Tag: Guest Blog

As Above So Below

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date July 31, 2015

From Ivor Gott

“Hey Ivor, it’d be pretty neat if you could write a blog to tell us about your project for Nithraid,” announced Katie Anderson excitedly at the last Young Stove meeting. The first thing that went through my mind upon hearing these words was, “Crikey! How on earth am I ever going to explain this to the general public?” After much careful consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best approach would be to just tell the truth.

So here goes…

It all started with a pirate ship. A great big pirate ship. A great big pirate ship made out of recycled plastic bottles. How did I get from a pirate ship to two pyramids—or should I say tetrahedrons—a chrome unicorn, and an art performance loosely based on the concept of enlightenment? The truth is, I didn’t get there on my own. The pirate ship was a snap decision made during a meeting with my Stove mentor, Denise Zygadlo. I was under immense pressure to come up with a decision for the project. At this point, it had been two weeks since the commission began, and my initial idea, although perfect for the Dock Park site (where Nithraid was originally intended to be), just wasn’t going to work at Mill Green.

“Come on, Ivor,” my inner voice urged. “What are you going to do? It must be good—no, better than good—it must be fabulous!” So, before I’d even thought it through properly, I found myself telling Denise that I might make a pirate ship out of plastic bottles.

This idea evolved from a pirate ship into a Viking longboat, inspired by a workshop held at The Stove that evening. However, this didn’t remain the case for very long. After a few meetings with my fellow creatives—The Mad Jackals (Majikals)—the idea of making a Viking longboat was beginning to feel tiresome. I just couldn’t get excited about it. It didn’t reflect me or my wonderfully creative friends.

And then it just came to me. I said, “We need to make a pyramid and float it down the Nith! We have to have a unicorn inside the pyramid!” The words of a mad person? Yes, probably.

At that point, it was me, Sophie, and Michael in the studio. You could feel the collective excitement crackling between us. I started scribbling ideas down. It must—and I repeat, must—include the Mer-ka-ba, rainbow smoke, flash grenades, horned elementals… I was really getting carried away. Credit to Sophie and Michael—they were running with me. We were organic and free, if perhaps a little overly optimistic.

The next day, I met with my little brother in the Queensberry. I was expressing anxiety over the scale of the project. Conor is often the voice of reason and someone I consult when mashing around creative ideas. He’s a creative too, but where I veer off into tangents and allow my concepts to grow bigger than I can handle, he has a knack for reducing it down and keeping it real. I can always trust him to tell me the truth and be realistic.

“One question?” he pondered, eyebrow raised. “How are you going to do this in two weeks?”

I knew he was right. The idea had to change again—and fast. More of the Jackals were arriving at this point. Ideas were flying thick and fast.

“Time capsule…” Did you say time capsule?

That’s perfect. The Mer-ka-ba… As above, so below… We’ll make a time capsule, and it’ll be in the shape of an inverse tetrahedron. Of course, we’ll need a non-inverted tetrahedron too. Ah, it’s perfect. There’ll be two tetrahedrons. The unicorn stays, and so does the rainbow smoke.

To maintain some mystery about the performance and workshop, I’ll stop there. But in a nutshell, that’s how an idea that first birthed itself as a plastic bottle pirate ship evolved into an exciting, interactive art performance loosely based on the theme of enlightenment. We look forward to seeing you all on Sunday when all will be revealed.

One thing I’d like to say before I get back to putting the finishing touches on everything is this: although this commission was applied for as a solo project, it’s been a collaborative effort. I often find collaboration much more exciting than working alone, and I’m lucky to have the most fabulous team of creative individuals in my life. We are The Mad Jackals. They think we’re mad, but we know we’re majickal.

Tags 2015, Artist, Commission, Emerging Artists, Festival, Guest Blog, Nithraid, Performance, Performance Art, River Festival, River Nith, Young Stove

News Project Updates

Not To Be Sold Separately

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date July 22, 2015

From Emily Cooper

Months of planning, budgeting, and—most importantly—creating had led to the Young Stove finally making their debut on the art scene of Dumfries and Galloway. Not to Be Sold Separately, our maiden voyage into exhibiting as a collective, launched on the 3rd of July and was met with a wave of excitement and glowing feedback.

