This week in the Gracefield Office. . .

Colin and Rhiannon in the office at Gracefield Arts Centre.

The past week has largely been spent tying up the final push of press coverage and advertising for Spring Fling. Another thing we’ve been planning to do this year is to commission a photographer to take some specific images of the event that we can then use to publicise various elements of Spring Fling in future (as well as providing a record of the 2009 event). We put this out to tender last month and the job has gone to Angus Bremner (http://www.bremnerphoto.co.uk/) whose work many of us recognise from the stunning images he shot for last year’s Wigtown Book Festival programme. Angus is based in Edinburgh but his parents live just outside Castle Douglas so he does quite a bit of work in the region and is a big fan of Dumfries and Galloway .The other big job has been getting some publicity material designed for Tim Taylor’s residency in Kirkcudbright and sending it out to the Spring Fling mailing list and local organisations. We’re pretty pleased with the result (see picture attached), especially given the distraction of working at Gracefield while the building is undergoing a big refurbishment. Just as the final countdown to Spring Fling began, a team of builders arrived - bearing hammers, drills and anything else that bangs, whirrs or clatters - and started orchestrating a symphony of disruption around our desks. What this picture (sent earlier), which was taken a few weeks ago, doesn’t show is the electrician currently up a ladder re-wiring the ceiling lights above our heads and the flock of confused quilters who wandered through our office earlier this morning having misguidedly taken a scenic route from Gracefield Galleries to the Café Bar.

By Rhiannon Batten, Spring Fling coordinator extraordinaire!

Kirkcudbright WASPS Residency.

This year for the very first time Spring Fling Open Studios Association in partnership with WASPS (Workshop and Artist's Studio Provision Scotland) are hosting a residency in Kirkcudbright. This project is to help celebrate the conversion of two buildings in the heart of Kirkcudbright into artist's workshops which will build on the town's growing artist's community. As many working artists will appreciate it is not always straightforward to find a suitable space in which to conduct an arts or crafts based business and this new initiative from WASPS will provide space for a number of such businesses.

Tim Taylor has been selected from over thirty applications from current WASPS artists around Scotland to come to Kirkcudbright for a ten day period and to create a work in response to his experience of the town. Tim who is a sculptor and installation artist intends to explore the natural and cultural heritage of the town and in particular the artistic and maritime history. Tim's work has been shown internationally and he has worked as a visiting lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art.

Maggie Savage a member of the SFOS Committee says, "Tim's proposal offers a particularly appropriate experience for our Spring Fling visitors. His work as an installation artist will complement our range of artists and makers and, by being on site to talk to visitors over the weekend, Tim will provide us with an opportunity to not only be inspired by the work on view but also to find out more about the concepts and processes behind the work. His proposal is also symbolic of the opening of the new Wasps studios. The creation and installation of artwork created during a residency on the site of the new studios will mark the beginning of a transition from unused buildings to creative spaces which will soon provide artists and makers with the opportunity to explore and produce new and exciting work of their own."

We look forward to welcoming Tim to the region and hopefully he will be able to contribute to this blog soon. His work will be available to see over the Spring Fling weekend, May 23rd to 25th in the new WASPS buildings in Kirkcudbright.