Stirling Arts and Culture Cuts

Ok, last post on this for a while - I know it's probably pretty tiresome for folks who don't live in / care about Stirling. I guess now that the (pretty grim) 21/02/13 Stirling Council meeting has come and gone, it's more useful to share some resources for furthering the discussion than to have another moan. I will keep this list as up-to-date as I can with the most important links. Please feel free to share / bookmark this post - it's not going anywhere.

UPDATE 22/02/13 at 6pm: The Changing Room will be closing its doors on Saturday 30 March 2013 for the final time. From the Tolbooth Stirling Facebook page.

UPDATE 27/02/13: More links added.

Discussion & Information:

Stirling Arts Info Group - A public Facebook group. This is probably the best place to go to discuss the cuts, access / share the most current information and to find out if there's anything you can do to help.

The Changing Room on Facebook - news and info from Stirling's only contemporary art gallery. All Facebook discussion that directly mentions The Changing Room should appear here.

#stirlingarts - When discussing matters relating to Stirling's arts & culture cuts on Twitter, it may be useful to include the #stirlingarts hashtag in your tweets. Doing so means that anyone can easily follow a focused public discussion by searching for that tag.

People on Twitter:

@parrallines - Kirsteen Macdonald. The Changing Room's former Visual Arts Development Officer. Kirsteen will likely share a lot of useful links and information.

@Kevin_Harrison - Kevin is director of Artlink Central, an arts charity working across Central Scotland. He lives in Stirling and has been active in discussions on the arts cuts and, like Kirsteen, will likely put some good comment / info out there.

@davidgalletly - Me! I talk a lot of rubbish but I'll always tweet whenever this post has been updated or if anything new comes to light.

Stirling Council:

Stirling Councillors - Stirling councillors need to know your thoughts on the art cuts in Stirling. There is contact information on this myStirling page.

An Email From Councillor Benny - a frankly terrifying email from councillor Neil Benny sent just before the 21/02/13 meeting to Kate Sankey and shared on Facebook.

@neilbenny - Councillor Neil Benny's Twitter account features a fair amount of comment on the cuts. I've not included this in the above Twitter recommendations as, well, I don't recommend you follow him.

Stirling Arts & Culture:

The Tolbooth - Tolbooth veune homepage.

The Changing Room - Changing Room art gallery homepage.

Creative Stirling - A non-profit creative hub in Stirling.

The Smith Art Gallery - Exhibitions on natural history, heritage and culture.

Artlink Central - An arts agency established in 1988 working across Central Scotland.

Articles, Letters and Opinion:

Stirling Likes to Spend on Roads, Not Culture - Fantastic a-n article on the cuts by Kevin Harrison.

Letter from Peter Russell - Peter Russell writes beautifully on the fall-out from the 21/02/13 Stirling Council meeting.

Email From A Concerned Artist - an anonymously written email voicing concern on the closure of The Changing Room. Written a few days before the 21/02/13 meeting.

Stirling Council Plan to Close The Changing Room Gallery - a blog post by myself written on 20/02/13

Change - a blog post by Stirling artist RueFive written on 21/02/13.

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If I've missed anything you feel is important, let me know on Twitter or leave a comment below.

Email from councillor Neil Benny On Arts Cuts in Stirling

The following, frankly terrifying, email from coucillor Neil Benny to Kate Sankey was shared on the ChangingRoom Stirling Facebook page on Thursday 21st Feb 2013 as part of the discussion on proposed cuts to the arts in Stirling. I am hosting it here because Facebook posts can be difficult for people to link to with any perminance.

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"In terms of what you say about the arts and culture agenda in Stirling District, I do not think that the changes we will propose will have a huge impact, in fact when you get beyond the headlines they will actually help. The changing room gallery is not particularly well attended and the promotion of new and developing talent is far better tackled through supporting Creative Stirling to achieve their ends (hopefully doing something with the old town jail). The Council's promotion of it's own gallery leads to independent operators being crowded out.

The Tolbooth reduction is a 10% reduction in the net overall budget.