As a group of eight young artists, each with contrasting styles and creative visions, coming together to form a cohesive show seemed like a daunting task. However, rather than becoming an obstacle, it turned into one of our greatest strengths, resulting in a vibrant and diverse collection of work that reflects who we are as a group.

Installation day brought its own challenges. With only a matter of hours to transform a beautiful yet unconventional space—complete with complex lighting—and to install all our work before opening that same evening, the pressure was intense. The learning curve was steep, as our experience ranged from seasoned exhibition veterans to those of us (myself included) who had never exhibited publicly before. Yet, remarkably, we pulled it off without a hitch! Having complete creative control and taking responsibility for hanging our own work proved to be an invaluable experience, one that will undoubtedly shape how we approach exhibitions in the future.

Not to Be Sold Separately closes on the 26th of July and will travel to Dumfries to be reimagined and reopened at the start of August. With a new space, fresh pieces, and even more artists added to the line-up, it presents an exciting opportunity to redevelop and build on the success of the exhibition’s first leg. Mill on the Fleet has been a fantastic opening venue. Transplanting a thoroughly modern, edgy collection of work into such a historical and characterful building has resulted in a glorious, colourful discordance—truly symbolic of the Young Stove.

Tags 2015, Exhibition, Guest Blog, Visual Art, Young Artists, Young People, Young Stove

Musings

Poem Thing.

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date July 6, 2015

From Stan Bonnar

Poem Thing.

Here it is—informal, but from the heart of me.

This is what I’m thinking: we must not lose the deep meaning of Nithraid. After all, we sweated blood to get this far. We must affirm Nithraid in the flow of world art with every action. That is our responsibility to art and to people.

The main point, of course, is to show Dumfries to the wide world as a place where things are happening. But if we are to show the art world that socially engaged public art is the way to go, then we must show them that we have resolved the problem of the redundant art object.

Here it is: the cow, the cow delivery system, the Nith, the we the people, the thing of things!

What are we saying?

We are saying that this cow thing is alive and well and living in Dumfries!

It was once a linguistic object, but here and now, it is a liberated thing.

The reason it’s liberated is because we gave the art object the voice of a thing, and that thing is everything!

The Dumfries Nithraid cow is the thing of our imagining.

It is what we are and always were.

We are the Nithraid thing.

Nithraid is the liberation of the object once known as ‘cow’.

First, we cover it in salt because salt imbues and confirms the cow as a once-object standing in reserve of our existence (for our use as required).

But then, as the cow sinks into the River Nith, we, the people, sing a mooing song... moo... moo... moo...

The salt is washed away to reveal the new, precious thing in the context of things. And this act deconstructs and disrupts the limitations of our own object-centric thinking.

Nithraid was conceived as a public artwork to activate the riverside in Dumfries during the summer of 2013, bringing new focus and drawing people down to celebrate the River Nith. Now in its third year, Dumfries is preparing to welcome sailors upriver to the heart of the town as Nithraid 2015 sails into town on Sunday, 2nd August. Nithraid is free and open to all, and last year saw crowds of 4,000 lining the banks to watch the winning boats cross the finish line. Find out more about this year’s Nithraid here.

The discussion is open, and we invite contributions to our artistic conversations—whether you have been involved in Nithraid in previous years, are interested in the changing face of public art, or are curious about how a sailing race can also be an artwork, please get in touch via the comments box below. Alternatively, to send your contribution, please email [email protected].

