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| Its Art Jim but not as...etc |
More than 60 folk turned out on Wednesday – drawn by an
invitation to come and be part of the future of the arts in the region by
shaping the idea of a membership that will be at the heart of the organisations
operation and decision -making.
Phil Jones (Business Development Manager) gave a welcome and
defined the Stove as a project with potential to be at the vanguard of a new
genre of arts provision in Scotland – a social enterprise that aims to means
for residents of Dumfries to play an active part in the future of their town.
Phil describes the Stove as ‘Two things: 1) A Building -
fully accessible arts resource for general public and creative
practitioners….and 2) An Organisation – delivering participative public arts
projects and undertaking commissions in the region and nationally”
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| The Stove - 'Punkin' the Jubilee' |
One of the Stove’s founder members Colin Tennant then gave a
brief illustrated presentation of work completed by the group to date and their
plans for the future. To date, The Stove has delivered a highly successful
programme of public arts events including ‘First Foot’ (part of Big Burns
Supper 2012), ‘Punkin’ the Jubilee’ (Guid Nychburris 2012) and the Dumfries
Music Conference – which brought industry professionals to the town to explain
the contemporary digital music scene to the regions young music entrepreneurs.
In 2013/14 The Stove will refurbish and open premises at 100
High St as a public arts centre, complete a sculpture commission in Creetown
and work as one of three local partners delivering the inaugural Environmental
Art Festival Scotland.
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| Andrew Lyon explains a sculpture made by, amongst others, Zoe Blamire (McGill Duncan Gallery) and Cathy Agnew (Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust) |
For the main part of the evening Andrew Lyon of the International Futures Forum
led a workshop that started people working in small groups to make sculptures
from a pile of recycled materials. Andrew’s organisation works to find creative
ways of thinking about the future and he asked groups to build a sculpture that illustrated ideas and hope
they had for what The Stove could do for themselves and the wider community.
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Local organic farmer Ross Paten demonstrates how regular
drain clearing will be a valuable part of The Stove’s remit…
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An amazing outpouring of creativity ensued and groups then
explained to others what their sculpture represented. Andrew Lyon then
skilfully gathered all these ideas together into a creative discussion about
how The Stove could operate as a democratic organisation with a membership, a
board and an ‘curatorial committee’. A general discussion followed and 43
people signed up as the initial membership of The Stove.
Membership is open to everyone and is free – if you would
like to be a part of the innovative experiment in building a collaborative
creative organisation for Dumfries and Galloway then please send an email to TheStove1@gmail.com and you’ll be sent a
membership form.
The first Stove AGM is set for mid May 2013 where the
membership will be invited to elect a board to run the organisation on their behalf.
