This coming friday, the 27th November from 3pm till 7pm, saturday from 11am till 5pm and sunday from 10am till 5pm there is an exhibition and sale of work by three Spring Fling Open Studios Association members Phil McMenemy, photographer, Hannah McAndrew slipware potter and Amanda Simmons, glass artist. This will be held in Phil's gallery at Woodbank House, Laurieston, near Castle Douglas. Drinks and nibbles on the friday. All are welcome to visit and browse the work and chat to the artists and makers.

MMV Art Painting Course.

Painting The Nude.

A two day life painting course led by Dougie Muego DA
at Gracefield Art Studios in Dumfries.
Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th November from 9.30 – 4.30 each day.
The cost is £85/£75 concession and places are limited, so please book early to secure a place. Contact Dougie on 01387 279888 to book. Please make cheques payable to MMV Art Limited. In the event of insufficient numbers, cheques will be returned.

This is an opportunity to try life painting in a small group with appropriate support or a chance to revisit it for the more experienced.
The model will pose from 10.00 – 12.30 and from 1.30 – 4pm with an hour for lunch and short rest breaks.

Dougie studied drawing and painting at Glasgow School of Art and has long experience of working from the figure. Morning coffee is included. Morning coffee is included - participants can buy lunch in the Gracefield cafe or bring their own if preferred.

Public Art Commission Call for Submissions

Spring Fling 2010 Public Art Commission, £4,500

Deadline for proposals: Monday 23 November 2009

Spring Fling , Scotland ’s premier open studios event, will take place across Dumfries and Galloway from 29 to 31 May 2010. As part of the event, the organisers are looking to commission a one-off public art work, ideally involving sound and/ or light.

Further details of the brief will be available next week on the website www.spring-fling.co.uk.

To register interest, or request a copy of the brief contact Colin Tennant, Visual Arts Officer for Dumfries & Galloway:01387 262084 or email: colin.tennant@dumgal.gov.

Urgent Announcement for Spring Fling 2010 Applications

URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to a change in the application system this year, and the launch of an online application facility, some people seem to have genuinely missed the deadline for applying to Spring Fling 2010. The committee has, therefore, decided to extend the deadline from today (Thursday 1 October) until 9am on Monday 12 October. Applications can either be made online at www.spring-fling.co.uk or by post (to request an application form by post please contact Rhiannon Batten or Colin Tennant at Gracefield Arts Centre, on 01387 262084).

Spring Fling Residency Launch

Photograph copyright Angus Bremner

Sarah Jackets and Chris Helson launched their residency at Wigtown Booktown last friday night and it runs until Sunday October 4th.
For the launch the festival’s artists in residence invite you to join them in The Hut where they are showing two extraordinary video works. Helson and Jacket’s Wigtown residency begins with Mordechai Vanunu’s banned performance of “I Am Your Spy”, mailed out of Israel hidden in a hollowed-out copy of Hunter S Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear. Then we get to The Heart of the Matter as Graham Greene’s assistant spy answers a theological question.

Photograph copyright Angus Bremner

Call into Wigtown to visit the rest of the fabulous festival and call in on the first Wigtown Book Festival Spring Fling Artists in residence.

Spring Fling Artists at Wigtown Book Town

Spring Fling Artists in Residence.

Chris Helson and Sarah Jackets are at The Hut at Reading Lasses.

This year Wigtown Book Festival are delighted to welcome their first artists in residence, a collaboration with Scotland 's premier art and craft open studio event, Spring Fling. During the festival multimedia artists Chris Helson and Sarah Jackets will be creating work to be shown during the final three days. They plan an intriguing residency and invite you to the Hut to explore ideas and enter "The Exchange Library of Significant Books". Launch Saturday 26 September 7pm; Exchange Library or Significant Books, 2-5pm daily. Installation 2-4 October 11am-6pm.

Spring Fling artists Wigtown bound

Heralding an exciting new collaboration between two of the biggest arts events in southwest Scotland, it was announced this week that Dumfries and Galloway-based multimedia artists Sarah Jackets and Chris Helson have been selected for a Spring Fling artists' residency project which will take place in Wigtown, Scotland's National Book Town, for 12 days in the lead-up to and during Wigtown Book Festival 2009.

Spring Fling, the annual artists open studios weekend, takes place every May bank holiday weekend across the region (next year’s event will take place from 29 to 31 May). Wigtown Book Festival, which takes place from 25 September to 4 October this year, has grown into one of the autumn's best-loved arts gatherings. With potential for much connection between the audiences of both events, it is hoped that the artists’ residency project will help enhance this relationship and prompt visitors from outside the region to return to Dumfries and Galloway more often.
The 12-day residency will culminate in a new piece of work to be shown during the final weekend of the Wigtown Book Festival 2009, in an open studios-style environment in the Hut at Reading Lasses bookshop. The results of this will then be shown in Wigtown during Spring Fling 2010.

The selected artists, who are based in Carsluith, have been working together on a number of arts projects for the past seven years and are interested in exploring the construction of spaces and peoples’ relationships to those spaces.

“It's a fascinating residency and we are very much looking forward to engaging with the people of Wigtown, Spring Fling and Wigtown Book Festival," said Chris.


For more information about Wigtown Book Festival, please visit http://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/.For more information about Spring Fling, or to sign up for a brochure for next year’s event when it becomes available, please visit http://www.spring-fling.co.uk/.