Forth Valley Open Studios

My garden today covered under a blanket of snow


Did you know that most people have never an artist and certainly never visited one in her/his studio?

this was pointed out to me last night when I attended networking event with several friends involved in setting up Forth Valley Open Studios in the Dunbalne Hydro.

It was organised by VisitScotland.com to promote tourism in the area.

Everyone we mentioned our project to was really enthusiastic because it ticked all the right boxes i.e. it offered people a new experience, it involved visiting beautiful parts of the Scottish countryside , it had something there for children too and it was free!

I guess we are on to a winner...

So far 34 artists in the Forth Valley have expressed an interest in participating in the project and we have anaother public meeting planned for January 21st in Alloa- weather permitting.

NEA Arts report

Are we moving from passive consumption to active creation? if one is optimistic that is one possible interpretation of the American study NEA report
(http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=6221)
which shows a national decline in all arts and sports where there is passive consumption.

There's another scenario: would people rather consume arts and sport via digital media in the comfort of their own homes rather than sit with strangers in some expensive location...just a thought?

Celebrations for centenary of Macintosh building - people gathering for the projections on three sides of the building


Professor Roger Wilson, Head of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art in his studio

View from the staircase

The Loggia, better known as "the hen run".

Attended the centenary celebrations of the Macintosh building yesterday. Place heaving with celebrities, politicians, and the movers and shakers from the international art world including Tony Jones , former Head of GSA and now with The School of the Art Insitute, Chicago.


Met the new Head of Fine Art, Professor Roger Wilson in his studio where he was painting and chatting to visitors ( nice touch!). He comes to Glasgow from Chelsea College of Art and Design.

I graduated in 2001 and it was good to be back in the Macintosh building. It reminded me again that the building is a "feast for the eyes", not surprising since Charles Rennie Macintosh, a part-time student, knew what art students wanted.

Amateurs versus professional artists

Iphone art: "dancing"


That hoary old chestnut "amateur versus professional artists" has reared its head again as the debate over Open Studios begins.

Pointed out to a professional artist friend that participants will have to pay only to be told:"they can afford it because they have jobs and paint part-time".
Oh dear!.... why can't everyone accept that there different strands of art and many different kinds of art and artists.


Let the public decide!

Forth Valley Artist Open Studios

I am still reeling from the shock of discovering at yesterday's meeting of Forth Valley Artists that no data base exists of artists in the area! I would have thought it would have been the first job of any Visual Arts Officer to make certain that he/she had an up-to-date list of all artists.

This accounts for the poor response to our first meeting - 10 plus our two guest speakers. I had assumed ( wrongly as it turned out) that the Changing Room gallery, a local funded gallery by the council, had a list. It was only discovered half way through the meeting that most of the people attending had not received an email from the Changing Room informing them of the meeting.


Later discovered a "glitsch". Sure enough the new Visual Arts Officer confirmed that such a list does not exist. Unless artists have approached them for grants or signed their Visitors Book then they have no record of their existence.

Now Perthshire artists have a very active art scene . They have a flourishing Visual Arts Forum which provided a data base for the Perthshire Open Studios to work from.

We have to start from scratch.....

e-Christmas card

Take time out from writing Christmas cards and view this e-card sent out by Glasgow School of Art.
Is this the way forward?

This card is colourful, lively, interactive and what's more environmentally sound , oh yes and its free!

er....if the link doesn't work try this: www.gsa.ac.uk/seasonsgreetings

"Dancer"drawn on my Iphone while travelling into Edinburgh by train.
Who says you need a studio now to create work?


Have put posters out for the open meeting for Forth Valley Open Studios. Response so far is good. Meeting fixed for Saturday December 12 in the Changing Room gallery's eduation room- courtesy of Arts Officer Emma Hamilton, Stirling.

The link economy- and artists

"Fish" created on my Iphone

In this new online world of the linked economy- OK I don't really understand it either but the world is shifting under our feet even though we may be standing still-I am not certain where artists fit in.

What sort of work do we make and how do we sell it? some pointers to the future come in today's Guardian"Money" section Tot Taylor , director of the Riflemaker gallery makes some predictions:

"It will be about formats and mediums ( new and old), not so much painting, sculpture and photography but more textiles and tapestries, digital art, gardening art, Eco at, all things cosmic, woodcuts and even wax."

Oh yes, and "outsider art".

Collapse of newspapers

I used to work on newspapers and I still love the feel of them and read them avidly. So it was with great sadness I heard yesterday that two of my favourite supplements Guardian IT and Observer Business and Media are about to be pulled. Yes, another sign of the rapidly changing world we live in.

Cafe Flicker, open cinema Glasgow

If you are interested in making films, especially low budget ones on a shoestring, then a visit to Cafe Flicker, the monthly open cinema in Glasgow is a must. It's run by Glasgow Media Access Centre and I have been a member for years , first introduced to it while a student at Glasgow School of Art.

They have moved into their smart new building on the 5th floor of 103 Trongate.

The standard has shot up - something we attribute to the ease of new digital technology and falling price of decent camcorders. Eleven films were shown on Wednesday night and they ranged from a documentary on Romanian gypsies singing, never seen footage of an interview with George Harrison, ( yes of the Beatles!) to a community documentary on the Citizens community theatre in the Gorbals.

