Wednesday 31 October 2012

Nith Scoping - latest

Strange activities outside Hannah Brackston's Glasgow studio - Govanites are not known for being easily surprised...but folk examining tarmac in a mackintosh when its no raining.....


Hannah says:
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'Nith scoping is a new and activity I have invented to provide people in Dumfries with an exciting experience of their river from a perspective from which it is seldom seen. It addresses the challenge and struggle we can have in trying to understand and engage with natural forces (such as rivers) which we no longer have an industrial use for or much control of. In the case of the Nith in Dumfries, the river bed is one of the most talked of topics in the town, not because most people have actually seen it, but because it lies at the heart of strongly held dredging debate. It is trapped invisibly between those who want it to be removed to solve the towns enduring flooding problems and environmental groups and geologists who work to protect its essential biodiversity. In my attempt to understand this debate further I was troubled by a question; surely it is more meaningful to debate something we can actually look at? several adapted pieces of piping, magnifying lens, some recycled bicycle inner tubes, duck tape, truck tarpaulin and empty water bottles later, this has become possible…'

The Artist's Eye 4

This is the fourth in a series of pictures by Mike Inglis from his research in Dumfropolis - XL Stove T-Shirt to anyone who spots all the places (comment with your name below before anyone else) and the connections in Mike's work around the town......you'll have to wait for November 5th for that bit though.




to see the whole set - click the 'Mike Inglis' label on the contents menu - top right

Monday 29 October 2012

FREE EVENT - 8th November Bill Drummond + The Lost Supper


More on Bill Drummond at The Stove - here  and Bill's own Penkiln Burn site - here

More on the Lost Supper at The Stove - here and more - here

FREE EVENT: 7th November - Music and Fashion

For more about Lisa Gallacher's work for Inbetween:Dumfries - see all posts on this blog - here and her own project blog - here

For Suzanne Parry-John - see here


Mike Inglis - Street Shrines

Specially commissioned new works by Mike Inglis. One of Scotland’s leading public/street artists. Mike has been researching ‘outsiders’ and ‘custodians’ in Dumfries since May 2012. He has worked with community groups and historical information ranging from the execution of nine women accused of witchcraft in 1659 to the groundbreaking theraputic community at the former Crichton Hospital.  

Mike's work around Dumfries will include two 'window shrines' and six 'paste-upstreet shrines' - these will begin to appear in the town centre on November 4th and will be visible for as long as the good folk of Dumfropolis choose to leave them unmolested.

Download the Inbetween map for locations of the Street Shrines 

Images on this page are a couple of tantalising wee glimpses of work-in-progress

For all pages on this blog relating to Mike's work - see here

See Mike Inglis' blog Spaceboy1966 - see here

 

Nith Scoping - about to sweep the nation

Environmental Artist Hannah Brackston has spent 3 months exploring the different relationships that people have with the River Nith in Dumfries. Through the week of Inbetween:Dumfries the artist will be inviting people peer into the depths of the river using specially created Nith Scoping equipment. Also, look out for Hannah’s limited edition newspaper all about the Nith – available at venues around town.


Here are the details of how Nith Scoping works.....for detailed times and locations download the full inbetween programme and the map - or look in The Stove windows (100 High St, DG1 2BJ)



 Nith Scoping Times:

Monday 5th Nov         - 08.52 - 14.59 (Whitesands)
Tuesday 6th Nov         - 09.40 - 15.50 (Whitesands)
Wednesday 7th Nov    - 10.43 - 16.57 (Greensands)
Thursday 8th Nov       - 12.00 - 18.14 (Whitesands)
Friday 9th Nov            - 13.13 - 19.26 (Whitesands)

Saturday 10th Nov ......view all the Nith Scoping equipment and talk to the artist about the weeks experiences - come to The Stove between 3pm and 4pm.

All posts about Nith Scoping - here

Sunday 28 October 2012

The Artist's Eye 3

This is the third in a series of pictures by Mike Inglis from his research in Dumfropolis - XL Stove T-Shirt to anyone who spots all the places (comment with your name below before anyone else) and the connections in Mike's work around the town......you'll have to wait for November 5th for that bit though.




to see the whole set - click the 'Mike Inglis' label on the contents menu - top right

Friday 26 October 2012

Something Special this Way Comes

Lisa Gallacher is an artist from Dumfries who has worked all over the UK and Europe since graduating from Glasgow School of Art with an MFA in 2003. Since April Lisa has been working on a project called TDRM:Dumfries which has involved detailed research and making articles of bespoke clothing for 10 local folk.

