Kirkcudbright Arts and Crafts Trail 2013 Part 3

For the most of the last visit to the Arts and Crafts Trail this year, this blog will mostly be spent in the Wasps Studios, a short walk a long the High Street from me.

I like woodcut prints all on their own, but when you get to see them next to the block they were printed from, there is an increased fascination as you try to match up the block to the print. Printmaker, Claire Cameron-Smith, occupies a studio at the top of the stairs and every time I've been in she has always had a couple of blocks and the matching prints out.

Much of her newer work is based around geometric shapes (and framed behind glass so please excuse the reflections).

Since I was last there, Maggie Ayres has started to produce pieces using beeswax and other mixed media. Though still retaining the feel of her previous work, they have a very different texture about them.

From photographs and sketches on the wall, you get a little bit of an insight into the thought processes behind the finished pieces.

This piece by Maggie hangs in the corridor outside her studio.

Liz Farey occupies the next door studio to Maggie. You may remember last year I saw an exhibition called Nests where her work was spread all around the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. This particular piece, if not from the exhibition, is certainly built with nests in mind.

One of her wall hangings.

Morag Macpherson is a textile designer, creating surface patterns that are digitally printed onto natural fabrics such as silk and cotton. As well as dealing in metres of fabric, she has some of her designs made into a small range of products, like these cushions.

A rack of scarves.

Some of her designs have also been turned into wall paper.

There's a small article on The Scotsman site about her.

New to the studios since the last time I was their is Amy Winstanley. She does large dynamic paintings.

There's even a lot of movement in this unfinished one.

She also does excellent drawings. You can see finished ones on her website, but all I saw there was this which was still taped to the drawing board. 

I was quite taken with this little sketch on a page from a notebook.

Back outside, I found a zebra crossing. Not quite Abbey Road, it's been placed across a footpath. Kirkcudbright doesn't have any such road crossing aids and it was perhaps thought safer to place it well away from cars until we get used to it.

Every year at Trail time, local artists are given a canvas to decorate, know as Kirkcudbright Squares, and these are sold at a very modest fee (£10), on a first come first served basis. They are sold without the artist's name being obvious and you never really know for sure who did your one until you collect it at the end of the Trail weekend. Some peoples' styles are distinctive enough that lack of a name isn't going to disguise their work. This is the one I bought this year. I didn't know who did it at the time but during the Trail I found the stall of Janina Harrower and it was fairly obvious then that it was her square I had. It looks very good in my garret.

Kirkcudbright Arts and Crafts Trail 2013 Part 2

Two years ago when I featured the Arts and Crafts trail these three little huts were being put up for the first time. Since then they've become somewhat iconic of the Trail. They'd spent the preceding few week outside the town welcoming visitors as they crossed over the Telford bridge but for the weekend they were back on their original site down by the harbour.

I spotted this mural in the courtyard of one of the local cafes.

How up to date can you get, this one was still being painted.

There might be 92 venues on the program but many of these venues feature several artists or crafts people, so the number of contributers must have been considerably over 100. This is certainly true for the house where Kie Stewart's paintings were exhibited. There were several exhibitors in the house and one in the garden shed as well as tea and cakes for sale in the Kitchen. Kie is best known for his paintings of our local cow, the Belted Galloway, but I like his black and white scenes best.

He's manages to sneek a couple of belties into this painting.

A local church hall housed a large number of local craftspeople and artists.

Here's a couple of paintings by Angela Lawrence of the Clience Studio.

A couple of turned plated by Brian Conchie of Dumfries.

I particularly liked this plate which had glittery bits in the paintwork.

The jewelry of Red Crow Silver seems to owe much of it's design to Pictish art.

You often see pens with wooden barrels these days but I can't say I've ever seen any made to such good quality as those made by John under the name Pens of Note. Though perhaps a long way by car, as the crow flies he's only a few miles away across the Solway Firth in Cumbria.

