Support Us

Tag: Guest Blog

Categories
Musings

Doughlicious: Baking Basics and Sourdough Starters

from Kerry Morrison

The last time I baked was some 30 years ago; Hot Cross Buns. They turned out like hot cross rocks. Inedible. I decided then it was time to give up on home made bread and yeast as my track record was littered with failures.

Fast-forward some thirty years, and, due to a series of events, I found myself attending the Douglicious gathering. To be more accurate, as a new recruit at The Stove, I was facilitating it. I meeted and greeted and made teas and coffees. And I watched and listened.

Kerry’s dough making notes


They were preparing sour dough. Liz, the wonderful woman who initiated Douglicious, handed out sour dough starter to all those who had brought with them flour and a bowl. She brought extra bowls and flour for those who hadn’t brought their own, so everyone had the opportunity to have a go.
I looked on. I was fascinated. I knew nothing about sour dough and I’d never, ever, thought about baking my own. I became engrossed and wanted to know more. When the dough was resting, we all sat around the tables, tasted samples people had brought with them, and talked about bread. I joined in.
I asked so many questions and Liz and the group were extremely accommodating, answering all of them. I took notes. At the end of the evening, Liz offered me the dough she had prepared. I hadn’t participated in the dough making, so was thrilled to be offered the sour-dough-in-the-making to take home and finish. I stretched it and rested it four times before going to bed.
The next day I baked it and it turned our perfectly: completely edible and delicious. Liz also gave me my own sour dough starter and I’ve been baking (dare I say) perfect sour dough loaves at home ever since. Who’d have thought it? Certainly not me.

Interested? The next Doughlicious event is on Wednesday, 17th July at 7pm. Full details available here

Categories
Musings

Doing business, the Stovie way

Stove Angels

by Lauren Tuckerman

Lauren is a researcher who has been working with the Stove for over a year looking at the Stove as a business and how it interacts with other organisations, the community and its members.

I first came across The Stove three years ago when I was working in a different job, but as soon as I started this research project I knew I wanted to work with them. My supervisors recently asked me why this was, and that made me reflect on what attracted me to working with The Stove.

The first thing I remember about meeting The Stovies was how friendly they were, and their interest in what I was researching. That was a big plus for me. When I asked to research them, they proposed a more collaborative approach. This was right up my street, I wanted to research with them, rather than do research on them.

From the perspective of my topic, this was also interesting. I’m looking at how ‘open’ organisations are to different sources of information. And already The Stove was showing that they were ready to collaborate with researchers. They understood that it would take up their time and were careful to make sure the research was the right fit for them.

Their openness to working with me did not stop there. I was invited to different events, meetings and discussions. While some of the other researchers I know working with other companies were struggling to get information from organisations, I was heading to meet The Stove’s partners, sitting in on team meetings and attending the board away day.

Throughout this time, I built up a rich picture of how The Stove does business, and how it works with partners, the community and its members. While I am still in the middle of getting all my notes and interviews ready to be analysed, I have a few insights into what makes The Stove an interesting business.

The Stove’s Curatorial Team is one of the ways they are unusual. The majority of charities and community groups will have a voluntary board (which The Stove also have) who are in charge of overseeing the organisation, but who also may have a huge impact on the direction of the organisation. The Stove has two levels to set direction, the board and the CT, and at the board away day, both levels came together to generate ideas for the future of The Stove.

In terms of my research, this was interesting and important. The Curatorial Team is made up of practising artists who have strong ties to the community of Dumfries, and they therefore bring in practical experiences and their ideas help shape The Stove.

When looking at how they decide when to work with another organisation, we spent a lot of time talking about the ‘fit’ between The Stove and the possible partner. There isn’t a set of conditions an organisation or person had to meet to work with The Stove. The way people work is important in making this decision. That’s not to say that The Stove expects everyone to do things their way. It looks more like the ethos of the approach that matters. The values embedded in how people work are important to The Stove.

Although I’m two thirds of the way through this research project, I still feel I have so much to learn and that my observations, thinking and ideas will grow. I know one thing for sure, I’m so grateful I was able to work with The Stove and they have supported me with so much throughout the process.

Lauren will be presenting and sharing alongside researcher Lizzie Smith as part of an open discussion on the role of cultural and third sector organisations like The Stove this month. It’s open to all and takes place on Thursday, 21st February.