Lisa Gallacher - Queensberry Street Fabric
This has been a truly ambitious undertaking with Lisa first designing and printing her own fabrics before turning them into new garments. This was the scene at the artist's temporary studio in The Stove in the centre of Dumfries today:



We'd urge anyone with an interest in the arts and seeing an artist working at the top of their game to come along to the public event marking the project (NB - the garments will not be on show like this again...this is a once only opportunity)

COME TO GREYFRIARS CHURCH, DUMFRIES....7pm on Wednesday the 7th November.....FREE (and a glass of wine to boot)

more details here

Mike Inglis - work-in-progress

Those who follow the work of Mike Inglis will be very intrigued and excited to see the image below. Mike's work is all about layers of exposure and his relationship to public space is an often troubled one for him. There is an aspect of his work that involves the 3D assembly of very private shrine works. Mike has often talked about ways that he could bring this side of his work into the public domain alongside his paste-ups and graphic work......maybe Dumfries might be about to see something very significant in Scottish art history.....


see here for information about where you can see Mike Inglis' work in Dumfries from 5th November

Thursday 25 October 2012

The Artist's Eye 2

This is the first in a series of pictures by Mike Inglis from his research in Dumfropolis - XL Stove T-Shirt to anyone who spots all the places (comment with your name below before anyone else) and the connections in Mike's work around the town......you'll have to wait for November 5th for that bit though.




to see the whole set - click the 'Mike Inglis' label on the contents menu - top right

Galloway and Me by Bill Drummond



Written specially for The Stove:
GALLOWAY & ME

My childhood was spent in Galloway. Its hills, rivers, tidal flats formed my understanding and love of the natural world. The Biblical stories I learnt before I could read mixed freely with the tales and legends learnt about the land around me to the point that Galilee and Galloway were one and the same. Was it the Boy David who confronted Goliath at Loch Trool or was it Robert the Bruce who faced the Philistines on the banks of the Jordan? When I learnt about Saint Ninian landing at the Isle of Whithorn bringing Christianity to our heathen forefathers, I assumed he was one of the Apostles and that he had just sailed across that Sea of Galilee. As for Tam o’Shanter, was he Old or New Testament?

At the age of 11 my family moved away. But that heady brew of wild landscape, Biblical stories, poetry, a sense that one was put on earth to do the right thing and the temptations of the flesh were always at hand has infiltrated and informed everything that I have done or attempted to do since. And then of course there was the work ethic.

And on the subject of work, everything I have done since the late 1990s has been framed within the context of The Penkiln Burn. This in one sense is an old fashioned publishing house and in another an online brand as artwork. The Penkiln Burn is also a small river that rises in the Galloway Hills and flows down into the River Cree at Minnigaff. It was on the banks of the Penkiln Burn that many of my boyhood adventures took place, a place that still fires my imagination to this day.

I am aware that if had spent my teenage years in Galloway my sense of it would be totally different, and that I would have probably viewed it as a cultural backwater that I could not wait to escape. But that was not the case.

As for Dumfries, that was another country altogether.

Bill Drummond 3 October 2012

Truly memorable film of Parton to Kirkcowan by way of Newton Stewart aboard a steam train way back in 1965 - accompanied by the track Madruga Eterna

Monday 22 October 2012

The artists eye 1

Always fascinating to see what an artist spots in your own town....this is the first in a series of pictures by Mike Inglis from his research in Dumfropolis - XL Stove T-Shirt to anyone who spots all the places (comment with your name below before anyone else) and the connections in Mike's work around the town......you'll have to wait for November 5th for that bit though.



to see the whole set - click the 'Mike Inglis' label on the contents menu - top right

InBetween:Dumfries. DGLife

Nestling deep within the pages of D&G Life, one encounters some fine visuals and a bit of explanation into what's happening with Inbetween.



