October 2011
3 posts
1 tag
This is my 100 and final post for The Huntly Review, an original project devised for my six month stint at Deveron Arts as their Visiting Arts Writer and Curator. The intent of the project was to take Deveron Art’s motto, “the town is the venue” to task by conducting an ongoing “review” of Huntly for the duration of my visit.
Only, after six months in Huntly,...
3 tags
A Big Thanks!
Serious acknowledgement and deep appreciation goes out to all the kind folks who hosted this littlest hobo of an arts writer throughout Scotland. Thank you to all for the spare bedrooms, extra beds, sofas, floors, inflatable mattresses, and even caravans that were so greatly appreciated as I hopped across the country. Shout-out to: Anna Vermehren and the McLeods, Kirsteen Macdonald and Dep Downie,...
4 tags
September 2011
12 posts
12 tags
Who Are We Writing For? recap
Maybe it’s ironic that a writing symposium has left me hardly able to write a word, to literally render my writing invisible, as I attempt to make myself as the writer visible. What I mean is that this inability to profusely write has been the best thing to happen to me in my nine year span as a freelance writer. Endlessly producing words and tailored copy for everyone and anyone, my value as a...
6 tags
4 tags
11 tags
A weekend in The Mobile Picture Salon
With each of us wrapping up events in the North East and in desperate need of a break, Rocca Gutteridge and I took her newly refurbished mobile picture salon on the road.
Inheriting the caravan cinema from Ewan Sinclair and Joanne Smithers, Rocca has fixed it up for The Mela Festival as well as holding screenings for various events and youth workshops. Only, in all honesty, she has had to...
5 tags
Real Life in Huntly, Interview with Ross Sinclair
Image credit: Ross Sinclair, Real Life Huntly (surveyed from the Clashmach), 2011 (courtesy of the artist and Deveron arts; photograph: Anna Vermehren)
Glasgow-based Ross Sinclair has been the Artist in Residence at Deveron Arts for the summer of 2011 researching the history of The Gordon Clan of Huntly and its relationship to present day Real Life in Huntly. From writing songs encapsulating the...
6 tags
Maria Fusco writing workshop*
Coming to the end of this inaugural arts writing gig at Deveron Arts, I am more unsure than ever as to what it is I am actually writing. I know I write, but I know little else. I have no idea what it is I am writing, just that I am definitely writing it. Working on the border of cultural commentaries and creative non-fiction, I am tired of looking, if not legitimating what it is I write, rather, I...
3 tags
An Akimbo report on Scotland's art scene
I sometimes write reports from the road for Akimblog, the art review arm of Akimbo, a Toronto-based arts resource site. Below is an excerpt of my Scotland report, and you can read it in full here.
AMY FUNG in Scotland 09/06/11
Edinburgh Art Festival | British Art Show 7 | Ruth Ewan at Dundee Contemporary Art | Helen Cho at Glenfiddich | Graham Fagen at Timespan | Deveron Arts | Who Are We...
9 tags
Convergence at Timespan
Helmsdale is an even smaller and more remote community than Huntly. Nestled way up in the North of Scotland with a population in the high hundreds and a history dating back to the early AD years, Helmsdale has a heritage focus on genealogy and geology, and the past is undeniable in this region of the Sutherland.
As it goes, a museum and art gallery was built in the mid 80s and in 2009, Timespan...
8 tags
Roman Signer: Now and Then
I first remembering seeing this photo back in the fall of 2007. I had just given notice to the last office job I thought I could ever hold (still true to date) as unforeseen events made me realize I needed to give freelance writing another full-time go. Naturally, I was going to run away first to Berlin for a bit of fun and inspiration, and doing a bit of homework first, this image popped out at...
5 tags
7 tags
The first and last donair eaten in Scotland
This was experienced back in April at the Doric Kebab House — and I have not been back. Nor do I wonder if I am welcome back after I questioned his toum.
It wasn’t toum. It wasn’t tzatziki. It might have just been white oil.
What was actually annoying, besides a waste of a meal, was that he didn’t expect me to know any better, nor did he think he should do any better....
August 2011
15 posts
2 tags
9 tags
Dundee: take two
Stopping in Dundee two days in a row en route to Edinburgh and on the way back, I first went to check out Aberdeen-born, Edinburgh-trained, London-based Ruth Ewan’s first major solo show, Brank & Heckle, at DCA. As a incredibly thorough researcher, Ewan pulls together histories of radical actions and actionists including Paul Robeson, a jukebox of people trying to change the world, to...
5 tags
we really must all scream for ice cream
Of all the places to have great ice cream, the North East of Scotland with its balmy North Sea breeze seems to have a fair selection of really good locally made ice cream.
Here in Huntly, Rizza’s has been churning out their family favorites for close to a century. Staying close to the classics with a recent collaboration into making a limited edition Black Bull whisky ice cream,...
7 tags
Health and Beauty in Huntly
I’ve been on the look out for a good massage therapist since arriving in Huntly, and the closest I came to finding one reasonably priced was when I went down to The Holy Isle (but they weren’t around that weekend). Spending a good portion of my time hunched over a keyboard has left knots and pains in my neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, and back over the last ten years, and while I use to...
5 tags
Travellers and Gypsies
Last weekend I went down to the town of Kirk Yetholm for the UK Border Walk by Rocca Gutteridge and Claudia Zeiske, and an article will be forthcoming online at Line Magazine, but for now, I’m more interested in the presence of The Travellers and Gypsies in Scotland.
