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Back to Back Dumfries

The Stove Network is taking to the streets for Guid Nychburris day – Saturday 15th June – with a DIY street art event on the Dumfries High Street.

The large scale pavement drawing will map out a contemporary identity for the town, with imagery and stencil designs being developed in partnership with local youth group YES (the Youth Enquiry Service) who this year is celebrating its 20th year.

The work is to be temporary, and made on site – building up over the course of the day. With stencils and spray chalk on hand, The Stove invite aspiring artists of all ages to participate and contribute by making their mark on our map.

Back to Back Dumfries’ will take place between 12pm and 4pm on Saturday 15th June, alongside the rest of the annual festivities taking place this year.

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UWS’s Student Showcase takes over The Stove Building

The weekend saw the Stove Building come to life with the University of West of Scotland’s (UWS) Annual Student Showcase – running from 9am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

The Showcase is an integral part of the BA Applied Enterprise (Creative Industries) students’ experience and provided an opportunity to come together and celebrate the fruits of the academic year.

It was pleasing to see the Stove Building being used by a group of very talented young adults, who injected life and vibrancy to the building’s blank canvas.

Local folk, visitors to Dumfries and those with a keen eye for emerging talent were given the opportunity to view the work and get to know a little bit more about what the UWS’s Dumfries campus has to offer.

As the Stove Network continues to formalise, grow and develop, we look forward to welcoming the UWS back to the building in the future and hope to see similar initiatives taking inspiration from the weekend’s showcase.

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Ring Out, Wild Bells

Creetown Plays with Fire

Exciting things are happening in Creetown…

We have teamed up with Roddie Mathieson who runs The Mobile Foundry to create a bronze bell, which will form the centrepiece of the new sculpture. This is taking place next Saturday and will be open for everyone to come and witness.

This is an opportunity to see the casting process in action,” says Roddie, “We will make moulds of the bell and clapper and pour them as part of a public demonstration. It is quite a spectacle and really exciting to watch.”

We will also be holding an all day casting session at Creetown Primary school for pupils to get a chance to try their hand at the casting process. They will use moulds to make sculptures and will then use a charcoal furnace with bellows to cast them.

Exciting events are unfolding next week, look forward to seeing everyone there!

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The Stove Presents: Art Shorts

Saturday 4 May at 6.00pm
The Stove Arts Collective presents a programme of short films by and about local (or local-ish) art and artists.


InBetween Dumfries: As part of a national project exploring the role of the arts in shaping the future of market towns led by The Stove in collaboration with The University of Newcastle, five artists worked in and around Dumfries during 2012 to create works that examined place, identity and belonging. This 15-minute film details the works created by Mike Inglis, Hannah Brackston, Suzanne Parry-John, Marion Preez, and Lisa Gallacher, with commentary by the artists.

Stonypath Days: Shot on 8mm film in 1973, this film by Professor Stephen Bann of Bristol University gives a rare insight into the early period of Little Sparta, the artist’s garden created by Ian Hamilton Finlay and his wife Sue at Stonypath in the Pentland Hills. Accompanied by a four-minute interview with their son Alec Finlay and contemporary views of the garden commissioned in 2012 by TATE Media.

The Eskdalemuir Harmonium: A US-built harmonium is disintegrating in a farmhouse near Lockerbie. An intimate visual exploration of a much loved but decaying instrument accompanied by an interview with its current owner, this short film by sound artist and filmmaker Chris Dooks is the result of his repeated ‘pilgrimages’ to visit the dying device.

Booking info:
Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre, Mill Road, Dumfries DG2 7BE – www.rbcft.co.uk
Ticket prices £6.30 (£4.70 conc) available from Box Office (01387 264808) or on the door.

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Our Foundation Gathering

The ‘Foundation Gathering’ always sounded more like a cheesy Sci-Fi convention than an art event…..The Stove’s ‘Foundation Gathering’ has now  landed on earth complete with dry ice (or was that just folk breathing in the ‘bracing’ conditions) and wobbly flying saucers.

