Forth Valley Open Studios
Last Saturday we held our first agm in the Smith museum and gallery in Stirling and we had a good response from the public.
A year ago Forth Valley Open Studios was just a bright idea …we had no database, no public money and a very tight deadline.
Just a bunch of enthusiastic and dedicated artists prepared to work their socks off.
The result? Last June 73 studios and over 100 artists participated in the first ever Open Studios nine-day event across the Forth Valley.
A subsequent survey revealed that it brought in over £44,000 to these studios.
Not bad for a first effort… now we are busy planning our second Open Studios for June 11- 19.
Our chair, Lys Hansen, pointed out that FVOS is now part of the cultural scene in the area.
website: www.forthvalleyopenstudios.com
Old media versus new media
I despair of our local newspaper, the Stirling Observer.
It is read widely in the area so any coverage, however small, is welcome. Yes the reporter promised the paragraph I sent in on email about the agm of Forth Valley Open Studios which takes place this Saturday in the Smith Art gallery and Museumin Stirling would get in.
Open the paper this morning. Nothing.
Fortunately new media comes to the rescue. Have put it on Facebook, Twitter and emailed all artists on our data base.
Guess the most sort after present this Christmas? my iPad! everyone from six month old baby to academics wanted to get their hands on it.
Why? because of the apps.
Here are some of the favourites: Brushes,(painting) Angry Birds ( game), LaDiDa ( reverse karaoke app), Myfry ( Stephen Fry’s e-book) and of course the Koi pond HD and Virtuoso keyboard ( both interactive).
Is this our digital future for newspapers, books, magazines, music, films, shopping?
?Start with something organic!?said my tutor in Glasgow School of Art’s portfolio class. I thought of that this morning when I photographed this spider made during my second year at college as part of my first public art project (disastrous one as it turned out!). My spider got short shift at Glasgow School of Art (?We are not having that here!? ) so my half-finished spider got relegated to my garden where it now lurks in the undergrowth. Instead for my public art project I used electronic text and installed it in Borders Bookshop in Glasgow Well, ten years later Borders no longer exists, my electronic text board has broken and my spider still lives in the garden. Today I photographed it with a branch of a twisted hazel in the garden.
Snow in Scotland –
Well we are snowed! ( and have been for the past week).
But it has provided a wealth of photographic opportunities such as this video of my garden.
“Absence” my garden in winter
