Why do we open our studios to the public?

Ann Shaw | Image | Artists talking | a-n

What do people expect from Open Studios?

We have just had the results from our survey from our third Forth Valley Open Studios and they have thrown up some surprising results.

Visitor’s expectations and those of artists are wildly different.

Less than 10 per cent go expecting to buy work.

They go for the experience of meeting an artist in situ, many for the first time, and to seek information and education about art and the creative process of that particular artist.

"After the Storm" Digital painting from my online photographic diary:www.blipfoto.com/libra
www.blipfoto.com/entry/2252535

This is in stark contrast with the way it is viewed by many artists who regard Open Studios as a commercial     opportunity.

New Hope for Bad Writers: Prizes Awarded for Lousy Writing

New Hope for Bad Writers: Prizes Awarded for Lousy Writing

This is hilarious!

Are Artists Really Best Equipped to Blaze Trails in the Enhanced E-Book Market? Are Publishers?

Are Artists Really Best Equipped to Blaze Trails in the Enhanced E-Book Market? Are Publishers

Read this article this morning. And it strikes me thisnisnreally the future for books: giving readers an enhanced multi media experience.
I am working on Sully, a book set in Wales, which I will publish as an e-book incorporating blog, video, links as well as the main

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

Section of 110 metre mural "Freedom Versions" in the yard of Stirling jail created by a group of artists working with the newly formed Creative Stirling.org company. Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

What happened to visitors to my studio?

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

People coming to my studio during the recent Forth Valley Open Studios 9 day event expecting to buy “stuff”  were in for a surprise.

They found themselves immersed in an interactive artwork with themselves as the “star”.

And did it work? Yes.

So what was it? Well research shows that we are hard wired for optimist - “The Optimism Bias” – Tali Sharot) and a visiting psychologist to my studio from Stirling University confirmed it too saying there are numerous other papers on the subject).

So I asked people to smile. This was then emailed to them on my iPhone – they did this themselves thus avoiding any chance of errors-. In return they got a pic of themselves and I got a photo for my giant photomontage “Smile”.

Simple yet very effective.

 Now I discover Yoko Ono has a similar project in the Serpentine gallery, London.

And the Park gallery in Falkirk has an exhibition called “Smile”.

All I can say is that there is an awful lot of smiling going on despite the economic doom and gloom and promise of euro meltdown.

But then we are hard-wired for optimism.

Forth Valley Open Studios- final preparations

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

(caption)Angie McLaren, '"Stop Ignoring Me"', Screenprinting, 8 May 2012. Photo: Ann Shaw. Angie, a lecturer at Forth Valley college, was among our group taking part in a screenprinting workshop organised by the Changing Room gallery, Stirling. Plans are well under way for these years Forth Valley Open Studios and publicity is beginning to kick in. Our local newspaper The Stirling Observer is featuring an artist a week in the run up to the event in June. I am very aware now of the need to tailor press coverage to different platforms. Gone are the days when you could have a scatter gun approach and send out information to newspapers and hope that some paper it a sympathetic reporter interested in the arts would give your event the oxygen of publicity. Now it’s the full works using social networks like Facebook and Twitter along with local freesheets. Once we would have turned our noses up at publicity in these papers but they now have an important role in the community especially as the big morning papers in Scotland – the Herald and Scotsman in our case rarely give coverage to events such as ours. The first year we did get some but that was because we had a novelty element. That’s no longer the case. We are now embedded as part of the cultural scene in the central belt of Scotland, and like other events, have to work hard to generate publicity for it. Because of the shortage of staff on local newspapers it is becoming relatively easy to get arts coverage providing you give them the copy and photos ready to go. What they don’t like is having to dig the stories out for themselves because they are up against such tight deadlines and very limited, not to mention inexperienced staff, most of whom will never have heard of the concept of Open Studios so it is a steep learning exercise for them. The easier we make their job the more likely we are to get publicity.

Virtual reality,performance and music

Twice I have been into virtual reality – once at the University of Illinois,Chicsago and again at the Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. Both occasion were startling to say the least. So I was particularly interested to see this exhibition in Liverpool where virtual technology and reality meet. Check out: Virtual reality Title: Where Virtual Technology And Reality Intersect

(Ipad image-Ann Shaw) Salads are not just for eating. Check out this performance piece: Title: Salad As Performance Art (This Is Not Metaphorical) Conductors have a reputation of going on for ever- or until they fall off their perch. In this case literally when 84 year old conductor Kurt Masur fell off the podium while conducting a concert in Paris. Check out: the fall from podium Title: Conductor Kurt Masur Falls Off Podium In Paris During Concert

How to make it in the art world: New Rules

I love this spoof column in the online Arts Journal on the new rules for making it in todays art world:

Art of the future?

