Stirling Council Plan to Close Changing Room Gallery

From How Children Learn by David Galletly and Ruefive at The Changing Room 2009. Photo: Ruefive

Stirling Council are proposing closure of The Changing Room (Central Scotland's only contemporary art gallery and one of Scotland's best) in a vote tomorrow evening (Thursday 21st Feb) as part of cuts to key arts organisations across the city. This is horrible news and I hope that it doesn't happen.

A city without an art gallery? A city without an art gallery*? Are you kidding me? Who the hell wants to live there? That's embarrassing. That's like living in a city without a library or somewhere to hear music or to see films - nobody should be taking a place like that seriously. Yuck.

The Changing Room is a wonderful space. Located in the Tolbooth, Stirling's cultural hub, it has seen work by new artists, established artists, local artists and world-bloody-famous artists over the 15+ years it has been open. It has given countless volunteers some amazing experience behind-the-scenes and losing it would be a terrible blow to a lot of people (meaning all of bloomin' Scotland).

This email from a concerned artist covers the matter more eloquently than I can, what with me being a dumbo and all.

Jeez, the Tolbooth should be Stirling's shining light - a venue, gallery and meeting place right in the heart of the city. It's a beautiful building and something that every resident can be proud of. Alongside the MacRobert and our C ticket tourist attractions, it sets Stirling apart from other boring little towns. For the small amount it costs to run, it brings so much life and excitement to the city. Removing the art gallery only gives people more reason not to visit. Christ, it should be getting more funding, more promotion, more reasons for people to pay attention to Stirling, if anything.

Sideshow by David Galletly at The Changing Room 2007.

I first became involved with The Changing Room through its previous Visual Arts Development Officer (and all-round superstar), Kirsteen Macdonald. At the time, the gallery was in an amazing space in Stirling's Old Arcade and I was fortunate enough to exhibit my work in the location's strange little entranceway. More recently, after the gallery moved to the Tolbooth, I collaborated with another Stirling-born artist, RueFive on a show we called How Children Learn. I also volunteered and helped out at the space whenever I could for a good few years and the experience I gained was absolutely vital to my current career as a professional artist and illustrator. Emma Hamilton, the current Visual Arts Development Officer (also an all-round superstar) does some amazing work.

Despite having lived in Glasgow for a few years now, I always go to great lengths to big up Stirling whenever I get the chance. I love the place. It's home. As a professional artist who is, y'know, working in the world, I do in some way feel like I'm out there representing my home town. As the years go on, however, and as more and more stupid decisions like this are made it's becoming increasingly difficult to take the city seriously as anything other than a collection of shops. That's a tricky thing to talk about with any enthusiasm.

I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done to help the situation at this stage, but it's worth a shot. If you know and love the Changing Room (or even if you just know it's important that places like it exist), stir up a stink - tell as many people as you possibly can about how important the gallery is and what a horrible kick in the teeth to Stirling (and to Scotland's culture as a whole) losing it will be. The vote happens tomorrow so, y'know, you kinda need to do something RIGHT NOW. Go. Now. Stop reading. NOW. No, you hang up first. No, YOU hang up first. You. No, you. You. Go. Now.

Now!

Your best bet (I think. Again, I'm a dumbo) is to do as the above email says and contact Stirling Council Chief Executive, local councillors, MPs, MSPs, press and Cultural Services Directors before Thursday evening to let your concerns be known. Keep your eye on The Changing Room Facebook page Any blog posting / tweeting / sharing / shouting / word spreading surely can't hurt either. If any further important info comes to light, I'll update this post as soon as I can. You can leave comments below or grab me on Twitter if there's anything I've missed.

Update: Here's a wee list of Stirling Councillors and their contact details. Kirsteen has also created a Facebook event (that's a really good link for more info - Kirsteen knows what's up more than most) for tomorrow if you're interested in attending the meeting.

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* Yeah, I know Stirling has The Smith, and that's awesome, but The Smith is more of a museum. We're talking galleries showing new work and encouraging new stuff here.

