Tag: visual art

Conversing Building x Access Art: A Tree, A Forest

April 24 @ 9:00 am – May 6 @ 3:00 pm

AccessArt – Learning Disability Week Exhibition – A Tree, A Forest. 

This month’s cafe exhibition has been created by AccessArt as part of our Conversing Building programme. AccessArt has been part of the creative community of Dumfries and Galloway for the past 20 years, facilitating creative opportunities for individuals and communities who have experienced barriers to inclusion.

Our commitment to this continues through our program of sessions & workshops we deliver out of the Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries.

This year the theme for Learning Disability Weeks is “lead to change.” Having thought about this and what leadership means to us as a group and individually, we found the term “Nothing for us without us.” It brought together the groups feelings about being included in the decisions made that affects their lives.

We wanted to create an artwork that dealt with a representation of “us,” while retaining the idea that we are all individuals. From nature we found our inspiration; the motif of a tree. A single tree becomes a forest when repeated. This idea spoke to us about being connected through our shared experiences and the power of a collective voice.

Our collaborative artwork has taken the form of a collage, in which each participant has added their interpretation of a tree/s. 
As participants added more trees, relationships formed between these differing elements, creating new and unexpected narratives within the collage. Alongside it are supporting artworks to show the development of our ideas.

“At AccessArt we are inclusive, adaptable, creative left-field thinkers, who see through potential barriers to participation, who provide a safe non-judgemental space with the appropriate levels of support with a good amount of encouragement.”

The artworks will be on display from the 24th of April to the 6th of May, open during The Stove cafe hours.

The Stove Cafe

100 High Street
Dumfries, DG1 2BJ United Kingdom
01387 252435
View Venue Website

Level Access in rear of building through adjacent close to left-hand side of the Cafe (facing the front of the building). To ensure your experience with us is as best as it can be, please do let us know if you have any specific access requirements and we’d be happy to help. Please email Kevin or Sal on: [email protected] or phone 01387 252435 and speak with one of our team. We are able to provide walk-throughs of the building before attending our events as well as assign seating before your arrival.

Categories
News Project Updates

Sanquhar in Focus

Image credit – Baillie Reid, Sanquhar Camera Club

Young people have been exploring Sanquhar life through a lens and documenting what it is like to grow up in the town. Part of the What We Do Now (WWDN) project, Sanquhar in Focus is the first exhibition of Sanquhar Camera Club (SCC ). It opens on and runs to Friday 8 April to Friday 6 May 2022. 

The five talented young photographers and filmmakers who formed the SCC are Elliot Brydon Brown, Tarian Hunter, Baillie Reid, Hannah Smith and Hollie Walker. They are supported by WWDN artists, Colin Tennant and Saskia Coulson, who have delivered talks and presentations in Sanqhuar Academy including a six-week photo workshop programme.

Image credit – Sanquhar Camera Club

On the creation of the club Saskia Coulson said: “often as artists, we are invited to join an existing group or community to collaborate or share a certain skill set with. For What We Do Now in Sanquhar, a community of young people interested in creative practice didn’t exist from the get-go and there were months of working with A’ the Airts, the local community and secondary school to establish the collective.” 

“I wish this group had been running for years because I love it.”

SCC Student Hollie Walker

SCC students have emersed themselves in learning about the creative industries and developing a wide range of photographic and filmmaking skills. Many of these skills were brand new to the group. 

“I didn’t even know I liked photography and filmmaking, but I really enjoy it now and want to become a professional photographer.”

SCC Student Baillie Reid

The Sanquhar in Focus exhibition of new work by the Sanquhar Camera Club opens on Friday 8  April from 4 to 6pm at A’ the Airts (8-12 High Street, Sanquhar, DG4 6BL). It runs until Friday 6 May during regular opening times. 

Image credit – Sanquhar Camera Club

Sanquhar Spring Half Term Activities 

A’ the Airts is hosting a programme of creative events and workshops for young people during the April half-term holiday.  to learn about other areas of the creative industries including graphic design, screen printing, sculpture and many more. 

The events and workshops, open for all young people between 13-18, have been organised by What We Do Now (WWDN) artists, Colin Tennant and Saskia Coulson and emerging Sanquhar artist, Jack Stancliffe. 

Colin said “we’ve invited several very talented creatives who are all from Dumfries and Galloway and in their 20s and 30s to lead the workshops. We’ve done this because we want the young people of Sanquhar to meet and learn from young adults who come from a similar area and background and are working professionally in different disciplines across the creative industries. Essentially, it’s about connecting them with inspirational people to help them understand that anything can be possible through creativity.”

Find out more

Screen Printing and Sanquhar Stamp Design, Thursday 7 & Friday 8 April, 11.30am to 4pm

Post Office Sculpture Building, Saturday 9 April, 12noon – onwards.

Fashion & Design – The Sanquhar Pattern with Kirsty Geddes, Monday 11 April, 1 to 4pm

Publications & Magazines – DIY (Do It Yourself) ZINES with Callai Watson, Tuesday 12 April, 1 to 4pm

Music Videos – Creating Music Videos and Band Photos with Ruari Barber-Fleming, Wednesday 13 April, 1 to 4pm

Categories
News Opportunities

Cafe – Community – Creativity: Exhibition Call Out

The Stove Cafe x Conversing Building

We’ve spent more time at home than we ever thought we would. What sorts of things did you get up to during the past 14 months? Maybe you started painting again, or learned how to knit, or made collages to send to your friends or started taking photographs on your phone. We’d love to celebrate the little acts of creativity we have all made at home, and share them in our café.

