Trust is governed by a board of Trustees with a range of relevant skills, and many of the Trustees have given long service to the Trust. In addition to serving on the board, Trustees play a role in the selection of prospective fellows and liaise with specific studios.
Trustee Board
Chairman – Mike Shaw MA
Mike Shaw is a solicitor and partner with international law firm Squire Sanders. He obtained an MA in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford and has twenty years’ experience in real estate law. He is a founder member of the Commercial Real Estate Legal Association and serves on its committee. Mike became a Trustee in 2013.
Treasurer – Steve Rogers, BA (Hons) ACMA (retd.)
Steve Rogers has a background in financial management with a large multinational, ending his career as Chief Financial Officer of Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific. He is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He also obtained a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from the University of Hertfordshire, and was a Digswell Fellow from 2005 to 2010. Steve is a passionate believer in the importance of the Trust’s activities and of art in the community.
Allistair Covell, BA (Hons), Trustee
Allistair Covell is an interdisciplinary artist whose creative practice spans painting, film, sculpture and in the past a series of hand-knotted carpets. Allistair holds a BA (Hons) in Surface Design from the University of the Arts London, a FDA in Fashion & Textile Design from the Univerisity of Bedfordshire and in 2014 won the inaugural Best Young Designer Award at the 9th Carpet Design Awards in Germany. Allistair has work held in both private and public collections, including the art collections of UH ARTS and the National Wool Museum in Wales.
Anton Psak MA, Trustee
Anton has an MA in Fine Arts from The Unversity of Hertfordshire. He has been building his reputation as an artist in the UK and Europe over the last two decades and has a strong track record in digital marketing, servicing clients in both the private and public sectors. He was offered Fellowship at Digswell Arts in 2013, becoming a fellow of the Farmhouse. He was made a Trustee in 2018 and was given the responsibility of managing Digswell Arts’ online presence.
Anton carries on with his studio practice in Parndon Mill and still exhibits his work extensively.
Howard Cropp, Trustee
Has been involved with the Trust for over 40 years, initially as examiner and adviser, then as Treasurer from 1992 to 2010, and continues as a trustee. He is a Chartered Accountant, who retired after 30 years in public practice, latterly as a partner in the London office of Ernst & Young.
Kailas S. Elmer, MSc, Trustee
In 2001, while gaining an MSc in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics Kailas was the founder of the First Course gallery on Soho’s Firth street. The aim of the gallery was to deepen the connection between artist and audience by exhibiting art in a way that emphasised the artist as practitioner rather simply as the creator of product. In 2006 Kailas expanded the principles behind the gallery and founded Trebuchet Magazine. A luxury print publication, Trebuchet is distributed throughout the world both inspiring the artist and informing the collector. As a Digswell trustee he works with the fellows to shape the narrative of their presence to ensure that through supplementary documentation, interviews, online biographies etc. the connection between artist and artwork remains forward looking, confident and complementary.
Sarah Core, Coordinator
Sarah has a BA(Hons) in English and Literary Studies with the History of Ideas as well as a second BA(Hons) in Ceramic Design from the UAL: Central St Martins, London. She has worked as a high level administrator for around 20 years and has strong IT, organisational and administrative skills. She has worked for the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons, as well as being Head of Post-entry for an independent immigration company specialising in the media industry, immigration law and visa facilitation, supporting actors and technicians from abroad working in the UK both on big budget movies as well as smaller independent projects. Alongside her other work she runs her own busy ceramics studio as an artist maker and teacher of ‘mindfulness through clay’.