Update on 2013-02-22 11:14 by David Galletly

I've put together a list of resources related to the cuts now that the (grim) 21/02/13 Stirling Council meeting has came & went. There is also a new Stirling Arts Info Group on Facebook which is now the best place to go for info / discussion.

Burnistoun

Burnistoun returns to BBC Scotland for its third (and final) series this week. Iain Connell & Robert Florence's fictional-town comedy is a really nice mix of Scottish humour, wordplay and weirdness and is worth a watch.

I know that, as a fairly traditional sketch show, Burnistoun can divide opinion. The genre hasn't exactly been fashionable of late, which is a shame. In the no-laugh-track / post-Curb / post-Office world, it's easy to forget that sketch comedy has given us some of the best. stuff. on. telly. ever. and, like Limmy's Show alongside it, when Burnistoun hits, it hits big. I really like it.

I was motivated to mention this / draw a picture when Rab urged people to watch more written comedy. To "tell the telly people you've seen enough panel shows". Hell yeah. Who want's to live in a world where there's more of this than this, or this, or this? Throw more money at the writers, costume departments and set designers, please.

Via their production company Bold Yin, Connell & Florence have recently been encouraging growth, collaboration and innovation in Scottish comedy. A wonderful thing. We've got some of the funniest people in the world living up here and, with a poke and a prod, they might get a little of the attention they deserve. AndyDee, I'm looking at you. Let's get Swatpaz on the TV too.

You can watch the new series of Burnistoun as it airs on BBC iPlayer and there's a bunch of old episodes and clips on YouTube. Rab (who, incidentally, Alex & I spotted in the town the other week but were typically too shy to say hello to - sorry) also has had his fingers in a lot of other pies. Pies close to my heart. Heroquest, anyone?

Petition to Rebuild Stirling Skatepark

Me at Stirling Skatepark circa 95/96 during a misguided rollerblading phase.

SHORT VERSION: to secure important funding, a short-timescale (before Fri 10th February!) petition has been set for the rebuild of Stirling Skatepark. If anyone who thinks this would be a good idea could show their support, I'd really appreciate it. You can sign the petition here.

Despite moving to Glasgow over a year ago, I still get through to Stirling as often as I can. When I'm back, I'm catching up with my parents, Alex's parents or friends (or all of the above). While that doesn't usually leave too much spare time, I do try to head along to the wee skatepark if I can.

Stirling Skatepark aka 'The Bowls', situated in King's Park, is a small, rough concrete affair that has seen better days. It's badly designed and not much fun to use. I love it, though. It was my park growing up and, as far as I'm concerned, it's still my park. From 1994 through 2009, I'd say that I visited that little grey island almost every (dry) day. Some summers 12hr+ sessions were the norm. And, even though my usage has shrunk to a handful of visits a year, I reckon there's a good chance that I've spent more time in that skatepark than anyone else in the whole wide world.

My mum and dad live nearby, you see. I could get there in 5-10 mins and nip home on a whim if I needed to. If the skatepark was a pub, I was a local. Whenever I go back, I half expect to be greeted by bunch of friends but instead it's a new bunch of young folk who make me feel like the old, crap skateboarder that I am. And that's fine. That's the way it should be.

Proposed design by Wheelscape.

Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is that there are plans afoot to renovate the park. For the past few years, BMXer, park regular and all-around good dude Ali Hair has lead a campaign to secure funding, planning and permission to, y'know, make the place less crappy. He's close too. Really close. There are plans, there is permission and there is almost funding. A last-minute hitch, however, has required a petition to allay any doubt that the park might not be popular enough to justify the expense. That's totally understandable. To a lot of people a skatepark is nothing more than an intimidating eyesore. It's a place where youngsters 'hang out' and do things. Recently, the park has been in such disrepair that it's actually kinda dangerous to use and if there has been any lessening in attendance, I'd blame the design and upkeep of the facilities before worrying that kids don't enjoy having fun anymore. That or the weather.

Regardless, here's something I've noticed in nearly 20 years of using Stirling Skatepark: If it's dry, if it's daylight and if it's not ridiculously early in the morning, there will always be someone using that park. And it's not even a very good park!

