Support Us
Categories
News

Y.E.S – The Youth Enquiry Service celebrates 20

The Youth Enquiry Service have been pals of The Stove for a while now – so we were delighted when they got in touch to ask for our help with their ambitious project to chart their own 20 year history. Their project will look at how things have changed for young people over the last 20 years in Dumfries, they will do this by undertaking research and then creatively pulling their work together as a film, a publication and a travelling exhibition.

The Stove will be working with Y.E.S on this from now until September and making as many opportunities as possible for our own programme to compliment  the Y.E.S project.

More info etc – drop us a line [email protected]

Categories
Musings

Stove and Regeneration

Lately we’ve been thinking a lot about The Stove as an opportunity to put our money where our mouths are in thinking about the society we live in. We’ve been inspired by the New Economics Foundation to think about the way we work, and crucially, invest in services and people locally.

The ‘leaky bucket’ – how easy it is for new investment in a place to be allowed to escape and lose its long term effect – from ‘Plugging the Leaks’ – New Economics Foundation

Money, like other aspects of life, has become controlled by distant organisations who, as the recent economic turmoil has demonstrated, do not necessarily have our best interests at heart. As the New Economics Foundation put it, our economies have become like ‘leaky buckets’, money that should be staying and circulating locally being sucked out to distant corporations and shareholders.  This all adds to our vulnerability in times of increasing uncertainty, rather than reducing it.

Local enterprises are more likely to employ local people, provide services to improve the local quality of life, spend money locally and so circulate wealth in the community, promote community cohesion and, by reducing transportation of goods from across communities, are likely to have a smaller environmental footprint.’

‘Plugging the Leaks’ – New Economics Foundation

Lets use the resources of The Stove to give the maximum effect in our local economy and society –  if you’ve got ideas about ways The Stove could be effective in assisting regeneration locally then please do get in touch  [email protected]

Categories
News Project Updates

The Big Burn 2014

The third Big Burns Supper Festival really found its stride this year – there was a palpable feeling that the toon had taken BBS to its heart and was joining in at every turn…..big respect to the festival team and to Doonhamers everywhere!

The Stove joined in too – it has now become a bit of a tradition that we contribute something of the outdoor ambience to BBS (not quite sure how we ended up with that job at a festival in January!). This year we staged the Big Burn – but before we get to that there were a coupl of other wee Stovish things to enjoy – we made a lantern for the procession:

The Stove’s ‘bunch of balloons’ lantern – made by Danae Marshall, Iain Gisbey, Hayley Stephens and Sara Redden. Seen here at the front of the Homecoming Parade – carried by Hayley and Sara and ably assisted by Sara’s daughter Daisy.

More pics of the amazing parade and BBS generally at Colin Tennant’s Flickrstream

Katie Anderson made her own installation ‘Close Enough’ for the close next to The Stove:

‘Close Enough’ by Katie Anderson – domestic wallpaper designs stretched and interpreted in UV paint with an accompanying soundtrack of environmental sound and spoken word

The idea of The Big Burn was dead simple – to tell folk that we were making a bonfire in the middle of the High Street and to see what happened. We hoped to make a place that people would hang out a bit and get a bit of a warm….to bring a little of a familiar bonfire vibe into an unfamiliar setting and see what happened.

Will proved his mettle as firestarter general
No barriers….no problem

The first addition volunteered for The Big Burn came from Phoebe Marshall who brought along hazel twigs, marshmallows and chocolate biscuits. Toasted marshmallow sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits makes a smoor……

Regular marshmallow action on the flaming logs that stood around the fire
Extreme marshmallow toasting

The next unexpected addition was the arrival of the Cairn Chorus who were led to the Big Burn by Wendy Stewart. They sang beautifully for 20 minutes and included the most emotionally stirring version of Auld Lang Syne that I have ever heard. The fact that we were sitting around a fire in Dumfries on Robert Burns’ birthday was lost on no-one.

The Cairn Chorus at The Big Burn

The next intervention around the fire was the arrival of a troupe of mysteriously masked dancers:

Dancers in black and white at top left

There were no clues at all to the identity of the dancers – and if anyone knew, then they were giving nothing away… they melted back into the night just as they had arrived.

One of our Turkish neighbours played a bit of drum and danced briefly… tatties were baked and consumed and tea was had. Then the D+G Fire service arrived and offered to help us put the fire out… who can refuse a handsome fireman with a hose…

D+G Fire Rescue performing at The Big Burn

And that was that really – except that the 20 or so folk who were still around the fire then all help clear away the Big Burn. A human chain was formed and 1.5 tonnes of bricks were moved to behind The Stove… in under one hour from the fire engine arriving there was no sign at all that anything had happened in the square that night – apart from some very happy memories.

Thanks to everyone who made The Big Burn such a success – great craic and lovely to spend time with old friends and new. We have a feeling this just might become a Big Burns Supper regular feature… maybe we might be allowed an even bigger fire next year???

