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.
Into the second of three months of the Lowland residency now & the project is nicely gathering pace & form. Things are beginning to take shape, both in the mind & in reality. The Flood of Words started out as a rivulet & is quickly becoming a spate. Coos have been dunked. Postcards have been piling up. Conversations have been had. Latvians have been gathering. Governmental approval has been forthcoming. Poets & writers have been assembled & given instruction &continue to rally to the cause.
NITHRAID
Nithraid River Festival 2018 saw The Stove undergo Edinburgh Festival-like transformations as the weeks leading up to the Do With The Coo became days & great swathes of activity culminated triumphantly on Saturday August 11th on Dumfries’s Mill Green. The Salty Coo was held aloft & borne to the Green in a procession of funereal solemnity, weirdly inspirational music & surreal costumery, courtesy of pointy-eared funsters Madjakkals. It was hoisted high onto its pontoon midstream in the Nith, awaiting the winners of the boat race. They began to arrive after 1pm, completing a journey of 14 miles up the coast from Carsethorn (‘The Port of Dumfries’) by oar & sail, briefly, fragmentedly but strikingly recreating a time when the Solway was one of the busiest waterways anywhere on the British coast. By this time the Green was alive with stalls & people, performers & visitors, the river aflutter with sails. The weather was holding up & the Lowland stall was quickly busy with folk writing their thoughts on Dumfries on the Lowland postcards or the Typewriter of Truth.
Image Credit: Galina Walls
I was amazed at the amount of people who participated, popped over, curious, then keen to get involved. Many were visitors to the town, some from overseas, some day-trippers from outwith the region. Some were weans, some were ‘veterans’ of the toon. Many, many people were happy to contribute & so much of what they contributed was honest, touching, beautiful. Disparate words, phrases, poems, drawings, reflections, memories, hopes & visions coming together to add to a tapestry of what Dumfries means to those who live & visit here.
Image Credit: Kirstin McEwan
And so, the Salty Coo, created to commemorate two of Dumfries’s most important products when it was one of Scotland’s busiest trading ports – salt & livestock. It first appeared in 2013 – to be offered as tribute to the Nith & its glorious past, to rise again each year as a symbol of hope & optimism. This year, I was honoured to be asked to write an ‘Ode’ to the Coo as it was lowered into the river on some strange mechanical contraption & left to float downstream, its salt dissolving, its proud bovine features slowly disappearing beneath what passed for the river (2018 was a record dry summer). We’ll feature the Ode elsewhere on this site; in the Stove you can read it on a big blackboard. I proclaimed said Ode via the PA to the gathered masses, over 500 in the crowd, each of them shouting back the chorus with increasing gusto. It was indeed a proud moment, an exhilarating mixture of high panto & ancient Druidic solemnity as the Coo entered the Nith to the sound of the Doonhame Choir, was embraced by the Nith’s sluggish heartbeat, travelled 10 yards & got stuck on a traditional shopping trolley. No matter, the Ode will now be an annual thing, hopefully a fitting tribute not just to the town’s salutary bustling past but a verbal signpost to a future where the past’s not just a commodity but a mirror to the present.
FLOOD OF WORDS
In mid-August, the Scottish Government’s Minister for Communities, Aileen Campbell, visited The Stove. She heard about the ongoing work being carried out by the Midsteeple Quarter & their plans & vision for the regeneration of Dumfries town centre, making many of its empty or underused buildings accessible to independent traders & affordable properties for tenants from all social quarters. Aileen visited the Baker’s Oven, currently leased to The Stove for use as a creative venue for a peppercorn rent. While in The Stove, she spent time admiring the Flood of Words exhibition. It’s turning into some collection, I can tell you, an actual Flood of Words. It’s now taking up a whole wall in The Stove café & it’s still growing. Aileen was properly impressed by this tour de force show of community engagement & creativity. She has connections to the town herself & took away a Lowland postcard, promising to return it complete with her own creative thoughts on what Dumfries means to her. Cheers Aileen. And don’t forget the stamp.
