Apple store Glasgow and exhibitions

Image created on Ipad.

I need to upgrade my computer ( Macbook or Imac? can't decide) so I visit the Apple store in Glasgow .

The place is heaving with young people , along with a sprinkling of oldies like myself.


I need sharp elbows to get to the machines. But a lifetime in newspaper journalism has equipped me with that and I am soon lost in the latest Apple dream machines.

Buoyed up with this vision of our digital world I stroll along to visit an exhibition which had good reviews.

But the gallery is empty despite it being a very busy Friday in the city . Not a good sign. I soon realise why.

After the moving images and inter-activity of the Apple store the work hanging on the walls looks, not to mince words, dead.

I am overcome with a tremendous sense of deja-vu.

The paintings just hangs there. They tell me nothing about the world I live in. In fact they could have been done 20, 50 or even 100 years ago.

It's said the average time spent in an exhibition is 45 minutes. I am in and out in less than ten.

Stunned I decide to visit my favourite bookshop, only to find it has been replaced by a mobile phone shop.

Welcome to the 21st century and the turbulent age we live in.


PS. Still undecided...do I need a laptop when I've got an ipad? but that's another story.

The Red Tree- Open Studio weekend

Josefina de Unamuno, a retired Spanish doctor based in Stirling and now a practising artist, was among the artists participating in The Red Tree Open Studio weekend.

Organised by artist Catherine Froy the event is a spin-off from
Forth Valley Open Studios. Others taking part were May Chipulina, Diana Hand and Libby Yule.

The consensus is that it was a great success in terms of visitors - between 60-70, sales, networking and in raising the profile of artists in the Forth Valley.

As one visitor remarked:"I think its great the way all these studios are finally opening their doors. This year I have been to ones in Perthshire, Forth Valley, Trossachs and now this. "

Take a look at her blog to view the exhibition:
www.josefinadeunamuno.blogspot.com

Trossachs Open Studios

(caption) Dave Hunt of Westerlix Studios, Killin with Rob Mulholland's mirrored sculpture of a human figure along with Kiera, Wenwen and Ann.


Well, the first Trossachs Open Studios weekend got off to a very wet start. We had some visitors that weekend from China so we took the opportunity to show them a side of British life they had never seen before.

They liked the friendliness and informality of the Open Studios where we just wandered into peoples houses...

Perthshire Open Studios

Perthshire Open Studios

Perthshire Open Studios, or POS as they are known as, are set in some of the most fantastic scenic locations in Scotland.
It is worth visiting them just for the drive there! Everything from a castle and stately home to a portakabin and converted garage.
And the scenery is breathtaking.

Three of us from Forth Valley Open Studios - Avril Nicol, Jacqueline Marr and myself- visited a number.

(caption) Jacqueline Marr outside the Tempest studio/gallery in Aberfeldy holding up a screenprint by Ryan Hannigan.

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Perthshire Open Studios

Ipad drawing


Visited David Murton, chair of Perthshire Open Studios in Crook of Devon. He has a mini business going at home with his garage converted into a studio , garden shed into a framing workshop and his house into a gallery!
Tomorrow we do a tour of more studios.

Roy Petrie, former colleagues on The Herald, ( graphic artist) had his exhibition opening at Scion House, Stirling University on Saturday- big turn out of journalists and ex journalists from The Herald. It was more like our annual reunion.

Am busy going through major de-clutterirng of studio. Still experimenting with Ipad finding out exactly the limits of the software.

Ann Shaw Blog: Jupiter Artland

Ann Shaw Blog: Jupiter Artland

Jupiter Artland

Cornelia Parker, '"Landscape with Gun and Tree"', cast iron and corten steel, 14 August 2010. This piece by Cornelia Parker is based on Gainsborough's "Mr and Mrs Andrews" of a couple posed under a tree with Mr Andrews carrying the gun. Here the gun has been left leaning against a tree, possibly loaded. Photo: Ann Shaw.


It's not often I rave about work I see these days but I was gobsmacked at the quality and quantity of sculpture in Jupiter Artland the private sculpture park near Edinburgh opened last year.

These are some of the sculptors: Anish Kapoor, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Antony Gormley, Andy Goldsworthy, Mac Quinn, Cornelia Parker and Charles Jencks.

Well worth a visit. Or Google Jupiter Artland.
Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n
This is the first time I have used the sharing link from AN - and it seems to work! just a short par about Francis Alys - an artist new to me whose exhibition at Tate Modern I have just seen - first time I have seen work that was truly "different".

Kirkcudbright riding of the marches

Just spent a few days in Kirkcudbright and stumbled across this ancient tradition of Riding of the Marches where 93 riders and horses and ponies ride the boundaries of the Royal Burgh of Kirkcudbright, a practise started in July 1485, and carried out every year since.

They make frequent stops at several pubs and hotels and they are given free drinks.

