What would Dumfries say?
Sometimes things start small.
Whilst working with the Young Stove to imagine what The Stove could become, this thought arose: The Stove would undoubtedly have quite a lot to say. But what about the rest of the town? If the old buildings in Dumfries could speak, what stories would they tell?

If the old brig would speak, what stories would it tell?

Would it shout loud, or whisper quietly to a neighbour? We thought it best to ask around.

Responses are flooding in, and orange speech bubbles are floating around town. (What would Rabbie say, sitting with his view of the High Street?) Which places have the loudest voices? Voices began to pour in thick and fast, helped along by Herald Moxie and a band of merry Young Stovies.
Want to see more speech bubbles? A selection is available here.
Which speech bubbles could we stand up for? Which voices could we wear?

There comes a time when it is wise to call in an expert. Our expert on hand was the talented and patient printmaker and artist, Sarah Keast. An island of calm amidst the apparent chaos, The Stove was like a ship sailing through a wild afternoon of frenzied T-shirt printing.


And still, we printed on. We ran out of T-shirts, made a quick T-shirt run, printed more T-shirts, and ran out of ink before the afternoon was through—printing nearly 140 T-shirts in just four hours. The Young Stove proved themselves to be an unstoppable tide of creative energy.



Beyond Doubt Into Love may well be a T-shirt for a moment in time. One thing’s for sure: they are a rare and precious commodity, created by our community. If anyone has a large men’s in neon pink, we’ve had a request for one.

This is less of an end and more of a beginning—keep an eye out for speech bubbles. Once you start noticing them, they tend to pop up all over the place…
#GetDumfriesTalking
