Support Us

Tag: 2015

Categories
News Project Updates

Five Great Events for the Opening of The Stove

Open House sees The Stove Network populating The Stove at 100 High Street for the first time since building works began last year. It welcomes the town and the wider network to stop by, get involved, and experience some of what we hope to bring to Dumfries’ town centre. Open House is a series of varied events designed to showcase both The Stove’s versatility as a physical space and the ambition of the project for the town centre.

We begin with the third annual Dumfries Music Conference (DMC) on 24th and 25th April. As in previous years, DMC 2015 will feature workshops, talks, film, live music, expert opinion, and creative collaboration. Through a collection of brilliant partners and guests, we hope to educate, inspire, and entertain. DMC 2015 will mark the official opening of The Stove Building at 100 High Street. In celebration of this, we are going to fill the entire building with colour, music, and people.

On 28th April, The Stove hosts Open Mouth—a day of spoken word, performance, and cooking. During the day, The Stove building will hold workshops for school students, followed by a performance workshop at 5pm. A public performance begins at 7pm, featuring Moffat-based Sarah Indigo alongside other performers from the Scottish spoken word scene, as well as young people who have attended the daytime workshops.

Open Mouth has been specially created and delivered for The Stove Network by Sarah Indigo, Eryl Shields, and Open Jar Collective.

Produced in collaboration with Wigtown Festival Company.

On 29th April, House Warming invites everyone to drop by (12:30pm–4:30pm) to explore The Stove building, have a chat, and make a T-shirt.

From 6pm, there will be a Stove Members Gathering, featuring a public bonfire and Bannock-making in the town square with Open Jar from 7:30pm.

At 7pm on Saturday, 2nd May, join us at The Stove for the public launch of HAME, an impressionistic journey through Dumfries & Galloway, voiced by those who call it home. Film, voice, field recordings, and subtle music will intermingle and connect across two floors and extend into Dumfries High Street.

HAME is a film and sound installation by artists Mark Lyken and Emma Dove, specially commissioned for the opening of The Stove at 100 High Street, Dumfries.

HAME Title Banner lowres

Every Tuesday, starting 19th May and running until mid-June, you are invited to Drop-In @ The Stove—pop in for a brew and a blether about The Stove and the town.

What would you like to see The Stove doing? What are your ideas for the town centre? What would you like to do at The Stove? We’ll be open, and we’d love to hear your ideas! Drop-In will run from 12 noon to 6pm every Tuesday, so just drop in as you pass by.

Keep up with the latest updates on Open House via our social media on Facebook and Twitter, using #OpenHouse.

Categories
News Project Updates

The Young Stove’s Day Out

The Young Stove have been busy making plans for their next projects this year, and we’re looking forward to exciting times ahead!

To kick-start the year, we organised a trip up to Glasgow—to get inspired, gather tips and ideas from creatives based in the city at various stages in their careers, and gain a flavour of the art scene in some of the city’s galleries.

A huge thank you to Alison McLeod at Briggait’s WASPS Studios, Gregor Wright at The Modern Institute, and Genevieve Kay Gourlay at The Pipe Factory for taking the time to chat with us about their artistic careers.

Visiting Alison McLeod’s jewellery studio in the Briggait, chatting about inspiration, vintage finds and studio space
10968410_1558291217744568_588710952718069179_n
Stopping in at Gregor Wright’s studio at the Modern Institute and hearing more about life post art school, the Glasgow art scene and some of his latest works and projects
10990834_1558291237744566_1910043960681763969_n
Dinosaurs as part of Gregor’s recent work during last years GI festival
11001841_1558291281077895_5906288507803169739_n
There was a lot of love for the Pipe Factory, Genevieve shows us around the cavernous space
10987448_1557356127838077_7195105554525971813_n
Toilet Roll Posse
11001939_1558291777744512_2261149454586232064_n
Appropriate tourist snaps, and a chance to check out Alistair Grey’s inspirational show at GoMA, and blitz spending money in the arts supplies shop

If you’d like to find out more about Young Stove, get involved in developing creative projects in Dumfries, or explore the opportunities available, send us an email at [email protected].

Categories
Musings News Project Updates

Feeding Creativity in Dumfries

Dampers and Jam
Dampers and Jam were cooked

From Andrew Gordon

Many have suggested simple solutions to the French Paradox—the apparent contradiction that the French can eat rich, fatty foods while maintaining a lifestyle much healthier than many of their counterparts in the Western world. Could it be all the red wine? Or maybe it’s something in their genetics?

The answer, as Will Marshall explained in his introduction to the Open Jar Collective’s Feeding Creativity event, is likely far more complex. It highlights the idea that our attitude towards food has a fundamental effect on our everyday lives. From how we socialise, to how we interact with our surrounding landscape and, importantly, how we create, Will understands that our relationship with food shapes us both as individuals and as a community. It has the power to bring people together and spark what he calls “unexpected interactions” across various social and cultural boundaries.