Tags 2015, Dumfries, Festival, Guest Blog, Nithraid, Nithraid Poetry, Poetry, River Festival, River Nith, Salty Coo, Word, Writing

News Project Updates

HAME. 2nd-16th May 2015

Post author By Kirsty Geddes
Post date May 28, 2015

By Gerard McKeever

gerardmckeever.co.uk

It’s easy to forget just how extraordinarily important the places where we live are. They are our frame, our point of reference, and a huge portion of the real detail of life. This capacity of the land to shape us takes on a special dimension when we have either lived somewhere for a very long time or spent the early years of our life there. I was born in Upper Nithsdale and spent the best part of two decades in the area before leaving for the city. It is a familiar narrative: the draw of study, work, and a faster pace of life. Yet, as a creative person, I am increasingly aware of the influence of D&G on my thought processes—a language of place through which much of my work is communicated. Because of this, and because of a longstanding ambition to return to the region, Mark Lyken and Emma Dove’s recent Hame installation for The Stove Network resonated with me.

Perhaps one reasonable working definition of art could be: a community talking to itself about itself. This was a fascinatingly literal instance of that process, with audio clips of people discussing their relationships contextualised against meditative imagery of the area. Seeing the places we know celebrated and examined in this fashion makes them more real and more vital. It is a process of validation through which both the bonds and the divides in our community are exposed. The installation made us question which voices were included and which were not—whose particular home was being offered a platform?

On a formal level, the piece made use of the suggestive space of 100 High Street, succeeding in creating a feeling of audience participation through its non-linear looseness. At the risk of overstating the point, wandering through the multiple levels of the installation captured something of the jagged, contingent nature of our existence in place. If and when the piece is transposed into a linear production, it will undoubtedly be engaging but very different, precisely calibrated as it was to radiate from the town centre. Lyken and Dove guided us through a mixture of voices that spoke with the random authority of community. From recollections of a previous era to the impressions of youth, for two weeks, The Stove became an open archive of shared experience. Just as ‘hame’ doesn’t quite mean the same as ‘home’ to me, all the small details and nuances of life in D&G carry a particular shading. It was this peculiar quality of rootedness that the installation articulated so well. Fortunately, Hame was also too stylish to fall into the traps of tourist information or museum exhibits that a piece of its nature might otherwise face.

The Stove is a commendable effort to further invigorate a growing community of creative people in and around Dumfries and, in doing so, contribute to the revitalisation of the town centre. As one of the many young locals living elsewhere but with half an eye on home, I find projects like this encouraging. Alongside the growing number of music festivals in the region, the successes of Spring Fling and other arts events, D&G seems to be building towards a creative critical mass—a blossoming that is being noticed on a national level. Perhaps we don’t need to look so far away after all if we have these things at hame.

Images © Colin Tennant

Tags 2015, Dumfries, Emma Dove, Film Installation, Guest Blog, HAME, Open House, Research & Reading, Residency, Review

News

#HouseWarming – An Old Stovie Looks at a Building

Post author By Matt Baker
Post date May 19, 2015

Clem from Open Jar cooking Bannock on Dumfries High Street

By Mark Zygadlo

I offer my reflections on a couple of aspects of the gathering to mark the reopening of 100 High Street, Dumfries, on 29th May 2015.

First, the building is just a building—open or closed. The Stove, on the other hand, has never been away. However, the resumption of 100 High Street is a cause for celebration because, occupied by The Stove, the building becomes a symbol, a statement of intent, a declaration in the heart of the town, redolent with possibility.

These are carefully chosen words. When you get to be an old Stovie like me, you can laugh in the face of cool and bravely speak of sentiment. For this, I take my lead from Moxie, who put her wares gently on the table at the reopening and slid under the radar to remind me—at any rate—that to be anything meaningful, an artist not least, you have to be a human being first. This was cleverly done. Addressed obliquely and full of ambiguity, her condimental list invoked the mysterious nine-tenths. Elementary, my dear Moxie. Fundamental.

Onward, the mugs. Whisked back to my first days at art school—longer ago than even my newfound bravery wants to consider—messing about with a process I couldn’t quite handle, yet desperate for my mug to somehow transcend its mugginess and become art. Then not caring if it did or… hang on—I love that browny orange; let’s get some more of that! The noise level, the concentration, the babies… what’s going on? Is this a family or something?