Oh yes we had experimental films too and the funniest was one involving a frog...

Iphone art - David Hockney

My first attempts with "Brushes" the Iphone drawing app.

I was interested to read in last Sunday's Observer profile in the colour magazine on David Hockney , that he uses the Iphone app "Brushes".


He has always been known to be a fan of new technologies - remember his fax art?- so it was inevitable that he would "discover" the Iphone as a painting tool.

What's more he's 72 years of age.




Well, I have just loaded this app on to my Iphone .
Here's some tentative results...

Buena Vista Social Club- Glasgow

Saw the film Buena Vista Social in New York so was curious to see this bunch of musicians live last night.
I was not disappointed. They played to a packed audience in Glasgow's Royal concert hall and they had them on their feet clapping, singing and dancing.

Forth Valley Open Studios

Have started to sound out people who may be interested in opening their studios to the public next year - Perthshire and Fife already run very successful Open Studio weekends.
Among the first to express an interest is Polish textile artist Ewa Kuniczak . Her website feltheadtotoe is worth checking out.

It is just one example of the vast amount of talent lurking in the Scottish hills around here.

Screenprinting - The Big Draw

My first screenprint : "Untitled"

Thanks to the national arts project "The Big Draw" which aims to get everyone drawing I got a chance to try my hand at screen printing in a workshop held at The Tolbooth, Stirling .

Our tutor, Andrew Mackenzie managed in three hours to give us an intensive introduction to the process which ended up with us all walking away with several screen prints each! quite an achievement!

We used the current exhibition of Aladsair Gray's prints as source material. After an introduction and brief history of screen printing we were taken to the exhibition and given quarter of an hour to draw an image from which we would later develope a stencil for screen printing.

I must admit that I entered the workshop feeling a bit sceptical: how on earth could be do a screen print from scratch in such a short time? Andrew proved me wrong. I m now an enthusiast of screen printing and want to find out more.

Glasgow Print Studio

Have started to prepare work for my exhibition next February and the first piece of work I want to complete is some digital prints on Japanese paper.

Well, I went into Glasgow Print studio to discuss whether it would be possible to do this on their new printer.

"No way!" says the director standing in the middle of his state-of-the-art new printing premises.
"That machine cost us £6,000".

OK he has a point so its back home to fiddle with my own printer and try to work out why some prints are coming out so heavily inked as to be unusable.

Well, I guess it is just another hurdle that those of us working with new media face weekly if not daily. Unlike making traditional art we can't ring up a friend or seek out expert advice on how to solve these problems, because nobody has ever done it before. It is a case that we all have to work it out as we go along.

Writing- fluid process

I was interested to hear on Radio 4 this morning Jeffrey Archer discuss his book "Cain and Abel" which he has re-written after 30 years. A Professor of English literature was asked to comment and he said that in future with the introduction of electronic books we are going to be seeing a lot more of this taking place.

He said:"Writing will become a much more fluid process with books changing all the time."

Well, this is what I am discovering now for more information keeps coming in which could so easily be incorporated into "The Children of Craig-y-nos" if it was an e-book instead of a printed book.

But the fact is though that we are still of a generation that likes to hold a book in our hands.

I suspect the youngsters of today will have no such inhibitions and will take to screen reading of books like the proverbial ducks to water...

Transmission gallery

Had a look at the new exhibition in the Transmission gallery, Glasgow. Almost didn't go in because I glanced through the window and saw what appeared to be a room full of empty canvases.

Glad I did. It shows the work of Berlin based artist Klaus Weber who is on a mission to highlight the problems of disappearing bees due to global changes. The canvases were splattered with bee excrement.

Meanwhile I am getting into a bit of a panic over my forthcoming exhibition - I hadn't realised that the space I had been allocated covered two floors! maybe I ought to find someone to share with.

Old technology and new technology

Iphone drawing

On train to Glasgow Print Studio I download a free e-book, catch up with emails, check out new range of camcorders and read a couple of newspaper articles, and do some drawings - all on my Iphone.

Realise paper plays less and less a role in my life so why am I dabbling in the past with arcane printing processes? the answer is that there is something very satisfying about making images on paper.

A useful analogy is cars: when cars replaced horses this did not mean the end of horses. Oh no, they became luxury objects , no longer the sole means of transport they are used for the sheer pleasure of riding today.

They even developed large vehicles, horseboxes, for carrying the horses around the country...

103 Trongate Arts centre

Off to the new 103 Trongate Arts Centre in Glasgow with some prints to be framed for upcoming exhibition, except I have some misgivings .

Am I just adding " objects" to an already overcrowded world? this is something that has been on my mind for some time so I was interested to read the other day that Damien Hirst has announced he will stop doing his spot paintings because the world "already has too many art objects".

Well it is OK for him having made his millions but what about the rest of us struggling to earn a crust?


So I will go into Glasgow and get my prints framed.

Macintosh on BBCIplayer

If you missed Mackintosh's Masterpiece on the BBC on Monday why not watch it on the BBC iPlayer at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n0wrh/Mackintoshs_Masterpiece_The_Glasgow_School_of_Art/

(Sorry bugs in the system link should work).