Categories
Musings News Project Updates

DMC – taking Dumfries by Storm

It’s been a hectic week or so at Stove – and it is with sadness that we wave goodbye to DMC for another year. It’s been insightful, exciting, wild, engaging and fantastic. Having landed at a music conference with very little music background, there was an initial concern of being the cuckoo of the flock however, he Dumfries Music Conference kicked off last Wednesday, with a showing of LCD Soundsystem’s Shut Up and Play the Hits, a beautifully shot, poignant film about the band’s last ever gig in Madison Square Gardens. I decided to avoid googling the band beforehand, and went in with no knowledge of them or their music – and left with a new love.


This buzz carried into Thursday – with a seminar programme, relocated back into the familiarness of the Stove. It kicked off with Born to be Wide‘s Getting Started in Music – which included a panel of industry experts who gave inspiring but honest insight into the contemporary music scene in Scotland. Grassroots music  Popcop blog was represented, as was Bar Bloc and the Wickerman, as well as Keren McKean of We Make Music Work – and covered everything from managers, getting live gigs, to pluggers, promoting and marketing your music. This was followed by Gary Aitkinson who spoke about the story of Document Records, and it’s in-depth archive and back catalogue of musical gems. 


Up to pace. Friday saw the Stove taken over by aspiring song writers who landed to join Music Plus in learning from Robert Shields of Finding Albert, who worked from a music composition base, and gave some inspiration into his early career within the music industry and Findlay Napier of Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers – a self proclaimed folkie who had all participants writing a song from scratch in less than 30 minutes… Say cheese, say please sounds set to become a chart topping success!


Quick change over and the Stove transformed to Dumfries’s newest intimate live music venue.  Chris from Bar Bloc mentioned during the seminar night that remote and unusual venues are often the most atmospheric, and we couldn’t have imagined how great it would be when first Honeyblood, at the end of their UK tour and just about to head for the States rocked up and gave the Stove it’s first live set. Followed up by the mind-blowing Hector Bizerk, Glasgow based hip hop group, who really blew Dumfries out of the water. Local lads Barstow Bats led the Stove into the night, and the whole place glowed.


The DMC team didn’t disappoint on day four, and another quick costume change for the Stove saw it re-invent itself as a retail outlet hosting Rebecca Vasmant’s record fair, featuring DJ sets and sellers both local and down from the big city. Congratulations go out to the DMC team for a fantastic programme, thanks to everyone who was involved and thanks to everyone who came to our events – we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! To see more of the photographs taken at DMC head to our flickr site here 

Categories
Musings News

Stove Members Gathering 29th October 2013

Brilliant to see about 40 intrepid Stove folk braving the dark winter evening to come to the Stove Members Gathering/Catch up/Planning; Thing Meeting last Tuesday night.


Old friends and new friends came and it was particularly good to see people who had helped with Back2Back and taken part in the Nithraid. The Stove is all about reaching out and working beyond the arts….in fact there was chat about whether what we are doing is really ‘art’ anyway- and does that matter.

One of the ideas that seemed to catch peoples interest and agreement was that the Stove should be about inspiring people to take charge of their own immediate environment. Too often people think that they are ‘not allowed’ to do things – we hope that our events have an ethos of ‘just do it’ about them and that others will be inspired to follow suit. We believe that people working form the grassroots with independent and locally relevant initiatives is the way that Dumfries with prosper in the future. (Sermon over!)

The evening kicked off with a Welcome led by Will – who invited Katie to talk about Back2Back – The Stove’s project for Guid Nychburris in June. Katie showed John Wallace’s lovely wee film of the event – which you can view here

Linda followed on with a slide show of images for the Nithraid and it was great that other people brought their own pictures to share too – even if the one of Will and Matt hugging in pink T Shirts might not see the light of day again anytime soon! More pictures from Nithraid – here

Nithraid really seems to have caught people’s imagination  – there was a really strong contingent of folk who had taken part and in the race and a collective determination to do it again next year. Mark Zygadlo is leading on this for The Stove and currently working very hard to raise the necessary money for next years event.

Lots of people ask ‘how do I get involved with The Stove?’ – the Nithraid is a great example: The Curatorial Team raised some money to do a Stove project as part of the Environmental Art Festival…..we had a first think about what might be possible and relevant to both our larger programme and that of the Festival. We then put out an invite to Stove Members which said ‘Stove is going to do something for EAFS – it will be connected to the River Nith in some way…if you are interested to be part of this then come along on this day and we’ll all brainstorm ideas together’. About 10 people came to that original meeting…the idea of Nithraid was born and Mark Zygadlo and Stan Bonnar became part of the project team that made the Nithraid happen. 

Along the way other folk were pulled in by word-of-mouth and adverts etc eg Roy Kerr from Nith Navigation and all the folk who took part in the race. Then closer to the date we put out another call for people to be part of the crew for the day and we were thrilled that about 12 people came and were part of making the whole thing happen on the day (from being part of the scratch band, to catering, to stewarding, to releasing the banners into the water, to helping get the boats out of the water).