P1270484 (2) — The sledgehammer of the Young Stove finally cracked it

Thanks to a shock-resistant bottle and the shock-absorbing qualities built into the fabric and spirit of the old Stove—useful qualities against the vicissitudes of the future—the sledgehammer of the young Stove finally cracked it. “Jules, fetchez la vache” comes to mind for some reason; a phrase so poignant for an old Nithraider that I include it despite its irrelevance. So what? So what? So what? John Dowson, the only other resident of the High Street, told us what. The making of history, he said, quite rightly.

Now, here’s a thing, and it’s one of my favourite things: life is lived forward but looked at backwards. History is the backward view—a mash-up of memories, archives, documents, photographs, and, of course, the way we have shaped the environment. It’s all history. But the making of history is the process of living, doing, making things happen, and changing the place we live in.

A good definition of The Stove.

P1270396 — The noise level, the concentration, the babies… what’s going on? Is this a family or something? Mark Zygadlo – standing centre…Moxie DePaulitte – far left (pink hair)

mugginess — The noise level, the concentration, the babies… what’s going on? Is this a family or something? Mark Zygadlo – standing centre…Moxie DePaulitte – far left (pink hair)

Tags 100 High Street, 2015, Guest Blog, Open House, Stove Members

News Project Updates

Open Mouth – If You Thought Nothing Cool Ever Happened in Dumfries…

Post author By Matt Baker
Post date May 15, 2015

By Sindigo

If you thought nothing cool ever happened in Dumfries, then your mind must have been truly blown by the recent Open House series of events at The Stove. If you missed it, then I’m sorry—it’s not Dumfries that’s uncool, my friend—it’s you!

On Tuesday, 28th April, The Stove opened its doors to anyone wanting to try their hand at the fashionable art of spoken word. The all-day live event, called Open Mouth, promised to wow audiences with local and national talent whilst providing support and encouragement to keen youngsters with a raw thirst for poetry slamming.

Young Stover Ivor Gott and Sindigo prepared an eye-catching backdrop for the stage

Part 1 – Schools Workshops @OpenMouth

In the morning, pupils from a local school attended workshops designed to spark their thinking about words.

They were divided into three groups to rotate between three sessions. The Open Jar Collective added a foodie twist to the activities, and each group had the chance to paint a plate that will be used in the new Stove Café.

So, not only will they be eating their own words when they say Dumfries isn’t cool, but they’ll be eating them off a plate with their own words painted onto it! You couldn’t make it up—it’s so genius.

All the participants were keen to come back to the Stove for other events "I'm coming back to eat off my own plate", said one, "my mum will be so impressed" — All the participants were keen to come back to the Stove for other events “I’m coming back to eat off my own plate”, said one, “my mum will be so impressed”

At the same time as these workshops were taking place, poet Eryl Shields was conducting creative writing workshops upstairs.

To delve into their deepest personal truths, Eryl set the theme as “10 things I know to be true.” Eryl said, “We shared the lists. Then, I asked them to write a short piece in their chosen form, based on or inspired by any aspect of their own list. We read out our pieces and looked at how they could be redrafted to be more effective as spoken word performance pieces. I was very impressed by the strength and variety of the work produced.”

Sindigo (second from right) with school pupils in an Open Mouth workshop

Meanwhile, in another room of The Stove’s amazing new premises, I was busy hosting spoken word performance masterclasses. I explained what “spoken word” was, what it could be, and how they could make it unique for themselves. The main rule we established was that it should be your own work and should be performed in front of a crowd.

The pupils then wrote a short piece about themselves, employing emotion or humour—often both. They didn’t seem shy or scared when I told them it was time to read their pieces into a microphone. With sensitivity, they were given critical feedback by me and the other members of the group on how they could improve both content and delivery.

For the humorous pieces, we discussed ways to make them even funnier—exaggerating actions, using pauses effectively, and engaging the audience with eye contact and pointing. “Do you do this for a living?” one girl asked. “That’s so cool! I wanna do that.”