Yetholm itself is a Romany town, where The last of the Gyspy Royals gathered as recently as 2010 for a reunion as the town...
6 tags
7 tags
4 tags
6 tags
3 tags
British Art Show, Take Two
For another look at The British Art Show 7, from the round table discussion with curators Tom Morton and Lisa le Feuvre, here is my response on the Frameworks blog.
9 tags
Whiskies and identities
From my past posts including the Balvenie tasting to the behind the scenes at The Whiskies of Scotland, there should be no surprise that I heart whisky. Yet, it took about four months before I got it together to do a whisky tour, but this probably has more to do with having a partner in crime for a couple of days along with a car.
Weeks, if not months, could have been devoted to this activity,...
9 tags
4 tags
(Author’s Note: I sometimes forget entirely about articles I’ve written, only to discover them a bit later to be completely surprised by them. This is such a piece, written for Line Magazine back in April. Here is an excerpt, and can be read in full at Line Magazine, or if you have a hard time finding it/reading it, it’s also up on Prairie Artsters)
Precocious and Precarious:...
16 tags
5 tags
H/EAR ye, in Huntly, and in Edinburgh
Starting Thursday, August 4, 8 p.m. as usual, The Huntly Art Reader expands into an art reader network with the initiation of The Edinburgh Art Reader. Coordinated by Anna Vermehren and Dane Sutherland, respectively, and with the first set of eight texts chosen by yours truly, please join us in either city for a drink and a discussion, and possibly a game of spoons.
Huntly - Crown Bar Lounge
...
July 2011
12 posts
4 tags
4 tags
6 tags
14 tags
I’ve been trying to write something about James Legge, one of the most important figures in opening up the cultural exchange between China and the West, a missionary from Huntly who went on to live in Hong Kong for 30 years and ended up being Oxford University’s first chair of Sinology. Along with Wang Tao, Legge translated monumental texts such as Confucius’ Analects and I Ching - The Book of...
2 tags
7 tags
10 tags
4 tags
7 tags
The biggest Choir in the Shire*
*Special Guest Post by Anna Vermehren
Huntly has a new choir. More than 70 people have signed up to participate in the weekly sessions on Monday nights at 7.30pm in the Stewarts Hall. The two very young and motivated directors Hugh Johnstone and Hannah McGinlay inspire folk from all around Huntly and the good thing is that you don’t need to be brilliant at singing: Do what you can and you’re in.
...
6 tags
A weekend on The Holy Isle
Image courtesy of The Holy Isle Project
Already quite remote and removed, I took one step further and went to The Holy Isle, a wee island off the big island of Arran off the west coast of Scotland for a weekend meditation and qi gong retreat. Led by Sue Weston, the retreat itself was a good reminder to slow down and breathe more, and climbing up and over Mullach Mor on a sunny day was a nice...
6 tags
Martin Creed Work No. 1059, 2011
Edinburgh is a city of hills and stairs, and The Scotsman Steps are part of the city’s history, connecting the new town with the old town, and have long been considered a road as much as a staircase. As with most sites of heritage and history, the steps were in poor form, and undergoing a full restoration, Fruitmarket Gallery became involved in commissioning Martin Creed to create a public...
6 tags
June 2011
16 posts
6 tags
6 tags
Edinburgh International Film Festival
The famed festival city just wrapped up its 64th international film festival, one of the oldest grand standing international film festivals in the world. I caught only the leg of things, and besides a minor and confusing swarm awaiting band members from The Kings of Leon, I would never have thought there was a festival, let alone a film festival, going on in town.
Catching the last programme of...
6 tags
4 tags
Review: Beauty and The Beast of Burden, Limousine...
*Special Guest Review by Anna Vermehren
Entering the white space of the Limousine Bull gallery from the sunny outside of the courtyard felt like moving into a bright indoor space where life is different. Welcoming the viewer into the space is a new untitled paper cut piece by Anna Shirron spilling out onto the floor. Here, viewers become conscious that they are stepping into an abstracted...
6 tags
Gray's School of Art Degree Show 2011
Promoted as a “professional university” with traditional departments specializing in commercial photography, product design, graphic design, 3D (glass, ceramics, and jewelry design) and fashion-orientated textiles in the mix with “fine art” departments such as printmaking, painting, sculpture, and photographic/electronic media, The Degree show at Gray’s School of Art...
7 tags
Coming off a series of Glasgow trips, I had yet to make my way into Edinburgh, and so on my last trip down to the central belt, I spent 24 hours in each city, and how different each city is.
Only 45 minutes apart by train, the differences in attitude are immediately clear on the street level from the sudden flood of cobblestone streets, visible tourists, and men in suits. While Glasgow’s...
3 tags
The Chronicles of Irania, Huntly Hotel*
Image credit from A Moment’s Peace Theatre
*Special Guest Post by Anthony Schrag
Designed as if we were entering a tent, the play is about a woman’s attempt at reconciling her Iranian culture and myths to the UK – as she said several times: she wanted to tell us about her Irania. A one-woman show, it was well-hosted and creative bit of “theatre-in-the-round” that was simply and...
7 tags
Kinning Park Complex and The Glue Factory (2011...
Last weekend, I received a tour of Glasgow’s Kinning Park Complex via NOW NOW, a 6 member all female arts collective who all graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 2008. Comprised of artists Catrin Jeans, Sarah Messenger, Perri MacKenzie, Ruby Pester, Nadia Rossi and Catherine Weir, they have been functioning as a collective for the past two years and have actively worked...