For him and the rest of the Stove team, the prospect of opening a café in Dumfries town centre is much more than a simple business venture. On the contrary, the Stove envisions its future café not merely as a place to enjoy good coffee, but as a lively hub that will unite the community—whether through participating in events and activities facilitated by the Stove Network or simply enjoying high-quality local produce sourced from across the region.

1418397588
The Project Cafe in Glasgow, one of the cafe’s cited by Open Jar in their exploration of Creativity and Food

To fulfil this vision, The Stove has enlisted the expertise of the Open Jar Collective, a group of Glasgow-based artists who specialise in all things food. Open Jar has been conducting extensive research to formulate an operational plan and identity for the café, analysing similar projects undertaken by other arts organisations in the UK—Glasgow’s Project Café was offered as one such example—and meeting with local producers such as the Loch Arthur Farmshop.

Feeding Creativity represented another stage in this process—a two-hour event held at 100 Midsteeple, where they invited anyone with an interest in food and creativity to share their thoughts on what they’d like to see from a new eating spot in the town centre—and to enjoy some tasty soup and bread in the process.

Attendees included caterers, health workers, business owners, and civil servants, amongst other professionals, all keen to leverage the café’s prime location and the region’s ample culinary resources to enrich the town and the lives of its residents. Splitting into groups, they identified problems currently affecting the town and proposed ways to address them, ultimately shaping a mission plan that could inform the café’s operations once established.

Chief among these concerns was the need for a place to meet after shopping hours that isn’t a pub—giving young people a chance to spend time outside the family home and offering community groups a welcoming space to convene regularly. Another key aspiration was to create a knowledge centre, where townsfolk can share their passion for food, be it through cooking skills, growing techniques, or healthy eating advice.

racheal-in-the-bakery30_318x238
The Bakery at Loch Arthur Farmshop

All in all, Open Jar received an enthusiastic response and left with plenty of ideas to work with, concluding the night by assuring attendees that further public consultations are in the works.

With the café set to open in time for Guid Nychburris, The Stove is eager to get as many people as possible excited about food’s potential to bring about positive change in the coming months. Ideally, this will result in a space where the people of Dumfries feel invested and responsible, giving the town centre a whole new lease of life.

If Feeding Creativity is any indication, it’s off to a great start.

Categories
Musings Project Updates

A Hunt for the History of 100 High Street

Following our call-out last month for a documentary filmmaker, John Wallace has been commissioned to create a short film documenting The Stove and 100 High Street as we continue to gather momentum towards the grand opening this year.

John’s proposal to explore the relationship between the building and the town as it transforms into an arts space for Dumfries has led him in search of old images of 92–102 High Street, Dumfries—and he needs your help!

The property at 96–102 High Street has housed a variety of businesses and trades over the years, including a game dealer, a fireman, several milliners, David Coltart Drapers, Reid’s Shoes, millworkers, and an umbrella maker. More recently, it was home to First and Seconds Ladieswear before becoming Happit.

However, despite hours of scouring old photo collections and online archives, only a few glimpses have surfaced—the best found in a 1956 film of Guid Nychburris Day.

Liptons-Reids-Coltarts
A still from and old Lyceum picturehouse feature on Guid Nychburris 1956. Watch it online here

“The front of the building kinks away from the rest of High Street by about 15 degrees,” explains filmmaker John Wallace. “So, in all your classic postcard views of the Midsteeple from the English Street end, it can’t be seen at all. Meanwhile, in views from the Midsteeple, it’s hidden by Burton’s or the coffee house that was there before.”

Can you help? If you have any photos of High Street featuring The Stove building, please get in touch with John (details below).

MrsMcCarthy copy
Image thanks to Peter Quinn on the Old Dumfries facebook page

John is also keen to speak to people who have had a past connection to the building. Were you a taxi driver when there was a rank outside The Stove? Have you worked in—or do you know anyone who worked in—Reid’s, Coltart’s, Happit, or First and Seconds? Did you live upstairs?

If you have any stories or connections, please get in touch with John, either by phone at 07720 710 934 or by email at [email protected]

Categories
News Project Updates

The Young Stove’s Natural Christmas

Last November, as part of the Dumfries Christmas Lights Switch-On, members of Young Stove embarked on their first project—creating an interactive artwork on High Street.

Exploring ideas for a less commercial, more natural Christmas, the group decided to gift live Christmas trees to those attending the Switch-On in exchange for a Christmas wish of goodwill.

Young Stove Christmas Lights: A Report by Michael Moore

Originally, I had two concerns about the project: “Would we have enough time for the event to be a big hit?” and “Would the public truly experience a non-materialistic Christmas?”