Why not pop in & look at it? Or just to have a brew & something to munch – the Stove Café is a really central, accessible & mellow place to spend an hour or two in town meeting, blethering, thinking or just reading the papers. The food & drink are splendid too, the staff friendly & welcoming. And while you’re there, add your own tributary & see the Flood of Words grow further. There are Lowland postcards scattered about & a Lowland Post-box wherefor to deposit your words. Every word, every contribution means something as do you. Make yourself count.
NOT ONLY BUT ALSO….
High Street Writers will be meeting in The Stove on the following dates, all Wednesdays – September 12th & 19th, plus October 3rd. All sessions will run from 6-8pm & everyone’s welcome to come along, no matter your level of experience as a writer or in which genre (& it’s free). We’d love to meet you. Please come along. If you’ve any queries about the group or access needs, email The Stove & we’ll hopefully be able to sort it out. Writers are the beating heart of a community – come along to High Street Writers & help it beat stronger. And of course, Brave New Words, which I’m preparing for tonight. Dumfries’s very own fantastic showcase of spoken word meets on the last Friday of the month, next gathering being on September 28th at 7pm. There’s nothing quite like it in south-west Scotland. And if you’ve anything at all to contribute to or want to ask about Lowland, please comment here or send us a message at The Stove.
The Flood of Words continues, of course. Myself & Lowland’s lead artist Martin O’Neil have been meeting to plan & organise further events & engagements, particularly in schools & on the High Street. Look out for announcements about what’s coming up on National Poetry Day, October 4th, in the Baker’s Oven & on the street. The Dumfries Words Walk will be coming up in around 4 weeks. A series of posters, with extracts of work from many local writers, young & old, mostly alive, is in the production stages, for display in shops, schools, libraries & anywhere we can place them. And there are also plans to create a permanent poetry street, The Poets’ Close, in a yet-to-be-disclosed location in the town centre. Imagine – Dumfries having its own Poets’ Corner, where (most of) the poets arenae even deid yet.
LATVIA 100 IN CARTOONS
Aaaand finally… On Wednesday September 5th, tangential to but still relevant to Lowland, we’re having the grand opening (huzzah!) of a major touring exhibition which will be at The Stove until the 13th. This is Latvia 100, celebrating 100 years of Latvian independence from Russia. It takes the form of 16 A1 panels of cartoon & text, drawn & written by the cream of Latvia’s creative talent & I can tell you, it looks utterly brilliant.
“This chronicle of Latvia’s history features historical events with international resonance: World War I, the interwar period, the Great Depression, World War II, the periods of occupation and related restrictions on freedom of expression, as well as the European Union and other contemporary political-economic subjects.”
There’ll be Latvian food, music & dance, all MCed by myself. It begins at 6.30pm with a speech by Dumfries’s Provost, Tracey Little, to be followed by an address by no less a person than Latvia’s ambassador to the UK, Her Excellency Ms. Baiba Braže. D&G’s Latvian community have responded brilliantly & we’re really pleased to be hosting an exhibition that’s also visiting Liverpool, London, Manchester, Glasgow & Edinburgh. The cartoons are tremendous. Please do come along & see it between the 6th & 13th, if you can’t make the launch next Wednesday. To which, of course, all are most welcome. No bad for a wee toon, eh? But a wee toon with an increasingly big creative presence on the UK stage.
Sailing Race winner, Mark Zygadlo
Image Credit: Kirstin McEwan
August 11th saw our sixth staging of Nithraid, a fun family event that takes place on and around the river with an estimated 2,000 in attendance. The daring sailing race, which involved two races this year, starting from the Solway Firth and sailing up the river Nith was made possible by one of the highest tides of the year. While waiting for the boats to arrive, visitors and families were invited over to The Mill Green to enjoy our Nithraid Village which had food, live music, free activities and entertainment.We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came along to Nithraid this year, and a special thanks to those who were involved making it one of our biggest Nithraids yet – whether you were working, volunteering or just came along to cheer on the sailors. We were happy to see so many stay on for our second ‘Nithraid Nighttime’ as well and help us continue the celebrations into the evening.Nithraid is a celebration of the town’s long relationship with its river, highlighting the way the Nith connected Dumfries to the rest of the world through trade, goods (including Coos) and sailpower. It is created and produced by The Stove Network and is part of our mission to make creative opportunities for local people to be involved in the future of Dumfries. A total of 8 boats took part in the sailing race, with all boats carrying a small cargo which must be delivered into the town to complete the race. The winner of the sailing boat race was Mark Zygadlo and the coastal rowing race was won by Alnmouth.
