electric angel /design for life

catch up

if you don’t follow us on twitter [links to the right of this article] there could be some news you’ve missed out on. so here’s a quick round up before we get back to showing you what we’ve been working on…

it’s our first ‘tiny poetry‘ night this evening. one ticket left at the time of writing.

adrian has been accepted on the ‘leadership unleashed‘ cultural leadership programme and can be spotted in london, manchester, leeds and elsewhere over the next six months being all dynamic, like. or skulking in corner depending on quality of rail travel and quantity of fizzy drinks consumed.

he’s also psyching up for a sideline doing more public speaking.

james has a new surfboard and is very pleased with it. less so with the lack of waves right now.

and he’s been doing a lot more photography.

creative coast received funding to deliver a civic pride public art scheme teaming local residents with poets, designers and artists to transform empty shops in the town (more on that one soon).

CHART Scarborough maps are out and about the place and getting some great feedback. you can pick them up from the library, art gallery, ymca theatre, woodend creative workspace and from the sjt as soon as we’ve assembled another stand, plus from all the independent galleries.

we finished designing those school uniforms we tweeted about – will blog that soon.

we had this idea for an art trail in crescent gardens, floated it around, people liked it, and it’s happening! more on that soon too. if you’re a local artist and haven’t heard about it – get in touch NOW! deadline is tomorrow.

we’re currently working with scarborough museums trust, the ferens gallery in hull, beverley literature festival, scarborough borough council, coastival and york nhs.

oh, and there’s other stuff such as…
james and jenny are getting married in november.
adrian and rebecca are expecting a baby in november.
gonna be a busy month, that one.

[photo by james - from the CHART Scarborough project]

york press business awards

we’re delighted to have been selected as finalists in the york press business awards 2010 in the ‘best employer and education link’ category.

the other two finalists are harrogate & district nhs foundation trust and firmenich uk ltd of thirsk. we’re in fairly hefty company alongside a business with 53 employees and an organisation with 2300, but if nothing else i hope our nomination shows that small businesses can engage with education too and that it’s essential for the creative industries (where just about everyone is a small business) that they do.

you can read the york press article on us here. the award ceremony when the winner will be announced is on november 18th at york racecourse.

tiny poetry

what’s the point of having space if you’re not going to use it? ok, so we only have a tiny little space but let’s use it anyway. so as seen as our current exhibition is all on the walls (literally – see here) we thought it would be fun to use the gallery floorspace for some poetry gigs while it was on. there’s the loose theme of the sea/surf/coast to tie in with the exhibition, but we’ve told the poets ‘do what you want’ and we can’t wait to hear what they do.

for full details download a flyer here.

CHART Scarborough map

here’s the job that’s been consuming much of our thought and time over the last 6 months. it’s been a big project, not just in terms of time but also the thinking and research that has gone into its production.

it’s a free map intended to encourage visitors and residents explore the town from a cultural perspective. for this to work, we researched cognitive mapping theory – the idea that you can draw maps that aid people to build better mental pictures of places and thus navigate them in a more intelligent way. this works if your map can show in an instantly recognisable way, the key places and spaces that the brain uses to remember and form journeys.

as well as using workshops with residents to identify how people currently move around the town, we’ve deliberately ‘loaded’ our map with cultural landmarks to try and encourage use of those places as an aid to navigation, thus subtly changing patterns of movement in the town by those who use the map. that’s the idea anyhow – as far as we know this hasn’t been tried before. we’ve also added a few theories of our own, particularly about the use of colour in communicating sense of place.

the reverse side further encourages exploration by using a ‘map’ of photographic images (all taken in-house) that we hope will prompt exploration of a town that often suffers from predictable patterns of movement. poems by two local poets – john w clarke and kate evans – add some context and entice further.

this is stage one of the project. stage two will be an intreractive online version. for now, accompanying trails can be downloaded from the website – www.chartscarborough.com – and more are being added every week. if you would like to know more about the theory, workshops and interventions as part of this project you can also read the project’s blog there. the map itself can be picked up at venues across scarborough (or just get in touch if you’d like us to post you one).

hey, who’s been doodling on our walls?

tsk, you open your studio to an artist and next thing you know there’s graffiti everywhere.

actually we’re rather delighted with these montages that snake around the walls – a visual trail along the coasts of spain, portugal, france and morocco – to accompany the paintings in ‘view from the back: journal of a surf trip’. the paintings aim to evoke the 6 month surf trip which in kathryn’s words “is as much about encounters with people we met, the surfing lifestyle and the landscapes as the surfing itself”. kathryn is also exhibiting postcards she created and sent to her then one year old niece from the journey which document the minutiae (even the camper van sink!) as well as the bigger stories.

