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Award won with Chernobyl-inspired embroidery

BBC Claire Baker, who has pale pink hair and large, square tortoiseshell glasses, holds up a piece of embroidery showing colourful flowers and birds.BBC
Claire Baker designed a headscarf with two Russian grandmothers in the Chernobyl exclusion zone

A woman who first visited the Chernobyl exclusion zone as a tourist has won an award with embroidery she created with the help of a group of Russian grandmothers, or babushkas.

Claire Baker, from Stockton, is one of five recipients from Teesside to receive a "career changing" £30,000 wage bursary and development budget, including mentoring and business support.

Ms Baker's interest in exploring abandoned buildings led to her meeting men and women still living in the area with whom she built relationships through embroidering together.

The craft showed the "texture, colour and layers of the past" and she "fell in love with it", she said.

Lucy Baker Claire Baker stitching with Russian grandmother Baba Hana at a small kitchen table. The wall has a bright blue square pattern and Baba Hana, wearing cream headscarf and dark pink floral dress, is looking down at her work. There is a kettle and tea pot on the table.Lucy Baker
Claire Baker said she had fallen in love with embroidering

The Tees Valley Artists of the Year project is run by Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) with funding from the government.

Ms Baker has been named Visual Artist of the Year.

"The pandemic and the war made things difficult, but I took some motifs for the women to position and make some designs for a head scarf which I then digitised and used contemporary colours to finish," Ms Baker said.

The wage bursary means she has secure finances and can work on a new project using wallpapers collected from abandoned homes in the exclusion zone.

Singer-songwriter Amelia Coburn, from Middlesbrough, was named Tees Valley Performer Artist of the Year following the release of her debut album which was produced by Bill Ryder-Jones, who co-founded the band The Coral.

Ms Coburn has received acclaim from high-profile radio presenters.

Mark Radcliffe called her the "voice of the future" and Tom Robinson described her as "both a powerful songwriter and charismatic live performer - an absolutely exceptional talent".

Ms Coburn said she was "really proud".

"The fact that some of my favourite magazines have written about me and some idols I've got - Paul Weller - said my album was one of his favourite albums of the year was unbelievable," she said.

"It's been a whirlwind of a year since winning and I don't know how I would have done it without this support."

The funding has enabled her to go on tour and she will be supporting Jim Moray in January and The Levellers in March and has a second album in the pipeline.

Amelia Coburn, who has long brown hair and red lipstick and his wearing a black jumper, is holding a small wooden acoustic guitar and is smiling.
Amelia Coburn said singer Paul Weller had praised her work

TVCA head of creative place Charlie Kemp said it was a programme that "takes a village to deliver".

"We're really lucky to have cultural and creative organisations from across the Tees Valley and the wider North East who are all involved," she said.

"They come together to make sure the artists we're championing have a huge team behind them to cheer them on, open doors, make suggestions and back them all the way."

Applications are now open for the second year of the programme.

Charlie Kemp is smiling with a blurred out background behind her. She has shoulder length light brown hair and is wearing a silver pendant and dark blue polo neck jumper.
TVCA head of creative place Charlie Kemp says a number of organisations give the artists support

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