Matt then showed some slides from the Environmental Art Festival Scotland – The Stove was part of the team (with Spring Fling and Wide-Open) that thought up and produced the festival. One of the great things about EAFS was the way it provided opportunities for so  many people in D+G to take part and the way different people worked together – just about everyone in the room had been part of EAFS in some way – great feeling!!

Colin talked introduced Dumfries Music Conference with a video from last years event and a run down of this years programme that was starting the day after this Gathering.

  • Matt then rounded off the presentations with a quick run through of The Stoves 3 year programming plan. In synopsis this breaks down into:
    • 2014 – intensive focus on Dumfries with TheStove@TheStove (including residency opportunities for Stove members)
    • 2015 – First part of year finishing TheStove@TheStove before focussing on the second Environmental Art Festival Scotland for September/October that year
    • 2016 – Year of Architecture in Scotland….The Stove hopes to be a main partner in the festival in SouthWest Scotland and pick up themes form work in Dumfries and across the region through EAFS……imagining a sustainable future for D+G.

Another big push for The Stove recently has been in the way we are using different media in our work. Katie Anderson is now building on the great foundation made by Mike Nicholson on Social Media for The Stove. Our Facebook page has never been busier and Katie has become surgically attached to her IPad it seems.

Check out The Stove on Facebook
And on Twitter.

And if you’re not yet a member and fancy being part of The Stove mission to change the world then send an email to [email protected] and Sheila will send you a membership form. Membership is free and gives you no obligations whatsoever….you’ll just get emails and updates from The Stove and the offer of being involved in projects, commission opportunities and members rates on room hires etc.

Categories
News

Dumfries in line for Creative Places award

It’s an exciting day down at the Stove, and as if the build up to tonight’s big gig as part of DMC wasn’t enough, we are pleased to welcome in the morning with the following press release. Go team Dumfries!

United artists approach makes shortlist for National Award

Several organisations were jumping for joy at the news in Dumfries today – that the town has been shortlisted for the coveted Creative Place Award for 2014.

A joint bid was led by Big Burns Supper, The Stove and Electric Theatre Workshop to attract investment of £150,000 to the town to support the development of a Creative Place through a year-long celebration of Creativity to help support Dumfries town centre.

Uniquely – the bid has been developed by the arts organisations independently, which mirrors the trend that has been happening in Dumfries over the last three years.   Artists and their Organisations are leading the way in the regeneration of place, community and identity.

Graham Main, Artistic Director of Electric Theatre Workshop & Big Burns Supper said, “We are thrilled with the news of the shortlist – which celebrates the ground breaking transformation, and creative leadership model in our community. Organisation’s like Big Burns Supper, The Stove and Electric Theatre Workshop – and our many associate organisations like Theatre Royal, Peter Pan Moatbrae, Greyfriars Concerts, DG Arts Festival and The Crichton Campus are leading on a fresh approach to arts delivery, and redefining the rules to creative participation through a new confidence that is spreading throughout our region.”

Matt Baker, Stove Network artists collective founder member said: “Culture and Heritage have been identified by many as the key to revitalising Dumfries – a future built on assets like the river, the history and the creative talents of our citizens. Much work has been done already by groups like Stove, Big Burns Supper and Electric Theatre Workshop – we have all focussed on making opportunities for other local folk to get involved and through this building a network of amazing people with a ‘can do’ attitude.

Being shortlisted for this award is amazing national recognition of both the work done to date and potential for the future. Dumfries is ready to claim itself Queen of the South again for the new century – we look forward to working with everyone to make that happen.”

It comes on the same day that Big Burns Supper announced plans for their Homecoming Carnival, which will set the town alight on the 25th January 2014, which will see over 2000 people taking part in the organisations largest ever Participation project to date.

A massive community celebration which help pay tribute to the centenary of World War One, with second year students from several high schools helping to design and create the first ever Burns Night Carnival in the town’s history.

As the news came in, Final preparations were being made to the Dumfries Music Conference weekend which is taking place at The Stove in the centre of Dumfries.  The second Dumfries Music Conference (#DMC2013) will pick up where Greg Wilson signed off last year, with a programme centred on sharing knowledge, ideas and thoughts about music.

Their aim is to be progressive, which is why this year’s sessions have a different complexion than last year’s. Where 2012’s focus was electronic music and technology, 2013 is about shining a light on the music industry’s storytellers.

As part of their continued development, Electric Theatre Workshop have announced continued expansion into communities throughout Dumfries, supporting communities and schools to get access to creativity.

The Community Interest Company based in the centre of Dumfries has opened Youth Theatre projects at Lochside Primary, Lincluden Primary, St Teresa’s Primary and St Ninian’s Primary Schools throughout the next year.  It comes as part of the organisations pledge to lift barriers to creativity in Dumfries thanks to support from the Holywood Trust.

Dumfries will find out at an Awards Ceremony in January 2014 whether or town the town will lift the prize.

Skip to content