15 Weeks To Go

by Gayle Nelson, 24 Jun 2011

Development of the 2011 Cupar Arts Festival is currently in progress and this Blog will hope to give a useful insight into the weekly management of this. In order to co-ordinate our visual arts programme, we (our committee) all take on around six selected artists each, with whom we will liaise in the months prior to the festival. The amount of work which needs to be done varies largely from project to project, but generally consists of being available to answer on the ground queries regarding site/venue, figuring out any technical requirements, assisting with general project research, and meetings.

When we are going through selection for the Cupar Arts Festival, we all try to bear in mind that each artist we accept onto the programme is, through no fault of their own, a slew of phone calls, emails and meetings waiting to happen. We tell ourselves that we must maintain a manageable number of particpating artists and in particular observe the ratio of artists to those of us actively co-ordinating the event. We tell ourselves this each year, but we always select more people than we intend to, due to the quality of the submissions, and our enthusiasm for the various proposals.

I began last week with a meeting in Cupar with Kyra Clegg and Su Grierson,. Both Su and Kyra are actively involved in the running of Perthsire Visual Arts Forum (PVAF). Both are developing separate projects for the festival this year. Su’s project Ariel Roots was a successful element of the 2009 Festival which she then went on to present at the Edinburgh Arts Festival in 2010. Kyra has not shown with us before.

Site visits and face to face meetings are very important when planning projects and events such as this. Although this is contrary to the ever-increasing pressures on artists to work in inflexible day jobs to make ends meet as funding dwindles, and it can be difficult to find time, it is nevertheless paramount to developing a successful project. Nothing is ever as imagined, and after many emails you can be no closer to resolving something, which can be ironed out with fifteen minutes discussion, and walking around a site together.

In the case of Su and Kyra’s visit, we began with lunch at the Cupar Tearoom and a catch up on how things were developing. We then went over to the Haugh Park to look at possibiltiies for Su’s large scale prints. Su will show a project entitled “Marking Time” during the Festival. It is a multi-site project. One part consists of images projected in the evening as part of a programme of large-scale projections and film at Cupar’s bandstand (where eight floating screens will take up all sides of the octagonal structure). The second part to her project involves the presentation of large digital prints with text. After some time spent walking around the park and discussing this in what can only be described a howling gale, Su felt that her work would be most appropriate installed on the trees themselves.

We then walked into town to find suitable sites for Kyra’s project, eventually deciding on the local estate agents as a possibility for some subliminal advertising. Lastly we visited the local Tourist Information office where the lady there was disappointed to discover that what she thought were her first few customers of the day were in fact three women who were only interested in the measurements of her display boards.

At the end of last week Kate Downie also arrived in Cupar with her partner Michael to discuss her project. As one of our invited guest artists, Kate has very kindly waived her usual project costs to lend her support to the event. During lunch at the Cupar Tearoom (again) with Liz and Dawson Murray, we discussed Kate’s ideas to show a film projection of a drawing slowly building up, which she would then work into during a live performance. As we walked around various sites more ideas and possibilities emerged. Eventually, at the old school buildings which we use as one of our main indoor venues, Kate found a smooth wall in the courtyard which she said was exactly what she had in mind. An indoor space there will also be a possibility, and met with Kate’s approval, although some dampness will need to be checked in this room, a common problem when buildings lie unused for periods at a time.

During these visits it is always good to see the artists become enthusiastic about the range of possibilities for their work, as they see potential in the various non gallery sites and spaces. Some of our artists do not necessarily work in installation, and some may only show in galleries normally, and yet all are inspired to evolve their practice in different ways, as they respond to the sites, venues, and context of the town.