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

Some iphone and ipad art

Title:"Happiness" created on my iPad

AN -last edition - now totally online

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

Caption: Swinging Sixties

Resident dance artist Laura Smith leads an Older   group in the Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling which I have joined and I documenting as an art project through Blipfoto.com.

Our changing world

"Your past is always with you" -acrylic on watercolour.

I have spent the past week updating my web-site. It is a bit like writing your own obituary, trying to pick out the bits that you want

to be made public.

One of the most startling facts though when I had a good look over what I have done since I graduated over ten years ago from Glasgow School of Art is that I now work with digital technologies and social networks which did not exist then such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,iphone and ipad.

And I am just about to publish my first e-book made on the new iauthoring software launched by Apple.

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

Amy Marletta helps with hanging Glasgow Schools exhibition in Glasgow Art Club.



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

'"Solar Engergy"'- Aruba, Venezuela

'"Solar Engergy"', Mixed media, 2 February 2012. Photo: Ann Shaw. Winning float/installation at the 2011 Aruba National Carnival Festival, an island off Venezuela. | Image | Artists talking | a-n

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Homage to the Chinese Year of the Dragon

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Over the years we have hosted many Chinese students and others from the Far East under the British Council Scheme. So this photograph is a homage to the Chinese New Year which this year is the Year of the
Dragon.

Ann Shaw | Image | Artists talking | a-n

Digital finger painting - "We do not know the future we are inventing."


Ann Shaw | Image | Artists talking | a-n

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

Blippers have all been asked to submit a photo of the saltire to create an amazing film for Burns Night 2012 called Scotland the World Over, an online global project organised by Blipfoto.com

This is my contribution.


Tomorrow night we have the first pop up networking event in Stirling organised by Joe Hall, a young woman new to the area.

She tells me it is already over-subscribed.
We are delighted.

For those of us who live in central Scotland this area is like a cultural desert for the contemporary art scene, in its widest scene, with little in the way of printmaking, digital, music, performance or film

OK there are little pockets of activity – MacRobert Arts centre and Changing Room- but no central hub for contemporary artists.

Everything happens in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Through Forth Valley Open Studios we created the first ever database of all artists working in the area- and there are over a 100 of us- but most work in the traditional arts and crafts sector.

Hopefully these series of pop-up art events will help create a vibrant artistic community in the central belt of Scotland so that artists no longer feel they have to go to migrate to Glasgow, Edinburgh, or worse, London on emerging from art college.

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

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

Elizabeth Blackadder at the opening of her exhibition in Stirling University.
Diary of an artist writer online | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n


I reckon we are fast approaching a “tipping point” for the arts in central Scotland.

Instead of being caught in a cultural wilderness between Glasgow and Edinburgh we are beginning to establish our own identity with a vibrant art community.
Last Saturday saw the opening of the Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition in Stirling University to celebrate her 80th anniversary.
This followed on the previous weeks highly success Bridge of Allan Arts and Crafts Festival- first ever for the area-and we have two “pop-up” events scheduled – one is a weekend exhibition by two FVOS members, Libby Yule and Catherine Froy in West Mosside and the other is a “networking/music evening in the former Changing Room in Stirling Arcade.

Meanwhile my own work involves finishing off “Sully” a book about Wales and I am about to dip into electronic publishing.

Eskimo knife

www.blipfoto.com/Libra


Some time ago I was in a Glasgow ironmongers looking for a new kitchen knife when a group of young Glaswegian men came in.

They were buying knives.


For the city is the murder capital of Britain and knives the weapon of choice despite the Cultural Renaissance during
the 1980s and 1990s when the city made serious attempts to reinvent itself with the Glasgow Miles Better campaign and the opening of the Burrell Collection, It also became the European City of Culture.


I once made an artwork based on this incident called
Getting ready for a Glasgow nite out”.

The gallery, not surprisingly, rejected it.

I bought this multi-purpose Eskimo chopping knife in Anchorage some years ago during a stopover to Japan.
It can be used for skinning animals, preparing vegetables and cutting meat.
Most of the time though it sits on my kitchen window ledge coming into use for chopping herbs.

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

Gio Martin, sculptor with one of her quirky ceramics, at the first Bridge of Allan Contemporary Art and Craft Event.


It is ten years since I graduated from Glasgow School of Art. Here is a link to a blog about it:

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