Categories
Musings News

My Time at The Stove

by Ellen Mitchell

As I’m approaching the end of my wonderful journey at The Stove, I want to reflect on my time here and how it has influenced me and my career, and brought me in to the position I find myself in today. I feel privileged to have been a part of a group that has made such huge strides to integrate art in to Dumfries and really helped to shape the town’s future in the most positive way.
In 2015 I was working as a Modern Apprentice at D&G Council’s Film Office. I was informed that I could spend the final year of my apprenticeship working for an external organisation and immediately my mind landed on The Stove. I had admired their work up to that point and was really inspired by their ethos, which at its core was a desire to connect the community through creative means and ignite a positive change in Dumfries.
My first day in June 2015 was an experience I’ll never forget. That was because of the arrival of the Rajasthani Brass Band at The Stove that day, dancing and making music in their incredible vibrant, colourful costumes. I was asked to photograph the event, and as I watched stovie members, children and the band dancing out in the street I knew I was going to have a great adventure ahead of me.

Initially my role at The Stove was to support events and help with administration. The first major project I helped to coordinate was Nithraid 2015. Nithraid is an annual festival which aims to celebrate the town’s relationship with the River Nith by holding a boat race down the river. I worked alongside the event producer booking stalls, marketing the event and managing volunteers.

I had been working for The Stove for several months when they were approached by Queen Margaret University looking for people working in the arts to fill spaces on their MA in Arts & Festival Management up in Musselburgh. Although I had no formal qualifications up to this point, the Stove team encouraged me to apply and I was very surprised when offered a spot on the course. This was a huge moment for me, as I had always considered myself non-academic. It was a time I look back at now to see a change in my self-confidence and belief in my own abilities growing.


An element of the course was a group project to produce a marketing strategy for The National Library of Scotland’s new exhibition. Within the group I handled the visual components of the strategy, and attempted to create a logo for the exhibition. I approached a graphic designer friend and asked him for the basics on Illustrator so I could attempt to make the logo properly. Following that project I spent weeks teaching myself adobe software and design online. I had found something that was creative, that I felt I could understand well and become good at!

As I was approaching the end of the first year of university, I started to reflect on where I wanted to see myself going with my career. My apprenticeship had also ended and I was getting up at 5 every Friday to travel up to Musselburgh, I wanted to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons. I found myself drawn more and more to spend time learning about design, and studying just seemed to get in the way of that. I made the very difficult decision to finish the year, and not return.

Over this time I had contributed more and more to The Stove’s design work creating posters for events, and they invited me to continue to work there one day a week as an in-house graphic designer. I must thank stovies hugely for taking this risk as it truly gave me the push to pursue graphic design as a viable career choice.

I have continued to work part time as The Stove’s designer since, pushing myself to learn to be creative and expressive in design working on many different projects. I had to find work elsewhere to pay the bills, first as a marketing assistant, most recently as a designer for a local print shop, and I have just been offered a job as a full time graphic designer at a local company.

I must say that had I not been working for such a supportive organisation as The Stove, I wouldn’t have found myself on a journey that started with me teaching myself graphic design, and having a full time role as a designer less than three years later.

I will miss every part of life at The Stove, however I don’t feel as though I am leaving because without a doubt I will be there as much as I can be as a Stove Member, witnessing the amazing progress they are making for our town through projects like the Midsteeple Quarter.

Thank you again to Team Stove!

Categories
Musings

My first year as Public Art Project Worker with Creative Futures

by Kirsty Turpie, December 2018

I began the position of Public Art Project Worker with Creative Futures Lochside and Lincluden in January this year. I was involved in the project last year as a Trainee Creative Producer, which seen me support Public Artists and attend community events. I really enjoyed being a Trainee Creative Producer so when the chance arose to become employed in this line of work I was excited and ready for it.

My challenge…to get residents in North West Dumfries engaged in Public Art projects. I was raring to go, and set up a weekly drop in at the Creative Futures hub under the name of Art in Action. The drop in ran for 5 weeks, and there were 5 local residents attending. We looked at local and international artists and public art examples and created small sculptures.