This fountain pen is made from a piece of Eucalyptus burr.

Not all are made from wood, this pen is fashioned from the core of a corn on the cob.

He had a few examples of wood with him, this piece of spalted beech looked particularly interesting.

Local provisions barter operative and Lounge Punk Hero ,Richard Ipaint, is also a dab hand with the paint brush. In this years offerings he has finished his paintbrush dabbing a little before you might expect to great effect and my liking (and he sold this one).

Tucked away in a corner by the harbour, by a stroke of luck, I met this blacksmith, who was well informed about the history of his trade and spent and an interesting 10 minutes telling me about it. He had a portable forge made. He reckoned forges of this sort would have been on the go for centuries but the earliest recorded one only dates back to the 18th century.

The bellows were on a particularly fascinating mechanism, as one went down and was blowing, the other rose and was filling, in this way a constant flow of air was available to the forge.

I didn't ask his name, most negligent of me.

I'll leave you with this small woollen blackbird found in a local garden which never fails to entertain with something just a little off the wall.

Kirkcudbright Arts and Crafts Trail 2013 Part 1

The appearance of this chap can only mean one thing, it's Kirkcudbright Arts and Crafts Trail time again. This is the 10th annual celebration of arts in the town. If you think you've missed this 4 day extravaganza, your wrong (as long as you've found blog while it's fresh) there is still the Monday left. I've blogged the trail before on two previous years (read them here, here, here and here). There will be new trail people and some new things from some old favourite, either way, there is certainly too much to get into one blog.

With 92 venues listed in the program, it takes a good bit of shoe leather to get round them all. I didn't see them all this year and even then I cheated by using the car a little but, for the first venue I saw, I only had to wander across the road where I found the Octopus's Garden, which was a collection of lanterns. I believe they came from a lantern parade last year to celebrate the Jubilee (I wasn't there due to having to earn a living).

For those further afield venues, a trail bus had been laid on.....and a trail bus stop of course.

 

Here's the bus now.

That particular bus stop takes you to Margaret Milligan's Studio. Margaret also has a blog where you can read her own story of the trail and painting tales over the last year or so.

Ruthie Redden is the other blogger who has a venue on the trail (her blog is here). She's made this Selkie for the show. I'm sure she will have plenty of company before too long.

Also new this year are her Galloway Faeries.

 

And of course there's still a good selection of her characterful foxes, hares and other wildlife.

 

There's one of these hares sits on my desk and watches over my typing usually. Not today though, I'm sat at the kitchen table.

 

There are three generations of artist in the family and venue also featured paintings by Jean Redden.

Also on the High Street were these delightful needlework pictures by Fleur McIntyre.

 

Opposite the castle, the work of the Burnhead Woodturners was to be seen. As usual they had set a lathe up at the venue and were demonstrating turning though out the trail.

The bridge in Kirkcudbright may not be my favourite structure in the entire world but it is distinctive and has become quite iconic of the town. It has lead to many good pieces of art including this piece by Jim Campbell, who is to be found in the Wasps studio in the town.

This year situated in the dining room of Broughton House were the Lockerbie Sugar Craft Guild. They certainly impressed me with what can be made out of sugar last time I was on the trail and this time was much the same. These brambles look good enough to eat - well you could of course, they're made of sugar, and the leaves and stems.

A woolly dinosaur - I do believe that nothing in the fossil record so far has proved this colour scheme to be incorrect. Very neglectfully I have no name further than you can read on the label in this picture, so well done Hazel.

Almost a century ago, Greengate on the High Street and the cottages behind it were one of the centres of the town thriving artist community, today it remains the same and houses the studio of Pauline Saul. It's very difficult not to be cheered by her cat paintings. This one is standing in front of the castle that is at the end of the street.

 

Amongst other things, she also made this felt fox broach.

 

There's always a few quirky items about the town. This, as you can see, is a bed of roses.