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Captive Art 3 Comes to The Stove Network

Post author By Kirsty Geddes
Post date October 12, 2016

An exhibition of original artwork and poetry by inmates from HMP Dumfries opened on 3^rd October at The Stove, Dumfries. Organised by emerging artists’ platform, blueprint100 and curated by local artist Morgan Hardie, the exhibition included creative contributions ranging from oil on canvas, pastels, watercolours, ink drawings, as well as a selection of written work.

captive-art-3-3 — An example of work from one of the inmates at HMP Dumfries.

John Oates, Learning Centre Manager at HMP Dumfries, commented, “The Learning Centre at HMP Dumfries has an ethos in which we try to encourage positive learning and positive learning outcomes, including equality, tolerance, inclusiveness and development of community spirit. Through creative practices, we aim to enhance self-esteem and break down cultural barriers; in short, we want to positively change lives.”

The Learning Centre at HMP Dumfries regularly hold celebrations of learning achievement, and the Captive Art 3 Exhibition was a chance for the prisoners to gain public recognition for their achievements, through the attendance of invited guests from the local artistic and educational community. Local SNP member, Joan McAlpine, and Oliver Mundell MSP were amongst those present at the opening of the exhibition, as well as Andy Huntstone, the Deputy Governor at HMP Dumfries. The inmates also had the opportunity to display and sell their work at a recent Creative Art Exhibition at HMP Dumfries, with the proceeds from all sales going to a nominated local charity.

Captive Art 3 - The Stove Network — Captive Art 3 Exhibition Launch at The Stove Network.

One prisoner commented, “All year long, the poets and artists at HMP Dumfries look forward to this particular event, as it allows us the opportunity to show the positive work that we can produce. The Creative Art Exhibition this year was much bigger and more inclusive than before, and gave those outside the prison walls the chance to see first-hand that there is creativity and enthusiasm to be found inside. Art in its many forms has inspired those in custody to express themselves and contribute to their rehabilitation.”

Captive Art 3 will continue to be on display in The Stove Café until 19^th October.

Tags 2016, Blueprint100, Exhibition, Visual Art, Young Stove

News Project Updates

Brave New Words Celebrates First Birthday!

Post author By Kirsty Geddes
Post date October 12, 2016

BNW Birthday

Brave New Words once again returned to The Stove, on Friday 30^th September, for a special night celebrating the first anniversary of this monthly platform for new writing, spoken and sung. The night consisted of an extraordinary mix of performance by local poets and songwriters, featuring film, music and a specially commissioned performance from local artists Michael Sullivan and Lee McQueen.

To celebrate their first birthday, Brave New Words teamed up with blueprint100 to create a special zine for the night. Blueprint100 held various workshops throughout the month of September, in which previous participants of the open mic night submitted their original poetry and artwork to be part of the zine. The zine is currently available in The Stove Café for a small donation, with all proceeds going towards The Sindigo Foundation.

Martin O’Neill, who runs Brave New Words, commented, “The past year has been incredible, we’ve seen people grow more confident with each month, heard some of the most inspiring poetry and played host to dynamic people, workshops and ideas. We were really pleased with the amount of people that came along to be a part of Brave New Words, and we would like to thank all the participants for contributing, as well as anyone who picked up a zine and donated money.”

The open mic night is part of our mission to bring vibrancy to evenings in the Town Centre. Through various performances, the event aims to challenge stigmas and stereotypes, whilst offering support to those willing to make a positive and impactful change in their home town and beyond. Over the past year, Brave New Words has held workshops with community groups, the general public and schools, in which they aim to celebrate diversity, and understand creative writing. They have also had the opportunity to host some of Scotland’s biggest names in the spoken word scene, voyaged to festivals, created multi-disciplinary installations and uncovered some incredible talent right here in the heart of Dumfries.

Brave New Words will return to The Stove on the 28^th of this month for a special Halloween Spectacular open mic night.

To take part and for more information on events, please email [email protected].