Sunday 21 October 2012

Bill Drummond in Dumfries


Why Andy Warhol Is Shite

In 1973 Bill Drummond was coming to the end of his first academic year at Liverpool School of Art. He was studying painting. He loved painting. He wanted to spend the rest of his life painting. But something was troubling him. He thought even if he became a successful painter, even a great painter, all it would mean that his paintings would hang on the walls of a rich man apartment in New York.

The young and idealistic Drummond instinctively felt that this is not what art should be about. He put down his paint brush, walked away from the easel and out into the streets of Liverpool, in the hope that he could discover a way of making art that… The rest of his professional life to date has been about trying to work out what the “that” might be.

Some months before he laid down his paintbrush, he had visited the first Andy Warhol retrospective in the UK. It was at The Tate (Britain). The exhibition had blown him away. But over the next twelve months what had initially done the blowing, began to trouble him. The troubling progressed to the point that he thought what Andy Warhol represented was everything that was wrong with Art in the world at that time.

All the first year fine art students were expected to write a 4,000 word history of art essay on a topic of their choice. This essay was to be handed in by the end of the first academic year. Although he had a title for the essay he was unable to put any more than a few unconnected words on the page.

Most of the several hundred thousand words that Drummond has written and published since the summer of ’73 have been a continuation of this uncompleted essay. What he hopes to present in Dumfries will be 45 minute performance lecture based on where he is at with the essay at the moment. The working title is, as it was then, the now rather naïve Why Andy Warhol is Shite.

Mr Drummond standing in the Penkiln Burn (nr Newton Stewart) with a salmon and bluebells

You can be part of the audience for Bill's lecture 'Why Andy Warhol is Shite' by coming to Greyfriars Church (DG1 1DF) at 6pm on Thursday 8th November (free).


 

Saturday 20 October 2012

Lost???

They are on their way.....Right now the folk on their way to the Lost Supper are somewhere in Glasgow.....but word has it they are on their way back to where it all began - Dumfries

An Invitation

If Robert Burns was to host his own Supper, which of his contemporaries would he invite? And what if they got lost on their way?

William Blake....lost in Glasgow....and did those feet in ancient times.

Friday 19 October 2012

Inspired by Dumfries

Dumfries and Gallowayt Standard has had its reporters oot and aboot:

It wouldn’t be the first town you would think of if you were asked to name a fashion hot-spot of the world.

But thanks to visual artist Lisa Gallacher, a collection of bespoke pieces created and inspired by Doonhamers, and their town, will be exhibited here next month.

Fabric based in Paling's Window by Lisa Gallacher
TRDM: Dumfries is one of eight creative projects specially commissioned by artists’ collective The Stove for their exhibition InBetween:Dumfries.
The project will culminate in a collection of “Dumfries Inspired” made-to-measure garments being shown at The Stove’s base on the town’s High Street throughout the beginning of November.
The Dumfries born, internationally acclaimed artist has collaborated with ten local residents of all walks of life, to create an item of clothing, representing what the town means to them.

full story here 

more details and where you can see Lisa's work - here

Whats happening at the stove???


Thursday 18 October 2012

Inbetween:Dumfries

Arts events in the week of 5-10th November

Artist-collective The Stove has put together a week-long programme that celebrates Dumfries and offers folk the chance to be part of the future of their town. Six specially commissioned art projects will be presented in public spaces along with public performances and talks by leading thinkers + film screenings and concerts.

Highlights include:
·     ‘Why Andy Warhol is Shite’ – performance lecture by International Artist Bill Drummond
·      ‘Street Shrines’ – new work around Dumfries by one of Scotland’s leading street/public artists, Mike Inglis
·      ‘Greyfriars 1’ – world premiere of Suzanne Parry-John’s song cycle about the Nith and launch of artist Lisa Gallacher’s bespoke clothing collection TDRM:Dumfries
·      ‘Nith Scoping’ – Environmental Artist Hannah Brackston invites investigation of Dumfries’ river

Also look out for Marions Preez’s blue ‘Frames’ around the town and whatever you do – don’t miss ‘The Lost Supper’ a simultaneous voyage back in time and into the future + great food!
WHAT’S EVEN BETTER IS THAT IT IS ALL FREE
Download the full programme here
Download Inbetween:Dumfries map here