Mark was absolutely delighted to have won after five years of trying. Commenting on his win, he said, “Nithraid is a unique race; it takes you from the sea right into the centre of Dumfries and is visible from the shore along most of its length. It is such a good sail that the competitive aspect of it, though definitely there, is not the only thing that matters to the sailors. There’s time to chat to other boats as you pass them and negotiating the bridges is always an exciting spectacle. Dumfries is really fortunate to have such a glorious river at its heart and Nithraid celebrates it.”A large crowd of people joined in with the legendary Salty Coo procession, starting from The Stove and finishing at the Mill Green. This year, Dumfries based production and arts company ‘The Maddjakkalls’ were commissioned to create a magical and mysterious procession with their collective of artists and performers.Visitors to Nithraid were then treated to an afternoon of great food and fun family activities. Local music acts played throughout the day, organised by young musician Ruari Barber-Fleming. Amongst the acts were Ellie McConnachie, Liv McDougall, Corrie Russel, Kate Kyle and Benji Haynes. Community groups and organisations hosted several free workshops including zine making, badge making, stone carving and mosaic making. This year, Nithraid also celebrated international relationships with young people from around the world through the ‘Amaze Me Leader’ Project. Their week-long visit to Dumfries and Galloway culminated in volunteering for the day at Nithraid and helping organise events and activities.
As part of Nithraid 2018, The Stove Network commissioned local musicians Double Down Disco to create a performance for Rosefield Mills – something to publicly mark the moment of this much-loved local landmark waking from a long sleep. Double Down Disco provided a sonic adventure in two parts which visitors enjoyed on the Double Down Disco dancefloor in the Dock Park. The soundwork included sounds from the hillsides to the mill, woven into a worker’s story, then fast forwarded to a place brought back to life and play.For the second time, Nithraid also continued into the evening for ‘Nithraid Nighttime’. Visitors to Nithraid were invited back in the evening for food, an outdoor cinema, campfires and tales from Mostly Ghostly and music provided by Soundsystems.
Earlier this month, we selected a young local musician to undertake music stage management at this year’s Nithraid River Festival on Saturday 11th August. Ruari Barber-Fleming from Castle Douglas has been selected to run the small acoustic stage that is held as part of the festival to showcase up and coming talent from around the region. The previous years have included regulars from the Stove’s monthly open mic nights, Brave New Words, as well as other musicians who are based within Dumfries & Galloway.
Ruari has been involved in the Dumfries music scene for several years now, having previously played in local band ‘Gracefell’ as well as photographing live music and working with various artists around the region. He is hoping that through this opportunity he will be able to deliver something unique for the visitors to Nithraid and believes that the stage is a great platform to showcase some local talent.
Ruari feels very positively about the music scene in Dumfries and feels it has been thriving the past few years with a gig frequency that is extremely impressive for the size of the region that it is. He is very passionate about originality and sincerity when it comes to live performance of music, and from this he hopes to be able to deliver just that – performances that the audience can latch on to and connect with the artist.
The commission will provide Ruari the opportunity to work with members of the Nithraid team to gain experience of all aspects of running a music stage at a festival including programming, design/build, marketing, sound engineering and equipment hire. There will be extra opportunities to integrate and learn through this commission with support from Euan Macrory, who undertook a similar internship in 2016 and now programs events both as part of the blueprint100 Curatorial Team and other festivals such as Moniaive Folk Festival.
