For those of you who have been asking ‘what is The Stove’ – here is our latest attempt to define it… this is a work in progress and we are committed to inclusivity in all things… please do chuck your threepenneth in…
The Stove is a project to add creativity to the structures and thinking that will shape a future we all will share.
The project is run by a collective of artists and other active citizens in Dumfries and Galloway. The Stove creates inclusive public art events to engage the citizens of Dumfries in constructive and practical action in the town. The Stove uses a three storey building in the town centre of Dumfries as an HQ for the project and will operate 100 High Street as a social enterprise. The Stove has a membership of over 100 people ranging from café-owners and wild-food chefs to video artists and DJs.
We see the arts not as something solely for an ‘arts audience’, but rather, as a vital contribution to society on all fronts. The Stove is a vehicle for practical partnerships with people and organisations working in Health, Education, Tourism, Regeneration and Environment.
The creative arts are one of the top ten economic sectors in Dumfries and Galloway – The Stove is an expression of confidence, professionalism and ambition for that sector – placed physically and practically at the heart of the evolving future of our region.
Man, if we had a pound for every time someone asked how the building was going…
So, in case you are one of those who haven’t asked recently – the skinny is this:
The Council took possession of 100 High Street at the end of January 2014 – after much fun and games with the locks The Stove agreed to leave the building temporarily whilst DGC undertake the first stage of the building works required.
It is anticipated that the final planning permission will be through by the middle of May and that works will commence at this time.
The first stage works comprise new access for people with disabilities, a lift, new toilet provisions, services for a café, general repairs etc. If all goes to plan this will take 12 weeks, so the very earliest The Stove will be allowed back in the building will be September.
When we get back in we can begin our own fit out and modifications to the building (aka Stage 2) – these will include the café, integrated artworks, IT and AV equipment (hell yes!)
We will be partially open as soon as we get the keys back from DGC – don’t ask us when we will be fully open (because Will says it is not possible to estimate this) – but there is a sweepstake running on the opening date – if you are interested in taking part – contact Colin via [email protected].
The Youth Enquiry Service has been a friend 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 presenting their work as a film, a publication, and a travelling exhibition.
The Stove will be working with Y.E.S. on this from now until September, creating as many opportunities as possible for our own programme to complement the Y.E.S. project.
For more information, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected].
The third Big Burns Supper (BBS) 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 for us to 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 couple 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 – Is Seen Here at the Front of the Homecoming Parade, Carried by Hayley and Sara and Ably Assisted by Sara’s Daughter, Daisy.
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 Sounds 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 see what happened. We hoped to create a place where people could hang out for a while and warm themselves, bringing a touch of the familiar bonfire vibe into an unfamiliar setting and seeing what unfolded.
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 marshmallows, sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits, make a s’more…
Children Roasting Marshmallows for the Flames.
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, including the most emotionally stirring version of Auld Lang Syne 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 as to the identity of the dancers – and if anyone knew, they weren’t giving anything 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 eaten, and tea was enjoyed. Then the Dumfries & Galloway Fire Service arrived and offered to help us put the fire out – who could refuse a handsome fireman with a hose?
Dumfries & Galloway 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 all helped clear away the Big Burn. A human chain was formed, and 1.5 tonnes of bricks were moved 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 a lovely time spent with old friends and new. We have a feeling this just might become a Big Burns Supper regular feature. Maybe we’ll even be allowed an even bigger fire next year!
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
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!)
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.
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.
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