The Chase

This is the first film we have made on our evening filmmaking course at Forth Valley College, Stirling.

Artists studios

What kind of studio space do artists require?

Traditionally the answer was simple: a big, airy space with north facing windows and affordable.

WASPS, a Scottish based charity, aim to provide such spaces and they were in Stirling last week doing a presentation.

Chris of WASPS (pictured) pointed out that the kind of space artists require these days is changing.

One new interesting venture is their South Block in Glasgow, a new studio complex with 64 studios as well as facilities for hot-desking and commercial offices too.

A more radical approach  is the  The Bothy Project , an innovative private enterprise that offers artists the chance to make work in remote  corners of the Scottish landscape from forests to an isolated Hebridian island.

And then there is the other extreme-, which I inhabited today- a virtual space shared with photographers on a global online photographic project .

So when we talk of space for artists we have to start thinking outside the box.

Creative Stirling

I have been invited to join the board of Creative Stirling and I attended the first meeting last night. It quickly emerged that the old ways of working no longer operate in the new digital age. What the future holds for the creative industries is uncertain but one thing we can be sure: it will be very different from the past.
Exciting  times lie ahead!

Chicago- Past and Present

Dinosaur-  The Field Museum, Chicago

“ I want to buy a gun,” said Tyler striding bare-foot through the busy Saturday open market in Chicago’s South Side, the murder capital of America.

 I pop my video camera inside my anorak. Just incase.

Maybe this was not such a great idea after all.

 Here I am on exchange from Glasgow School of Art to the Chicago School of the Art Institute and I had the idea of filming in this notorious area. My contacts assure me I am safe with Tyler.

The memory of that morning came flooding back today when I listened to an item on
 "The Zeitgeisters: Theaster Gates BBC Radio 4 on Theaster Gates, the conceptual artist based in this area of Chicago where he is renovating old buildings and selling bits of them off, carefully framed, to art collectors for eye-watering sums of money.

He is a conceptual artist with impeccable credentials who believes in the power of art for political purposes to regenerate whole communities.

 Find out more about this artist who challenges what it means to be an artist in todays.

As for the gun?

Well we stopped beside a big black limousine where two Afro Americans were sitting in the boot with their wares waiting for business.

“What you looking for?” said one.

 “ A gun.”

“What sort of gun?”

“Staple gun.”

They shake their heads. We walk on.

Phew!

And you can see a clip from that morning on YouTube The WoodLot.

Mono Monday - global challenge

Every Monday members of Blipfoto (www.blipfoto.com) take part in a global photographic challenge. Recently I have begun to participate in this. So far we have had "action" , "wood" and yesterday was "metal". 

Next week its transport.

MonoMonday Wood

MonoMonday metal

Monomonday action

Most of the participants in this collaborative online project are either British or Australian.

An important part of it is the social interaction- we get to share,comment and learn from each other, and of course there is the challenge of getting "hits" and making it to th Spotlight page.

View more of my Blipfoto images on www.blipfoto.com'libra

An independent Scotland?- Stirling leads the way.

Such confidence do Stirling have in the yes vote for independence that our local council have already introduced a number of schemes in a move to the right.

First off the block are the road signs. All traffic is now on the right side bringing us in line with the rest of Europe.

It’s England that's out of step not us.

Our little village was the first to introduce this and yes it did cause some confusion especially among the elderly who form 95 per cent of the population if Bridge of Allan.  Offenders were sent for retraining.

In support of the move to the right the Smith Art gallery and museum have a current exhibition of Hitler’s watercolours and drawings and according to a spokesperson for the gallery it has been the most popular ever.

We are proud to be the first town in Scotland to introduce the new Twinty Poonds note.

Nigel Fahrenheit leader of Ukip will be opening Stirling Highland Games in August. Instead if tossing the caber he will be throwing a life size model of David Cameron and a smaller one of Clegg.

And to celebrate victory in the Scottish Referendum, Stirling council arts department, the most innovative in Scotland, have already commissioned six artists, of which I am one, to make 10 ft. replicas of each member of the Tory cabinet which will be set on fire in a huge Bonfire of the Vanities at Stirling Castle the night the yes vote is announced.

The grassroots support for this, especially from the Green Party, has surprised even Alex Salmond.

He said: " Never in my wildest dreams did I expect such enormous support from Stirling Council"

He has agreed to do the official opening of the Bonfire of the Vanities.

He added: " nothing will give me greater pleasure than to see those old Etonians go up in a puff of smoke. This will be a great moment in Scottish history, one to rival Bannockburn."

Serenity: Blipfoto Monomonday challenge

Christine:"Serenity"

Its unlikely you will have heard of Monomonday, a photographic challenge.

Unless of course you are a member of the Edinburgh based photo sharing social media site Blipfoto.com

Well today I took part in their monomonday portrait challenge.  Nothing unusual in that you may say except its global, collaborative, sharing, and operates informally. Its not part of some highly complex curated photographic venture in the meat world which costs a small fortune to organise and years to implement, but rather a grassroots photographic venture started by Australian photographer 

Hobbs.http://www.blipfoto.com/entry/4146689

It’s free to all provided you are registered on Blipfoto.com – and that’s free too.

I mention it because I suspect this is something we are going to see a lot more of in the future as traditional methods of artists sharing and publishing their work through galleries change as more move into the digital zone.

The traditional gatekeepers, are being replaced by a different kind of gatekeeper- your peers assess your work. It goes out into the world unedited and you know within seconds of hitting the send button whether that image is good or not. The community not curators judge.

Film producer- Monta Burge

I had a meeting today with Monta Burge from CreativeStirling regarding the Pecha Kucha night next month.

Monta, from Latvia, is a final year film student at Stirling University and her ambition is to be a film producer.

She loves organising people- especially creative types –“It’s a challenge,” she says.

Some would regard it more like trying to herd cats.

And her skills will be challenged when they start filming a male Glasgow Burlesque dancer in the coming weeks.