The Stove Network
Every Tuesday at The Stove is Drop-In Day. Yesterday, we had some very special visitors all the way from India—the Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band, no less! The band were in the region courtesy of our friends at DG Arts Festival, who asked if they could spend an afternoon with The Stove and host a workshop in the evening.
Quite a day at The Stove… bring on some more! Another Drop-In next week—are you coming?
Photos courtesy of Brian Pritchard, Ellen Mitchell, and Graeme Robertson.
What would Dumfries say?
Sometimes things start small.
Whilst working with the Young Stove to imagine what The Stove could become, this thought arose: The Stove would undoubtedly have quite a lot to say. But what about the rest of the town? If the old buildings in Dumfries could speak, what stories would they tell?
If the old brig would speak, what stories would it tell?
Would it shout loud, or whisper quietly to a neighbour? We thought it best to ask around.
Responses are flooding in, and orange speech bubbles are floating around town. (What would Rabbie say, sitting with his view of the High Street?) Which places have the loudest voices? Voices began to pour in thick and fast, helped along by Herald Moxie and a band of merry Young Stovies.
Want to see more speech bubbles? A selection is available here.
Which speech bubbles could we stand up for? Which voices could we wear?
There comes a time when it is wise to call in an expert. Our expert on hand was the talented and patient printmaker and artist, Sarah Keast. An island of calm amidst the apparent chaos, The Stove was like a ship sailing through a wild afternoon of frenzied T-shirt printing.
And still, we printed on. We ran out of T-shirts, made a quick T-shirt run, printed more T-shirts, and ran out of ink before the afternoon was through—printing nearly 140 T-shirts in just four hours. The Young Stove proved themselves to be an unstoppable tide of creative energy.
Beyond Doubt Into Love may well be a T-shirt for a moment in time. One thing’s for sure: they are a rare and precious commodity, created by our community. If anyone has a large men’s in neon pink, we’ve had a request for one.
This is less of an end and more of a beginning—keep an eye out for speech bubbles. Once you start noticing them, they tend to pop up all over the place…
#GetDumfriesTalking
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.
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].
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.
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.
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!
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!
To see the full set of photos from the event, head to our Flickr page [here].
From Callum Davidson
“Back in October I got the chance to take part in Parking Space set up by the Stove and Sleeping Giants. Such a great weekend meeting all the people there, having a great time skating and filming and just soaking up the good times. The whole idea that every level you went down was a new event to watch and take part in really made it for me. Here’s some stills from a video in the works from the event I filmed with Mutual Motion.”
Watch Callum’s short film created as part of Parking Space here:
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Keep up with Callum and his film and photography work online:
Twitter: @MutualMotion
Tumblr: http://mutualmotion.tumblr.com/