The Nithraid music stage will be part of the ‘Nithraid Village’ situated on the Mill Green on Saturday 11th August and will run from 12pm until 4pm. Visitors to Nithraid are also invited to join in with other activities happening in the town and around the River Nith. The Salty Coo procession will kick off the day, leaving from Fountain Square on High Street at noon and arriving at the Mill Green at approximately 12.30pm. The Nithraid Village provides a jam-packed day of family friendly activities for all ages, which includes live music, food stalls and creative workshops which include stone carving, public art, zine making, upcycling, origami, badge making and recycling.
For more information, including how to take part in the races (or anything else!), please visit www.thestove.org/nithraid
Did you know? Each boat that takes part in the Nithraid is given a small cargo to bring upriver, and the race is only completed with the safe delivery of these cargoes to the finishing point on the central pontoon! The cargo’s have been inspired by Dumfries’ historical role as a trading point and port receiving goods from around the world at one point for distribution around the region. The trading route was dependant on the river’s tides to allow boats upriver to points at Carsethorn, the Kingholm Quay and Dock Park.
Image Credit: Andy Jardine
The Nithraid Cargoes are:
Tropical goods from the Carribean: Rum, sugar, cocoa/chocolate, coffee
Southern USA: Cotton, Tobacco.
Northern USA & Canada: Timber, Fur.
Baltic: Timber
France: Wine, Brandy.
Mediterranean: Oranges, Lemons, Limes, Sherry, olives, Fish
England: Manufactured Goods, Slate, Coal
Wales: Slate
Indian ocean: Cinamon, (Sri Lanka), Peppar (India), other spices,
China: Tea, silk.
Scotland: Salt.
These goods would have come by a number of routes. Anything from the colonies before the end of the 18th century was subject to the Navigation acts and had to pass through a British port (English before the act of union) which meant that for instance spices etc. would have come via Liverpool or London, and coastal shipping from there on. But Tobacco and other goods of the triangular trade may have come direct because Whitehaven was a regional centre where they had quays called, the Sugar Tongue Quay, The Fish Quay and the Lime Tongue Quay.
And then there was the Free Trade, smuggling, which was a major factor of this region for a while at the end of the 18th Century. Dumfries as a port would not officially have been involved but with a shortage of customs men and huge profits to be shared, unofficially it’s reasonable to assume that many thousands of tons of tobacco, for instance, arrived at Carsethorn and disappeared.
Dumfries DJ duo, Double Down Disco, have recently been selected to create a soundwork for Rosefield Mills as part of this year’s Nithraid River Festival in Dumfries. Nithraid is an artist-led public event produced by the Stove Network that is now in its sixth year. The festival is sited around the Mill Green area and for 2018 the event is expanding to include other nearby sites on the river. Double Down Disco will be using Rosefield Mills to stage a temporary public soundwork on 11th August.
Double Down Disco is the musical partnership between two Dumfries natives and DJs, Les Ross and Lewis Boddy. Best known locally as a Disco DJ duo playing B2B at parties and festivals, the pair are looking forward to a brand-new challenge; creating an immersive sonic adventure for the Rosefield Mills soundwork at this year’s Nithraid.
Les and Lewis are both excited to be producing an original piece for such an iconic building in their home town, and feel this is a great opportunity for them to be able to showcase their abilities and ambitions.
This year, we are using Nithraid as a creative platform to support community efforts. Rosefield Mills, a former Victorian textile mill, is an iconic Dumfries landmark. Over this past year Dumfries Historic Buildings Trust have raised the money to purchase the building (by public donation and a grant from the local council). They are now working on ambitious plans to bring it back into use for the town.
Nithraid takes place between 12noon and 6pm on Saturday 11th August, and the soundwork will begin at 4pm. As the immediate area around the Mill is not suitable for public accessibility, the audience is invited to listen from the other side of the river at the Dock Park.
Double Down Disco will also be hosting workshops in the lead up to Nithraid. Their ‘Double Down Drop-In’ will be at the Stove as part of Dumfries Music Conference’s event ‘DMC Social’ on Thursday 19th August at 7pm, where participants have the opportunity to play with samples and sounds on a Midi Controller and Midi Keyboard, helping to contribute to the overall sound piece at Nithraid.
