Director of The Motor House Arts CIC

Member of the Art, Craft & Design in Education APPG

Companion of The Guild of St George

FRSA

Bob Richmond is an artist, organiser, and cultural instigator whose work sits at the intersection of making, place, and social imagination. Rooted in a belief that creativity is a civic act, his practice brings together design, craft, and collective learning as tools for building connection and agency. He heads the team behind The Motor House, the site in North Yorkshire being reimagined as a community-led centre for education, making, and the arts.

Richmond’s approach is deeply influenced by the ethics of the Arts & Crafts Movement and by participatory traditions that value shared labour over individual authorship. Whether working with designers, local residents, or mental health practitioners, he is interested in how the act of making can restore dignity, foster collaboration, and generate forms of care that sit outside conventional institutional frameworks. His projects often unfold slowly, privileging process, conversation, and skill-sharing over spectacle.

Alongside his artistic work, Richmond is an experienced cultural producer, adept at translating visionary ideas into sustainable structures, including the development of the newly-formed The Motor House Arts CIC. Across all his work runs a consistent thread: a commitment to generosity, to place-based thinking, and to the idea that culture is something that we build together.

On the front of this site:

1. Harry Thubron (1915 – 1985), an overview of the influential teacher and co-creator of the Basic Design programme with Richard Hamilton, et al.

2. The Richmond family and their work as painters, from Thomas Richmond (1771 – 1837) through to William Blake Richmond (1842 – 1921)

3. The Bell family and their work in industry, including that of Lowthian Bell’s father-in-law Hugh Lee Pattinson (1796 – 1858

See also: The Motor House

Richard Wentworth –

“We should pay more attention to the accidents of learning and the delights of cross pollination, the smudges and overlays which are a commonplace in the arts and humanities, the same shimmer and blurring which are often the catalysts for permission and discovery in the sciences. Sharing experience with enough humility is a trigger for fertilising the most tentative thoughts, the release agent for creative confidence.”