Tags 2016, Brave New Words, Open Mic, Open Mic Night, Performance, Poetry, Writing

News

The Stove goes to Electric Fields

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date September 19, 2016

This years Electric Fields festival saw a series of pop up Stove activity from commissioned work by Ailie Rutherford, art installations from Stove member Kirsty Turpie, a pop up Brave New Words tent and a gang of the Stove’s sign painting team who hand painted nearly 60 signs for the festival village.

Ailie Rutherford and Laurence Payot‘s People Pavilion popped up at various points throughout the festival, a roam people-constructed structure that danced it’s way around the site, creating temporary intimate spaces before dispersing through the crowds..

Kirsty Turpie‘s mad marble run maze was on-site throughout the weekend:

The Brave New Words tent ran both days of the two day festival, featuring a mix of local and national acts performing in our intimate and cosy teepee tent, organised by regular Brave New Words organiser and curatorial team member Martin Joseph O’Neill.

In the run up to the festival itself, The Stove’s workshop room turned into a sign painting factory, where a steadfast team worked through the weekends to prepare new signs for the festival site.

Huge thank you to our various teams of volunteers and supporters who helped out with various Stove themed projects, from sign painters, to pavillion dancers, performers, poets, and artists – and big up to the Electric Fields festival team for putting together a great weekend at Drumlanrig (extra points for perfect weather conditions!).

Tags 2016, Brave New Words, Commission, Conversing Building, Performance, Stove Members

Musings Project Updates

The Procession of the Salty Coo – Performance, Creativity and Acceptance

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date September 17, 2016

From Dillon Colthart

As part of Nithraid 2016, The Stove commissioned emerging performance artists Dillon Colthart and Jordan Chisholm to lead the procession of the Salty Coo, a now annual event starting in the town centre and finishing in the river with the Nithraid’s mascot and icon, the Salty Coo raised to a great height overseeing the sailing race’s conclusion.

The annual Nithraid took place in Dumfries on Saturday 3rd of September and despite the rain hundreds of people turned out to watch they parade of the " Salty Coo" through the town and the sail race finishing on the Greensands. Pix Kirstin McEwan

‘It began with a blog post, advertising various commission opportunities for young artists in and around Dumfries & Galloway. It seemed fitting that Jordan and I would apply for both in hopes of our creative flare being challenged and displayed by the time Nithraid came around in September. We were excited, nervous and determined to bring something theatrically unique, as well as highly political, to the streets of Dumfries.

Jordan (with blue hair) performing in the Salty Coo performance she co-designed and produced with Dillon Colthard

Upon receiving Nithraid’s ‘Salty Coo Procession’ commission from the Stove Network in early July, we became overwhelmed with joy and immediately began to brainstorm ideas creatively over various different types of coffee within local coffee shops throughout Dumfries with some paper, a pen and a desire to spread awareness through theatre and performance.

We came up with an idea to base our performance on the theme of ‘acceptance’ through queer performance whilst maintaining the meaning of the Salty Coo, which was to give something back to the river. Creatively, we challenged ourselves to incorporate movements with a strong message and create something which was both visual and aurally stimulating.

Grasping the attention of an audience in Dumfries, a place which has so much potential in terms of heightening awareness of LGBT, queer performance (such as drag) and acceptance was challenging yet liberating. We thought of ways we could get performers involved from more than just a theatrical background and made our goal inclusiveness though performance.

The process was overall smooth. We worked together well, got to learn more about one another than we already knew, based our teamwork on compromise and began to find a balance between our personal relationship and working relationship. It was interesting, as we have so many of the same views on various issues, yet positively challenged each other constantly to bring out our best creatively.

When the performance eventually came around, after weeks and weeks of preparation, we were ready to present the Salty Coo in all it’s glory – with rainbow coloured costumes, a kilt wearing – all tartan – unicorn, comic costumes, flower heads, white capes and colour bombs within the river to conclude. Our connection with the river has never been so strong, and the Coo never looked so good.