Kirkcudbright- Jessie King's former studio

This weekend is the Kirkcudbright Art and Crafts Trail .

I have just stayed in Greengate, former home of Jessie King, one of the most famous of the "Glasgow Girls" artists.

The new owners Pauline and Colin Saul are also artists and founder members of the Art and Crafts trail and they let me film inside their studio.

Melodala software

Just downloaded Melodala software to my Ipad. It makes a very quick easy to use interactive drawing tool- designed by guys in the Tate Modern and used in their current inter-active exhibition.

The Gurkhars in Scotland

The Gurkhars were performing at the Alva Highland Games despite the rain, noise from the fairground and an audience that were largely unattentive.

In the circumstances they did very well.

Forth Valley Open Studios - June

Well, I guess it's finally over and we are all chilling out and enjoying some well earned down-time.

But its been a fantastic success! One of the features of the first ever Forth Valley Open Studios were the unusual locations that some artists chose to show-case their work- portakabin, church, marquee, pub- partly because their own studios couldn't cope with an influx of visitors.


David Tapner hired the upstairs room in the Westerton pub, Bridge of Allan and had between 280-300 visitors ! Oh yes and he sold overe 20 paintings too.



Diana Hands from Stirling had a marquee in her garden and this proved popular too.

I had a stready stream of visitors - 82 in all and to be honest I couldn't have coped with hundreds coming through the house especially as I had a sound installation of wolves.

Neighbours complained so I only switched it on when visitors arrived.

Cathy Peattie at Delta Studios

Cathy Peattie, MSP, with Craig McKechnie, director of Delta Studios, Ann Shaw , secretary Forth Valley Open Studios and Lys Hansen, chair of Forth Valley Open Studios at exhibition launch.

(Photograph - Dave Hunt)

Cathy Peattie, the "singing politician" opens our exhibition

Cathy Peattie , MSP, ( bold pattern) with members of the Forth Valley Open Studios committee.


Lys Hansen, chair of Forth Valley Open Studios, with Avril Nicol, Project Co-ordinator
Well it's done!
We have just had the official opening of the first ever Forth Valley Open Studios "taster exhibition" with over 100 participating artists less than six months since we had the idea....and all without any official grant.

This is a totally artist-led initiative, something that the "singing MSP" Cathy Peattie made mention of in her introduction .
Then she sang "Bread and Roses" - to great acclaim.

But we couldn't have done it without a lot of support especially from Craig McKechnie at Delta Studios and Avril Nicol, who acted as our Volunteer Coordinator on the project and, of course, endless support from Gill and Dave Hunt of Perthshire Open Studios on whom we modelled the whole project even using their designer, Rosy Naylor from Edinburgh.

Cathy Peattie singing


(Video -Ann Shaw, photographs - Karen Howard)

Forth Valley Open Studios - June

Countdown to launch on Friday. Everything going to plan. Cathy Peattie, MSP, will sing for us to officially launch Forth Valley Open Studios- apaprently she has an amazing voice.

It is appropriate that Cathy will do the opening because her background is in the voluntary sector where she has played a major role in the community.
Check her out at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/msp/membersPages/cathy_peattie/

Cathy Peattie, MSP- gallery opening

Life has been so hectic recently that have not had time to update my blog.
Cathy Peattie, MSP for Grangemouth, has agreed to open the launch exhibition for Forth Valley Open Studios on June 4th in Delta Studios.

We regard this as something of a coup - especially as she has agreed to sing at the event too!

Screenprinting- Glasgow Print Studio

Screenprint right. Original image (left) created on iPhone and printed out as a photograph.


Where is the delete button? I have just completed a weekend screen printing course at Glasgow Print Studio and on more than one occasion I found myself automatically looking for the delete button - I work digitally - so it was something of a novel experience to be dabbling in this ancient technology invented thousands of years ago by the Chinese.


Yes I love screen prints but I found myself asking: why can't this be done digitally? and of course to a certain extent it can. The hand made print is superior to the machine made one but ... I remain unconvinced that it is for me.

What finally convinced me was that towards the end of the two day course I was about to print my fourth colour and accidentally picked up a squeegee left by previous student who
asked to take my place in the queue ("I will be very quick" he promised but of course he wasn't -).
The result? You've guessed - he had red paint on his squeegee, which turned my yellow into a burnt orange..
And there was no going back.
If only there had been a delete button…

Short list - medical book award

Carole Reeves and Ann Shaw taken in Carole's office at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of medicine, UCL


Well, we didn't win an award for the "Children of Craig-y-nos" but, along with four other runners-up, we received a certificate
commending us "for excellence in communicating medical and health information in a book for the lay reader".

The prize was awarded to "Medic: saving lives - from Dunkirk to Afghanistan by John Nichol and tony Rennell - a very worthy winner.

The Open Book Awards are given every year by the Medical Journalists Association.