I was relieved to find my worries were unfounded—as within an hour and fifty minutes, all the trees had been re-homed, and the Glowing Gifts, with their attached wishes, were arranged ornately on and around the stand.

YS christmas lights email-5


Far from people simply saying something to receive a tree, I found that the majority were genuinely interested in understanding how to help their tree flourish. Many even struggled to choose a thoughtful wish or hope. Seeing people truly consider what they would give if they could was brilliant.

The only thing that impressed me more than the public’s enthusiasm was my fellow Young Stove members. From the outset, they engaged with the public effortlessly and showed no signs of stress, even as the crowd gathered around our stand, eager to see what the event was about. Every member instinctively stepped into a fantastic operational mode—no need for orders or instructions. We worked together as equals, with genuine mutual respect, something not just rare among young people, but rare among people in general!

YS christmas lights email-7


I’m impressed and delighted to see all the effort put into the project result in success, but I’m even happier to be part of a group of creative and ambitious people working in a naturally cooperative, autonomous way. It’s inspiring to see individual artists collaborating so seamlessly to bring the community together—even on a cold, dark winter’s day.

I’m excited to see what we come up with next, and I’m (almost) hoping it’s nothing too easy to achieve—sometimes, it seems better to be overambitious!

IMG_7362

To see the full set of photos from the event, head to our Flickr page [here].

Categories
Musings News

What Did We Eat Before Baguettes, Toasties and Panini?

From Open Jar Collective

Dumfries, like most Scottish towns, has a distinctive lunchtime snack—the toasted Panini.

First referenced in a 16th-century Italian cookbook, Panino (derived from the Italian pane, meaning “bread”) is traditionally a grilled sandwich made with slices of porchetta, popular in Central Italy. Panini became trendy in Milanese bars known as Paninoteche in the 1970s and 1980s, and later gained popularity in New York.

The term Paninaro came to describe a fashionable young person who was highly image-conscious.

tumblr_inline_nhxmf8yxrq1s1c4ab

Through the dominance of American fast food culture, Panini have become ubiquitous in Scotland, alongside white sliced bread toasties and French baguettes. All of these breads are made from highly refined strong wheat flours, which are difficult to produce in Scotland. Due to the country’s shorter growing season, locally grown wheat has a much lower protein content—suitable for baking but lacking the elastic gluten needed for conventional bread-making.

Scotland’s most successful cereal crop is barley, once commonly used in homes to bake bannocks.

According to NFU Scotland, of the two million tonnes of Scottish barley produced in 2013, 55% was used as animal feed, 35% went to whisky malting, and only a small proportion was sold as pearl barley or milled into flour for human consumption.

Bere (pronounced “bear”) is a six-row barley variety that has been cultivated in Scotland for thousands of years. Quite possibly Britain’s oldest cereal grain still in commercial cultivation, Bere was likely introduced by Viking settlers. It has adapted to growing in soils with low pH and in regions with extended daylight hours, making it particularly well-suited to Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles. This hardy grain grows rapidly, sown in spring and harvested in summer. Beremeal was among the earliest flours used to make bannocks.

tumblr_inline_nhxnjvIABr1s1c4ab

Robert Burns once described southern Scotland as a “land o’ cakes.” He wasn’t referring to desserts, but to oatcakes and barley bannocks, which would have been baked on an iron girdle over the fire.

“In Scotland, amongst the rural population generally, the girdle until recent times took the place of the oven, the bannock of the loaf.”  

F. Marian McNeil, 1929

In The Scots Kitchen, F. Marian McNeill suggests that the name bannock appears in records from 1572 and derives from the Latin panicum, possibly due to the influence of the Church. It may originally have referred to Communion bread.

Bannocks can vary widely—from soda breads, scones, and pancakes to a sweet, fruity tea loaf, as seen in the famous Selkirk Bannock—but they typically contain some barley meal. After testing numerous recipes, I found that the best result was F. Marian McNeill’s “Modern Method”, using Beremeal from Barony Mills in Orkney (which is available through Greencity

tumblr_inline_nhxnxcBuQE1s1c4ab
Bannocks o’ bear meal, Bannocks o’ barley,
Here’s to the Highlandman’s bannocks o’ barley.

Wha, in a brulzie, will first cry a parley?
 Never the lads wi’ the bannocks o’ barley.

Bannocks o’ bear meal, Bannocks o’ barley,
Here’s to the Highlandman’s bannocks o’ barley.

Wha, in his wae days, were loyal to Charlie?
Wha but the lads wi’ the bannocks o’ barley!

Bannocks o’ bear meal, Bannocks o’ barley,
Here’s to the Highlandman’s bannocks o’ barley.

Robert Burns, 1794
Skip to content