That is to say an expectation of reduced losses from £520k to £470k per year. This will be for the tolbooth management to manage, but the way that the centre has been run as a venue cannot continue in the long term - the simple fact is that we cannot afford it. The cultural programme must become more viable at the tolbooth and in the Albert Halls.

The outreach and workshop work that is undertaken by cultural services is not inherently linked to the tolbooth and could easily be provided in other spaces. In a district the size of Stirling it is imperative that our cultural offering is available to as wide a geography as possible. 

Personally I think that the combined running costs of our arts venues holds back the amount we can invest in the arts agenda. I have said a few times that the cultural agenda should be run by artists, although funded by the council and this cannot be achieved with so much of our budget wrapped up in bricks and mortar. It is worthwhile pointing out that Stirling Council spends quite significant amounts of money on culture, but because our venues are so expensive to run it precludes funding of the kind of developments like the open studios. The way that we have a vested interest in promoting our own galleries and performance spaces also mean that we are less open to the idea of promoting other venues. 

I am trying to change this through the cultural review, which is mentioned elsewhere in the budget resolution. 

I hope this gives a bit of background to my thinking behind the budget resolution and proposals for change in the culture budget. I am always aware of the signals that are being sent out, but I also believe that fear of sending out bad signals is stopping us from having the kind of cultural offering in Stirling that we should have. It's not about Council run buildings absorbing cash, but it should be about artists. "

Stirling Councillor Neil Benny, 21/02/13
(Email: bennyn@stirling.gov.uk / Tel: 0845 277 7000) 

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Please visit the Changing Room page on Facebook for further info / discussion. Kirsteen Macdonald has also set up a Stirling Council Meeting event page which has details and comment on the 21/02/13 meeting in Stirling. Comments can also be left below or on Twitter using the hashtag: #stirlingarts.

My feelings on the matter.

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.

Hiding In Plain Sight

My friend Concetta has started Hiding In Plain Sight, an amazing wee Facebook Group where anyone can post photos of themselves, um, hiding in plain sight. There are already some pretty great examples.

Today, on a New Years Day wander (happy New Year by the way) around Shawlands, Concetta took the above snap of Alex and I. Glasgow in January can be a little on the grey side but we tried our best.

Join in! #hidinginplainsight

Flickr

I've started a new Flickr account, partly because of the recent Instagram debacle, partly because of their new app and partly because I'd started my old account with a username I don't much like anymore. If you have any interest in seeing what photos I take, gimmie a wee look.

A quick note on the Instagram thing - I was fairly vocal (for me at least) against their policy changes when they were first announced, not so much because I thought my crappy photos were going to end up in ads, but more as a knee-jerk reaction to another non-creepy app that I liked becoming a creepy app that I'd miss.

For now at least, I'm gonna stick with it. As I tweeted: I really like Instagram and I like Facebook (the creepiest of all creeps) too and I'll continue using both. If either makes me too uncomfortable, I'll stop.

Not a brave stance, but a stance nonetheless.

(I crosspost my Instagram photos to Flickr with a little IFTTT trickery so they've never really felt tied to any one place anyway.)

Recoat: Art for Advent

Recoat's annual affordable art sale is set to open tomorrow at their gallery in Glasgow's West End (right near Kelvinbridge subway). As always, they assign each wall in the space a different price value (£25, £50, £75, £100) and everything on said walls goes for said price. It's a great way to snag some cut-price art from some big names (and myself) in time for Christmas.

The show opens at 7pm on Friday the 14th December with a wee shindig (free drink - all welcome) and runs until the 23rd. More info / a wee nosey at who's going can be found on the Art for Advent Facebook page. Details:

Art for Advent
Cut-price Christmas exhibition

Runs: 15th - 23rd December 2012
Opening party: Friday 14th December 7-10pm

Recoat Gallery
323 North Woodside Road
Glasgow G20 6ND

Stop by if you can. Everyone's really nice and friendly and you might just find yourself a unique gift or two. The opening in particular is worth a look if you want a bargain (stuff sells fast). Say hello.

