Adele Patrick
Dr Adele Patrick has been involved in growing and supporting the development of innovative arts and cultural projects rooted in equalities and in academic research and community learning and teaching on gender and culture for over 20 years. Adele co-founded Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) in 1991 and is currently GWL’s Lifelong Learning and Creative Development Manager. She has had a key leadership role in GWL a unique and multi-award winning cultural resource in Scotland that has grown from a grassroots project led by volunteers into to a Recognised Collection of National Significance employing a staff of 23. GWL is regarded as an influential, change making organisation in the museums sector and is currently the sole accredited museum dedicated to women’s history in Britain. In 2018 Glasgow Women's Library was an Art Fund Museum of the Year Finalist. Adele trained as a designer at Glasgow School of Art where she subsequently taught Gender Art and Culture for 12 years in the Historical and Critical Studies Department. She has been active in wide array of arts, feminist and women’s projects and has worked as a curator/producer with and champion of hundreds of women creatives; initiating and collaborated on projects in the fields of literature, visual arts, film and performance. Adele has published widely (she edited the book of the award-winning, 21 Revolutions project in 2015 and is a contributor to a range of recent publications on museums, feminism, art and activism including a chapter in Feminism and Museums, pub. Museums Etc. 2017) and regularly speaks at national and international conferences. Adele was Evening Times’ Scotswoman of the Year in 2016 and in 2017 received an Honorary DLitt from Glasgow School of Art and another from the University of Strathclyde where she began her studies for a PhD (doctoral research that was completed at University of Stirling).
Clore has immeasurably impacted on my sense of myself as a leader. I know my strengths and where stretch is required. I now have the benefit of the critical friendship of the Clore cohort 15 which I find hugely valuable on an ongoing basis. The Fellowship enabled me to forge new and impactful connections in a far wider orbit than in the past and gain a raft of new skills. I take great confidence from being associated with the Fellowship and the network.
I am using my refreshed and new skills in all my leadership work at Glasgow Women's Library, in my relationship with the Board, the staff I support and the wider organisation. I have applied and cascaded elements of coaching. The networks I am continually developing are impacting on support, programming and skills development for my own organisation and for the wider community of creatives of which I am a part.