When the weather's good, you're all but guaranteed that it'll be busy too. That's all the justification needed. How many other free-to-use public facilities can you say that about? That wee park has kept hundreds, if not thousands of young (and not so young) people entertained, out of trouble and well-exercised for a long, long time. Skateparks are great little social melting-pots. They let kids meet people from other schools, from other towns, from other backgrounds, cultures and occupations. Without Stirling Skatepark, I'd have left school a sheltered, anti-social, uncultured little geek (or at least more of a sheltered, anti-social, uncultured little geek). The park has always been safe, quiet and friendly. Yeah, teenagers hang about there and pull up their hoods but guess what? That's what teenagers do. They do that everywhere. They can't get enough of doing that. Skateparks don't encourage troublemakers and if you think they do, I'm sorry, you're wrong. Kids go to these places because they love riding skateboards, bikes and rollerblades.

So, although I'd be sad to see the old place go, a better skatepark is desperately needed in Stirling. It's a small place; there's not much to do. People get bored. If the city wants to keep up with the rest of the country, we need to be on top of stuff like this. Falkirk has a great park, for God's sake. Falkirk! Skateboarding and BMX have been popular for long enough that there's no excuse for any town not to support them properly.

If you agree, please sign the rebuild Stirling Skatepark petition before Friday the 10th of January 2012. Thanks.

For more information, the best place to go is the Stirling Skatepark Users Facebook page where Ali keeps everyone up to date by announcing the latest developments. Being Facebook, you can also catch up / discover / skate-date with loads of the people who actually use the park. In addition, there is a Stirling Skateboard Users blog that covers key points in the process. The proposed design is by the nice guys at Wheelscape Skatepark Construction.

Fence's Flamin' Hott Loggz Poster

Again I am delighted to have been allowed to help out the Fence Collective with another poster design. This time it's for a Guy Fawkes shindig up at their Anstruther HQ. Johnny 'Pictish Trail' Lynch asked if I could come up with something suitably silly to illustrate his 'Gunpowder, Treason and… Plop' Bonfire Night theme.

My time was quite tight but, thankfully, the brief kinda suited something being a little rough around the edges. Taking a cue from my What I Wore Today drawings, I cranked out this pair of beardy fellows and a titular hott-logg and things just came together. This is actually my first ever fully hand-drawn poster design, which took me a little by surprise. The colouring was added digitally but apart from that, it's all pens and paper. Getting text to sit well with my drawings is something I've always struggled with.

As with all Fence events, I wholeheartedly recommend you get your arse along to the Hott Loggz party if at all possible. Fence Records consistently put out some of Scotland's finest music and their live gigs are a joy to witness. Recently I've caught a little sneak-listen to some upcoming releases and, honestly, if you follow what they do, you're in for a treat. Here are the details:

Fence's Flamin' Hott Loggz
An all-day (2pm - 1am) event of music & excitement
Saturday, 5th November
Anstruther, Fife, Scotland
Featuring a yet-to-be-announced line-up of Fence Collective members + friends.

Tickets are available here.

I'm gonna try my best to head up for the show. Despite the promise of a bonfire, a Scottish seaside in November will be damn cold, so wrap up warm.

Homegame Logo

Every year for the past, I dunno, 5, we've attended Fence's fantastic Homegame up in Anstruther. So how chuffed do you think I was when Johnny asked me to put together a logo for this year's festival? Exactly, Chuffington World of Adventures.

Now, logo design isn't something I've ever particularly had a knack for, but I gave it a go nonetheless. After a false-start or two I finally settled on the above. My Homegame logo was constructed entirely from collaging together letters and shapes from an old, old stamp collecting book of my Dad's (not the stamps, just using the book itself). All the little scraggles and wonks are genuine been-in-the-loft-for-50-years scraggles and wonks.

Also, I unconsciously managed to hark back to Kirsty Thomas' lovely cut-out design from last year, with the bunting-esque elements. A good thing!

As for the festival - get yourself there if at all possible, it's always brilliant fun. I've posted about it many times on this here blog. Head to fencerecords.com for details of acts, tickets, times, dates etc. etc. Perhaps I will see you there, dogg.