Adding Date Suffixes With TextExpander

Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know AppleScript, code, programming or anything else of the sort. I bodged this by Googling for 'AppleScript date suffix', visiting various blogs and jamming stuff together until it worked. I'm sure there's a better way (if there is, let me know).

I use TextExpander, the text expansion app, a lot. Combined with keyboard shortcuts on iOS, I don't think I've typed my full email address in years. Mostly it helps me with repetitive / easy to forget / easy to misspell stuff (watch Merlin Mann or MacSparky in action to get the idea), but I do use one or two little tricks that I've not found elsewhere.

One of these is for dates. TextExpander's date features are great - it can drop in today's date in a bunch of different formats really easily. You can also do simple maths and slightly less simple things like generating urls for sites with custom date ranges (I'll share my 'today' Analytics snippet sometime). The only problem I've found is that TextExpander doesn't have a feature for adding suffixes (y'know 'st', 'nd', 'rd' & 'th', as in '1st', '2nd', '3rd' & '4th').

This bugged me. I like to include the full date (eg. '22nd November 2012') on invoices because I do some work for US clients and marking something '02/03/12' can mean 2nd of March to me and 3rd of February to them. I've often confused myself and likely confused others.

By default, the closest TextExpander'll come is: '22 November 2012'. That's pretty good, but I wanted '22nd'. Using a little bit of AppleScript, I came up with this:

set {day:d} to (current date)
set suffix to "th"
if d is 1 then set suffix to "st"
if d is 2 then set suffix to "nd"
if d is 3 then set suffix to "rd"
if d is 21 then set suffix to "st"
if d is 22 then set suffix to "nd"
if d is 23 then set suffix to "rd"
if d is 31 then set suffix to "st"
if d is 32 then set suffix to "nd"
(d) & (suffix) as string

That'll give you '1st' on the 1st, '2nd' on the 2nd and '3rd' on the 3rd. Just make that an AppleScript snippet, then add that snippet it to the start of your existing date generator and Bob's your uncle, today's full date.

As I said, that might be sloppy code - I don't know. It's Greek to me. I just slapped away at it until it worked. It does work, though. The above screencast maybe explains things a little more clearly (or maybe it doesn't, I'm not the clearest speaker in the world). Let's date.

Innis & Gunn Artwork

Work! I'm supposed to post bloody work here, aren't I? It's easy to forget that sometimes.

In 2012, I was lucky enough to work with Innis & Gunn, the Edinburgh-based brewer of delicious oak-aged beer, on a couple of projects. I'm very proud to have been on board (they're a damn fine company and it's damn fine beer).

For I&G's involvement in the Edinburgh Film Festival, I made a little cartoon (above) depicting the importance of the oak-aging process to the unique flavour of their beer. Although short, this was still the most ambitious hand-drawn animation I've ever tried and I think it turned out pretty good, considering.

The animation was edited down to a lean 60 pages and made into a lovely little flickbook that was distributed amongst festival-goers back in June. It can be seen at the end of the short video I made below:

(note, it's surprisingly hard to flick a flickbook straight-through only once while holding it in front of a video camera. Please forgive my slightly juddery attempt. Music is 'P' from the album John's ABC by the Fence Collective.)

Using a combination of the old-fashioned (drawing stuff over-&-over-&-over) and the new-fangled: (Photoshop trickery), I was able to put the whole thing together on a fairly short turnaround. Although frustrating, tedious and difficult, animation is something that I hope to explore further. My Wired illustrations, which I animate for their iPad app every month, are getting increasingly ambitious and are good practice.

Innis & Gunn Edinburgh cityscape illustration

I also produced a few illustrations for their beautiful Bartender's Choice book, including the above Edinburgh cityscape and a small set of drawings depicting various stages of the brewing process.

(more on the Bartender's Choice section of my site)

Big thanks to Lucy and everyone over at I&G for getting me involved and for all their help - they've been amazing to work with. Fingers-crossed, I'll have more to share in the spring.

Oh, and not that I like to toot-my-own-trumpet too loudly, I'll just that, when it comes to perks, this job had one or two:

It's been tricky, but I've kept some aside for Hogmanay. Dancer.