The Stove Café and the Conversing Building project would like you to submit or loan your artworks to us for a Community Café Exhibition in June 2021. Works can be 2D or 3D, measuring no more than 60cm in any direction please. All artworks will be displayed in our public café so please make sure that the work you submit is suitable for all ages.

How to Submit

Artworks can be dropped off to The Stove Café during regular opening hours Wed-Sat, 10-3pm, but please make sure you have included your contact details so that we can return your work to you. If we receive a large number of submissions we may not be able to display all works. Please do not submit more than two artworks per person.

If you have any queries about whether your creative work will be suitable, please drop us an email to [email protected], or pop into the Stove café and ask one of our team.

All artworks must be submitted by Monday 31st May 2021.

The exhibition will run from the 2nd to the 30th June 2021.

Categories
Musings Project Updates

Glaciers in the Stove Cafe

FORTUNA | FOGGYDOG | CHILD’S | SOCKS | DENNISTOUN | ANT HILL | BYRD | LEONARDO | DECEPTION | CREVASSE | PINE ISLAND | POLAR TIMES | SHAMBLES | SHARK FIN | UTOPIA | ZEPHYR | ROSE VALLEY | MYKLEBUSTBREEN | KUTIAH LUNGMA | KING OSCAR | SUN | SALMON | SILVERTHRONE | RADIANT | CHAOS | CROWFOOT | FOX | GREY | HELHEIM

There are 178,000* glaciers currently around the world. How many of them can you name?

People name things for lots of reasons; to claim ownership, to map, to locate, to commemorate or congratulate, to know or mark a time, or a place or a landscape.

In the naming of things we gain familiarity. It is easier to image a glacier called Foggydog, than one without a name.

If we can’t name them, how will we miss them when they are gone?

At the moment, 10% of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice, including glaicers, ice camps and ice sheets. Glacial ice store about 69% of the world’s fresh water, if all land ice melted, sea level would rise by approximately. 70 metres worldwide.

Glacial ice often appears blue when it becomes very dense. Years of compression gradually make the ice denser over time, forcing out the tine air pockets between crystals.

Since the early 20th Century, glaciers around the world have been retreating at unprecedented rates. Many are retreating so rapidly that they may vanish within a matter of decades. Glaciers are considered among the most sensitive indicators of climate change as they are so affected by long term climatic change such as precipitation, mean temperature and cloud cover.

In the Stove cafe as part of our Christmas decorations, we have christened over 80 of our festive baubles ceremoniously after some of our favourite glacier names, alongside the co-ordinates so you can look them up yourself. Pop in for a closer look.

Categories
News

Groundswell: New Sculptures for Lochside

The second of a series of public artworks will be unveiled in Lochside in a public celebration on Wednesday, 12th December.

The artwork Groundswell is comprised of a series of six sandstone sculptures made from Locharbriggs stone by artists Susheila Jamieson and James Gordon. Over the past six months, Susheila and James have been based at the Family Centre on Lochside Road, carving each of the stones on site there. The artists thoroughly enjoyed their time in the community of Lochside and all the conversations they had with local folk and the workshops they did for the children.

The site for the works is based in the area of DGHP’s new properties at The Meadows, Lochside.

Groundswell is one of four Lochside Public Art Projects, commissioned by DGHP and managed by The Stove Network, who are based in Dumfries town centre. The first, Tattiefields was unveiled in September, and the final artworks will be installed in the next couple of months.

James and Susheila who are based in the Borders, were selected for the commission following an open call earlier in the year. James and Susheila said, “The idea behind these sculptures is to commemorate local quarrying and working of stone. Dumfries was built of sandstone and it’s history has been carved into it. Sadly, work has recently stopped at the local Locharbriggs quarry, the boulders for Groundswell were some of the last to be taken from the quarry.

We have really enjoyed, and will miss, working outside the Family Centre in Lochside.  It has been an  ideal way to meet people from the local community and we really appreciated all the encouraging , friendly comments and chats! Working in the public eye hopefully has let people have some insight into the process behind creating Groundswell.”

The artworks will be officially unveiled at the site in the Meadows at 3.45pm on Wednesday, 12th December. All are welcome to attend Full details available here.

Categories
News

In Flight

Both birds and humans have migrated for millennia, whether seeking more abundant food, or more favourable climates. Some of these journeys are regular and temporary, others more permanent, perhaps due to catastrophe or dreams of a achieving a better life elsewhere.
Currently Europe is seeing a huge influx of migrants and –stoked by the vitriol of a malicious press and an ugly political mood – it’s becoming alarmingly commonplace to consider our fellow human beings as pests, no matter how urgent their need for shelter and security. Our individual and collective capacity to help them remains largely unfulfilled.
Perhaps it would be useful to imagine a scenario where we are the migrants – climate change predictions (irrespective of whether it’s a natural cycle or mans interference at the root cause) suggest there won’t be many decades before this becomes a reality. Arguably it already is, with people displaced from their homes from the increasingly damaging floods we experience in the UK.

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In Flight itself depicts both birds and people; in the end we are the same, following evolutionary paths birthed in the stars. Fluttering on the wind, lit by the sun and moon, refreshed by the falling rains, the intermingling of the white birds and the people offers a prayer of peace and love to our family in need across the globe.
The location of the installation is an unused close in Dumfries and the first work will be to clean it, to prepare a welcoming space for the flock. Experimental and expressive, the artwork will only fully take shape upon completion.

In Flight will take place during our Chapter One event on Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th November, in a nearby close. For details of where to find the work drop into the Bakers Oven and ask for directions. Full details about Chapter One available here

In Flight has been created by artist and photographer Morag Paterson. More details about her work available here

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