At one point, some of the participants shared that they could speak other languages and were able to translate their pieces into Mandarin and Lithuanian. By the end of the class, two girls were rapping about their love of cheese, including audience participation sections in three languages. Yaldi!

Afterwards, their teacher sent a text saying, “Thank you very much for today. The kids loved it, and I thought it was really interesting—I learned loads too!”

Part 2 – Open Workshop @OpenMouth

One student even returned at 5 pm to take part in the open mentoring sessions with established performance poet Emily Elver, emcee and Girobabies frontman Mark McGhee, and Scottish Slam champion Bram E. Giebens.

The Notorious Young Stove were also heavily present, along with several other local poets and keen amateurs. Sitting around in a circle, talking about how we first came across writing, I suddenly felt like I was at a Poets Anonymous meeting.

“My name’s Sindigo, and I’m an addict.” “How long have you been addicted to poetry, Sindigo?”

But the mood soon lifted with a few laughs. Participants were able to get invaluable advice from our guests and even had the chance to perform their work and receive feedback from the experts.

Part 3 – Gig @OpenMouth

After the briefest of pauses for pizza and ginger beer, I took to the stage to announce the evening performances and to thank the wonderful folks of The Stove for making it all possible. Scottish Slam champion Bram opened the show and was incredible, as usual, with his haunting portrayal of the inner psyche and poignant references to politics and personal anguish.

Local poet and keen admirer of The Stove, Peter Angelini, provided a sentimental and romantic reflection on Dumfries and the surrounding area, his infectious smile winning over the crowds. Next up was our incredible schoolgirl, Annemarie, who had taken part in the morning workshops. She bravely took to the stage and melted our hearts with a poem about her baby sister’s ginger afro and heart-shaped freckles. I was swelling with pride at my wee protégé.

The Young Stovers were the real stars of the show. Ivor Gott wowed us with a poem written on the day about Mother Earth. Cara McNaught sauntered onto the stage with real style and blasted out an accomplished rap as if she’d been doing it for years. Then, Rhiannon Dewar bared her soul with a hard-hitting piece straight from the heart. She modestly declared afterwards, “I definitely found it a cool experience.” Steven Rogerson proved himself to be an accomplished writer of personal experiences, and his confidence shone on the mic. All future stars in the making!

Mark McGhee of Jakal Trades showed us why he’s always an asset on any bill with his fast-paced social commentary and wit, inventing his own words and getting the audience chanting along. His poem about Edward Snowden is still one of my favourites, and he absolutely smashed it, earning rapturous applause.

Eryl Shields’s refined and ethereal style wonderfully conveyed her polished poetic narrative. Catherine Major brought a punchy slam style, and her savvy performance was a true asset to the show. Herald at The Stove and all-round ray of light, Moxie de Paulette, gave us a rousing reaction to the election, including a mighty fine impression of Nigel Farage. Ginger, a local professional, transported us to muddy fields and festival shenanigans with his take on some traditional Burns, twisted through psychedelic raving and all-night swallying.

Emily Elver, another rising star on the scene, delivered a phenomenal performance. She had us all in stitches with her sci-fi foreplay piece and demonstrated why she’s a much-loved talent and an unstoppable force of spoken word alchemy. She said, “Open Mouth was one of the best events I’ve had the privilege to be involved in. The workshop was buzzing with new voices and experienced performers. The open mic showcased how many amazing new performers Dumfries & Galloway has. Could not have been more impressed with The Stove team and Sindigo’s hard work.”

I enjoyed introducing everyone and felt a surge of electricity every time I went on the mic. It was, in fact, one of the best nights of my life—a celebration of everything coming alive in Dumfries and across Scotland.

“This is just the beginning!” said Debz McDozey, leader of The Young Stove, as I gave her a high five.

#OpenMouth was produced in association with the Wigtown Festival Company. Huge thanks to them for everything!

Tags 100 High Street, 2015, Brave New Words, Dumfries, Guest Blog, Open House, Poetry, Spoken Word, Word

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