Lifestyle Aspects of a Core Creative Class when Home and Away: A Study with Reference to the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne

This study investigates aspects of working artists’ lives when in their home environments and when travelling and holidaying in the elsewhere. Artists are seen by Florida (2002) as being a central group in the functioning of a new creative economy in the West based within a global division of labour. This creative economy is seen to be founded on the proliferation of bohemias in cities as catalysts of growth and regeneration, as artists are seen to attract further ‘creative capital’, and form new directions of consumption and lifestyle through their creative outputs and practices. Surprisingly, very little study has been done that gives voice to artists in relation to aspects of their lifestyles, that may inform new directions of consumption. Just as importantly, artists’ views in relation to changing bohemias, wrought through gentrification processes, have often been ignored. This thesis investigates the meanings of place, changing place through gentrification, leisure practices and the travel and tourism preferences of this group. Empirical findings suggest that a desire for an integrated life that blurs the boundaries of work, leisure and travel or holidaying is important to this group. Creativity is a central aspect that permeates the life world of my participants. Gentrification processes are viewed negatively or ambivalently. These processes are not predominantly disparaged due to fears of immediate displacement however, but are related to ideas of changing place, including the social makeup of newer users of the Ouseburn Valley and their sheer numbers, and the associated increased levels of bureaucratic regulation and commercial interests in the formerly ‘marginal’ Valley. During the course of the study, empirical and theoretical directions led to the construction of what I have termed a ‘governing ethic’ that can be seen to inform many of the discourses and practices discussed in relation to the working artist in the Ouseburn Valley. This ethic is one that promotes an integrated life of self-expressive individualism. It is seen to have origins within the Romantic Movement in the late 18th Century, and can be detected in creative-countercultural ideologies and practices up until the end of the 20th century