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preview is this friday then it’s open whenever we’re open – usually 9.30-5.00 monday to friday or just get in touch if you’d like us to open up specially – we’re very happy to do so.

openings and open studios

this morning we’re sending out invitations to the opening of kathryn welford’s exhibition ‘view from the back: journal of a surf trip’. they feature one of kathryn’s watercolours on the front which are a fascinating mix of traditional style and documentary subject matter – i suspect several of these invites will end up framed and on people’s walls. anyway, if you’d like to join us for a drink and to meet kathryn on the 25th june, please do come along. likewise, drop us an email to be added to our mailing list for exhibition openings and other creative stuff.

we’re also sending them out in time for people to call in and watch kathryn work as part of north yorkshire open studios which begins this weekend when she’ll be painting on the gallery walls. there are lots of opportunities to visit local artists as part of open studios. we’d like to give a shout out to our regular collaborator and first ever exhibitor in our tiny gallery, rachel. we’ll be paying her a visit because despite working together regularly i’ve never been to her studio!

a shout also to local photographer graham who exhibited with us last year and now has his own tiny gallery down at the harbour, to andrew also down in the bait sheds for whom we designed exhibition panels when he was exhibiting at scarborough art gallery (and does beautiful work), and to gaby who exhibited some wonderful new ceramic work in the east coast open.

untamed energies

leaflet-poster for a forthcoming exhibition at rural arts in thirsk. the exhibition features textiles by sally greaves-lord, ceramics by remon jephcott, jewellery by marlene mckibbin and etchings by maria pavledis. it’s curated by lara goodband whom we’ve also worked with on producing panels for ‘another view’ – the current exhibition at cliffe castle in keighley.

untamed energies forms part of the north yorkshire open studios which runs over two weekends in june. we’re also hosting an exhibition for open studios: ‘view from the back: journal of a surf trip’ by kathryn welford will be an installation and paintings inspired by a vw camper journey around europe and morocco. our tiny gallery is currently closed for some minor building work and kathryn’s exhibition will mark the re-opening.

back to bradford

i’ll be back in bradford this evening with andrew clay of woodend, at bmedia‘s third thursday event. it’s a bit of prodigal son moment for us both having grown up in the area and now returning to tell heady tales of the high life in north yorkshire, or more accurately of the creative sector on the coast and scarborough’s national and european enterprise award wins (andrew and i both presented to the judges). i’ll be wearing my creative coast cap and we hope that this event, a reciprocal visit after steve ding visited us from bmedia before christmas, might enable us to build some strong links between creatives on the coast and in west yorkshire.

mentioning bradford also gives me opportunity to post a pic of a community artwork project electric angel did several years back now – we recently obtained some better quality photos of the resulting metal gates in the east bowling community in bradford but hadn’t had chance to show them.

digital scarborough talk

due to vaughn oliver having to pull out of digital scarborough today due to family illness, i’ve been asked if i could fill in. so with a head full of cognitive mapping due to CHART Scarborough, i’ll be delivering a talk on the theory behind the project and our research and progress so far. i’ll also have the very latest version of the map which is still in progress. 4.30pm at westwood school of arts (yorkshire coast college, next to tesco).

updates-a-go-go

yep, it’s update night at the first creative coast of 2010 with news and opportunities from the north yorkshire creative network and on local projects. essential if you want to know what’s going on and how you might get developed or commissioned (courtesy of a new scheme offered by the north yorks network). rick of chrysalis arts and wendy of create will be spilling the beans. it’ll be nice to be back at the merchant too. 5.30pm. link to creative coast facebook group.