The name Art in Action has stuck and I have took it on the road to Lochside gala, a pop-up gazebo workshop in Lochside, Lochside and Lincluden Primary Schools and Nithraid.
One of the main projects I’ve been focusing on is the revamp of the Lincluden rhino statue. After research and consultation it was decided that I would offer the community a chance to create a new colourful look for the base of the rhino through the medium of mosaics. And, oh, have I fallen in love with them! I got up to speed on the mosaic techniques fast so that I could bring them to the public. In order to provide the mosaic workshops I had to do some preparation of ordering materials and experimenting. I’ve really enjoyed this part of the job. My background is in Graphic Design so I haven’t had too much opportunity in the past to work with large scale materials. So having to phone up builders yards, go to collect large pieces of wood and tile grout and having to use power tools to cut the wood to size have all been new and exciting responsibilities.

Kirsty and some of the team behind the new mosaics for the Lincluden Rhino

Another project that I have taken on through this position is the Lochside Primary School commemoration sculpture. This project has been a great opportunity to connect with the community on an ongoing basis and understand how to portray their ideas and history. In May I began working with the primary school pupils to design a totem pole featuring their memories of the school and it’s history since opening in 1962. It was lovely to hear the children’s memories and see them using paint and collage to get them down on paper. Back at the Creative Futures hub I drew up the final design comprised of six cement shapes to represent each era the school has been open. Mosaics would also be used in this design to create the children’s drawings and patterns and give the primary children a chance to learn this way of working. It is fair to say that they have enjoyed having a go. A small group of them came to the community centre and created the primary school logo out of mosaics and put it on to the first cement shape. In the summer I held a two day pop-up mosaic workshop in Lochside where families from the area took part. It is so rewarding being able to give people a chance to try something new and get creative. They always surprise me with their original ideas and creative flair.

Pop up mosaic workshops on Lochside Road


Something that has really stood out for me this year was in the October holidays when the Creative Futures team helped me to produce a whole week of art activities appropriately named ‘Art Week’. It was amazing to have the freedom to come up with a programme of events, and included in this a bus trip. Being able to organise a bus trip to be enjoyed by so many from the area and give them the opportunity to connect with public art, was truly brilliant. We took 32 people (adults and children) to Glenrothes in Fife where there are over a hundred pieces of public art. We went on a walk around the town led by local community workers who told us about the history of art in Glenrothes. It was great to hear people talking on the way back about how Dumfries could be different.

Visiting artworks in Glenrothes!

Not only the bus trip but the rest of Art Week was fantastic too. We ran the workshops 11am until 3pm and invited children to bring their own lunch. This gave us plenty of time to get artistic. Some of the local children came every day. Holding these daily workshops has shown me how much my confidence has grown over the past few years in this line of work. I now feel really confident planning and delivering workshops across many art forms.
All in all being part of the Creative Futures team this year has been brilliant in so many ways. It has given me the opportunity to run many different workshops, given me the challenge of adapting to using new materials, the chance to work on large scale projects, and learn how it is to work as an artist in a community setting. I am really grateful for the responsibility and opportunities I’ve been given, the team I’ve been working with and the new connections I have made within the community. I now feel a welcome addition to community events and people know they can come to me if they have any creative project or workshop ideas. I’m looking forward to continuing these projects and developing new ideas in the new year.

Stay in touch with the Creative Futures project by following their Facebook page here
More about Kirsty Turpie and her art practice on her Community Art page here

Categories
Musings News

Welcome Jordan!

Hello! I’m Jordan – the new member of the Blueprint100 Curatorial Team and I am over the moon to have been offered this position.

I am originally from Edinburgh, but I moved to Dumfries in 2012 and have called it home since then. I am love with this town. I am in love with the river. I am in love with the possibilities this place holds. I am in love with the way it makes me feel. Like many, I want to make Dumfries a better place – because not everyone loves the place we call home and this feels unsettling. I am eager to create arts opportunities for young people across the region but most of all, I want to create a place in which we are not ashamed of.

For the last four years, I have been studying Contemporary Performance Practice (CPP) at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), in Glasgow. I graduated in July with a First-Class Honours Degree and I still cannot quite believe that happened!

Glasgow, is my favourite Scottish city (at the moment anyway – I change my mind like the weather!!) I think it’s true what they say – people truly do make Glasgow and many of the things that happen there are so diverse and beautiful that I can see why people never leave.

For me, Glasgow was not all roses and rainbows. The course was tough (but also awesome and life-changing and thought-provoking and full of magic. I will be forever grateful to have had that experience, you can find out more about my course here: https://www.rcs.ac.uk/courses/ba-contemporary-performance-practice/).