This opportunity is something which was indeed challenging in terms of managing our own time and being given a complete creative freedom, as we wanted to do our Salty Coo justice, as well as making the team at Nirthraid proud. This was an excellent commission for anyone looking to further their practise in the arts, whatever you may specialise in. From our preview performance – confined within plastic bags and smothered in paint – to the ‘Salty Coo’ installation and multi coloured procession, our procession came full circle, and we couldn’t be more proud of what we achieved.’

All pictures: Kirstin McEwan

Tags 2016, Commission, Dumfries, Festival, Guest Blog, Nithraid, Performance, Reflections, Review, River Festival, River Nith, Salty Coo, Young Stove

News Project Updates

Football in Our Street – ONS Rematch

Post author By Kirsty Geddes
Post date September 8, 2016

In August we reclaimed the High Street of Dumfries town centre with football (albeit in a cage – next time we can try without!). Celebrating the long standing friendship of local football club Greystone Rovers with Norway started in a 1940 match between Dumfries locals and Norwegian exiles resulting in a draw. A rematch was called and eventually played in Bergen in 1951 beginning a series of exchange visits over the years since. With Greystone Rovers 80th anniversary upcoming in 2018 they are keen to resume their friendship and exchange opportunities for their club members. Graham Muir, club manager, has supported The Stove’s Our Norwegian Story project as an important recognition of how beneficial these friendships can be.

This event tied in with the Our Land festival of events across Scotland looking at land use and the importance of community ownership of these spaces. The Stove wrote an article to highlight how our events can reach out to tackle wider national issues which can be found here on The Common Space website:

www.commonspace.scot/articles/9000/our-land-its-time-buy-back-our-high-street

Our Norwegian Story continues to develop, with the depth of stories bubbling up from under the surface, with personnel memories knitting together these more historical events.

Stay tuned for more next week – Films, food, drawing big maps and stitching our story into existence!

screen-printing-with-sarah — Screen printing T-shirts with Sarah Keast

Memorabilia from the 70 year relationship between Greystone Rovers and SK Brann was on display in The Stove

Tags 2016, Creative Dumfries, Dumfries, Heritage, Making Dumfries, Norway, Our Norwegian Story, Workshop

News

Flight

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date September 1, 2016

As part of the upcoming launch of Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation in Dumfries, Stuart Macpherson will be introducing the first in a series of pieces of his newly commissioned work Flight. Both works launch on Wednesday, 7th September, starting from the Stove at 7.30pm, ahead of the switch on of Luminous Birds at 9pm at the Globe Inn. Full details available on our events page here

Flight – Is a moving soundscape/composition influenced and inspired by the migration of barnacle geese from Svalbard to Caerlaverock. Taking the idea of Migration from Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation, Flight explores the ability to move from one place to the other, using multiple sounds sources to create something that mimics the movement of the birds. Individual parts are composed to work together as a movement.

This opening is an introduction to the piece which will continue with further developments and performances through until November. You are invited to come along and immerse yourself in the first run coinciding with the opening of Luminous Birds at The Stove.

Stuart Macpherson is a freelance bassist and composer based in rural Dumfries & Galloway. He has been involved in numerous projects and performances, mostly recently the highly acclaimed orchestration of GRIT by Greg Lawson at the Edinburgh International Festival. He also plays in a recently formed quartet with local musicians Wendy Stewart, Gavin Marwick and Ruth Morris. Short-listed twice for the Martin Bennet Prize for Composition Stuart’s work ranges from soundscapes such as his work with Chinese pole artist and performer Phil Hardie on Welcome my Son to pieces written for Red Note Ensemble and Mr McFalls Chamber. His compositional work has been taking an expansive swing towards more experimental pieces and collaborative work such as this.

Special acknowledgement to Sound recordists Geoff Sample and Simon Elliott who have very kindly allowed their recordings of the geese to be used for this piece.

This commission is supported by:

Tags 2016, Commission, Environment, Music, Performance, Stove Members

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