More than 60 folk turned out on Wednesday – drawn by an invitation to come and be part of the future of the arts in the region by shaping the idea of a membership that will be at the heart of the organisations operation and decision -making.

Phil Jones (Business Development Manager) gave a welcome and defined the Stove as a project with potential to be at the vanguard of a new genre of arts provision in Scotland – a social enterprise that aims to means for residents of Dumfries to play an active part in the future of their town.

Phil describes the Stove as ‘Two things: 1) A Building – fully accessible arts resource for general public and creative practitioners….and 2) An Organisation – delivering participative public arts projects and undertaking commissions in the region and nationally.

One of the Stove’s founder members Colin Tennant then gave a brief illustrated presentation of work completed by the group to date and their plans for the future. To date, The Stove has delivered a highly successful programme of public arts events including ‘First Foot’ (part of Big Burns Supper 2012), ‘Punkin’ the Jubilee’ (Guid Nychburris 2012) and the Dumfries Music Conference – which brought industry professionals to the town to explain the contemporary digital music scene to the regions young music entrepreneurs.

In 2013/14 The Stove will refurbish and open premises at 100 High St as a public arts centre, complete a sculpture commission in Creetown and work as one of three local partners delivering the inaugural Environmental Art Festival Scotland.

or the main part of the evening Andrew Lyon of the International Futures Forum led a workshop that started people working in small groups to make sculptures from a pile of recycled materials. Andrew’s organisation works to find creative ways of thinking about the future and he asked groups to build a  sculpture that illustrated ideas and hope they had for what The Stove could do for themselves and the wider community.

An amazing outpouring of creativity ensued and groups then explained to others what their sculpture represented. Andrew Lyon then skilfully gathered all these ideas together into a creative discussion about how The Stove could operate as a democratic organisation with a membership, a board and an ‘curatorial committee’. A general discussion followed and 43 people signed up as the initial membership of The Stove.

Membership is open to everyone and is free – if you would like to be a part of the innovative experiment in building a collaborative creative organisation for Dumfries and Galloway then please send an email to [email protected] and you’ll be sent a membership form.

The first Stove AGM is set for mid May 2013 where the membership will be invited to elect a board to run the organisation on their behalf.

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Creetown Appoints Nation’s Youngest Town Crier

A schoolgirl has become Britain’s youngest town crier – at the tender age of eight.

Evie Cloy found herself in with a shout when she turned up to a contest to find the next ‘bellman’ for the seaside town of Creetown in Dumfries. The town has been without a crier since 1962, when WW1 veteran James Blake died at the age of 74 after 33 years of service.

But not a single adult took part in the competition to find a successor, so up stepped Evie – with a very direct bid for the job. Looking the judges straight in the eye, she took a breath and yelled: “My name is Evie Cloy and I want to be the next town crier of Creetown.

One of the panel, Allan Lowden, the town crier from nearby Gatehouse, said: “Evie might have been the smallest contestant but she definitely had the biggest voice.” The youngster, who has been given a hand-made ceremonial jacket and will be appearing in the town over the next few months, said:  ”I’m really pleased. There hasn’t been a town crier in Creetown for 51 years, so I love my new job. “I was a bit nervous but once I started shouting I felt better.  I’m quite glad no grown-ups wanted the job.”

Her proud dad David, 45, said: “She’ll be making announcements at local events and fetes.

“There were two categories in the competition, over-16s and under-16s, but nobody over 16 turned up. It seems like the youngsters were more interested in it. “Evie’s chuffed. Her little sister Katie, who’s five, was very excited about the competition, but was a bit too shy to take part.”

Organiser Will Levi Marshall said: “It’s great that Creetown finally has a town crier again after all these years and we’re delighted that Evie will be doing the honours. “Recently we’ve been exploring different methods of communications throughout Creetown’s history, including flags, the ancient ferry route to Wigtown, flares, bell casting and, of course, reviving the tradition of the Town Crier.”

James Blake, Creetown’s last town crier, was something of a local legend. After his death in 1962, his obituary recorded that “as a bellman he had few equals, his fine resonant voice often being heard a mile away and visitors to Creetown often stared in amazement when they met him on his rounds.”

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