’It has been a strange time but the Arts Council has been very keen to ensure that there has been support for our creatives,’ says Jane Corkill, arts development manager at Isle of Man Arts Council.

When the Arts Council won the Award for Nurturing our Arts, Culture and Heritage at Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence last year it was the first ever winner of the category.

But it had proved to be a popular award with some very good entries and it’s in the line-up again this year.

But as with all last year’s awards winners, just as with everyone else, 2020 has been an extraordinary and difficult year, so we asked Jane how they had managed to keep up with their support for local arts.

She said: ’What we did with our funding recipients was we extended the time for them to put on their events.

’Creative people are very imaginative and adaptable and lots of them took the opportunity to reinvent themselves online.

’In June, the Arts Council took the decision to establish a new funding round, the Covid Resilience Fund, to help creatives to move online and continue with their work.

’We had lots of application for this and it was extremely well received.

’We’ve also been really lucky in the island that we have still been able to put shows on, like the recent Wind in the Willows.’

Home is Where the Art is was another lockdown initiative with creative people sending in videos of what they were doing through lockdown. These were shown by both the Arts Council and Government on their social media.

Jane said: ’We had young dancers in their back gardens, we had people taking up art during lockdown and the last one we showed was Katie Lawrence’s children’s choir singing Ellan Vannin, which went viral.

Continuing with this theme the Arts Council has just launched Christmas Creatives, which gives local artists and creatives the chance to submit videos that celebrate creativity. Twenty-four will be chosen and a different one shown each day in December, to form a festive Advent calendar, on the Arts Council website and social media feeds.

Recalling their win at last year’s Awards for Excellence, Jane said: ’We were absolutely thrilled to bits to win. We’ve worked hard in the last couple of years to raise the profile of the Arts Council and winning the award helped that enormously.’

Like all Awards for Excellence winners they can use the award winners logo on their website and email signatures.

Jane said: ’We all use the logo on our signatures and we are very proud of it.’

Could you be a winner this year? You can find all the information you need at http://www.excellence-awards.im/.

Entries close on Friday, January 15, 2021