I recognised in my third year that the fire that burns within me was dimming in the city. I didn’t feel like I was suited to living full-time in the bright lights and the busy streets. I guess, as cliché as this sounds, I was feeling lost and uncertain. I felt a yearning for something more, something that I wouldn’t feel like I was drowning in. I wanted to be a part of something, something I could change. Something where my voice was heard. Something where my arts practice would not go to waste, although I wasn’t entirely sure what that was yet. I didn’t realise that all I ever wanted was right in front of me – at home, in Dumfries.

Looking back, I wish I had known that these feelings were completely fine to be feeling. I put more pressure on myself at the time because everyone around me seemed to be on a different thought process and figuring out their arts practice and really “getting it” and I wasn’t. I began to experience some mental health issues and my course soon fell to the bottom of my priorities.

I love to party – that is still true today. But a couple of years ago, this became an escape mechanism for me and I never wanted the party to stop. I decided that I was going to leave the course at the end of third of year and not complete my honours. I did not care at all and although (spoiler alert!) that point of view came to bite me in the bum in fourth year (stressss!) I am not angry at myself for feeling like that because I know it was genuinely how I was feeling – and we should not beat ourselves up for our emotions, or else we are all doomed. It was a part of me figuring things out.

On my course, we do our dissertations in third year (instead of fourth, because our final year is full of other fantastic modules) so before leaving, I had to complete my dissertation. I am extremely interested in conversation and the way it is used to make and create art. I entitled my dissertation; Conversation as an art form – when is conversation art?

Cutting a very long story short, during this time, my mum became very unwell and my life really changed. I had to commit to being in Dumfries whilst juggling a dissertation and end of year show and a million other uncertainties and things were happening at once. It felt like the world was caving in and I have never felt so alone… but, as some person once said, when the going gets tough, the tough get going… and that’s what happened. I did a lot of growing up. I completed my dissertation, I completed third year, I became a carer, I overcame some heady stuff and cried loads and loads and loads. I’m actually crying right now as I type this! It’s good to cry though.

My mum made a miraculous recovery that has made me believe in angels and all things other. I knew I had to complete fourth year and entered my final year at RCS determined and ready. My mum and I even made a show together named Kin; a memory that I will cherish deeply for the rest of my life.

Right now, I am committed to community arts practice and particularly interested in the therapeutic role of creativity; my ongoing work resides in community development. I am determined that if we all take a little more time to care for each other and the place in which we live, we will begin to feel much more connected to each other, contributing to better mental health.  I hope that my Blueprint100 journey allows me to implement this and I look forward to (hopefully) being a part of your journey too.

So, that’s a little bit about me! If you want to get in touch, I would love to hear from you! My email is [email protected]

Categories
Musings

Goodbye Jenna!

Jenna Macrory

This month we say goodbye to Blueprint100 Curatorial Team Member Jenna Macrory as she ventures off to Newcastle to begin her degree in Traditional Music. She has written a few words discussing her experience of working at Blueprint100 and her journey through different projects. We wanted to say a huge thank you to Jenna for all her amazing work over the last 2 years – we will miss you!

Jenna Macrory

Starting this role in November 2016 following on from my Nithraid internship, Blueprint provided a natural progression. After Nithraid, I knew that I wanted to work in the arts but was lost as to what my next step should be. Blueprint100 provided a paid role to work and develop projects but also to work and develop myself as an artist. Through Blueprint, I was able to host events, workshops and experiences for young people and give back to my town.

As a musician I was able to explore other job prospects in the music industry like event management and sound engineering. Being able to explore these other routes of working within the creative industry is essential for young people today as in schools the focus is pushed so heavily on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematic) based careers. This leaves a stigma that there are not viable career options within this sector, which is not true. It is absolutely essential that young people are made aware of this and also people that live in rural regions are able to access the arts.

Prior to working for blueprint I didn’t see much in Dumfries. I saw an anchor to my creativity but now as someone that is about to go to university in a city I don’t want to leave. Part of the magic of Dumfries is that is an unfinished project and getting to play a part in the development of Dumfries has been incredible and I’m very grateful that I was able to play a part in that. 

Looking forward I’m really excited to come back to Dumfries and Galloway and see where this town is. Projects like Midsteeple Quarter and Rosefield Mills are set to revitalise parts of the town which I believe will change the dynamics of the town and set us on track for the future.

Skip to content