#belperarttrail update

as belper comes to the close of their arts festival, where is the belper art trail in it's preparations ?

well we're not doing too badly.  may has been so busy for the town that we've kept a low profile so that the trail can emerge during june. we certainly are liking the idea of the trail being discovered. we're also liking the possibility that in wandering around the trail in july that there's an opportunity to slow down and become a tourist in one's own town.  this is of course a sentiment that totally locally has proposed during may.

in terms of where we are with venues, the open and honest situation is that we still need at least two mores venues, if not three. the process of contacting and waiting is very much a waiting game and often without a conclusion. it affects so much that at times i get a little down about it. i become so like a teenager wanting to paint something that when it doesn't look like how i image it to be, i have a strop and storm off and play with my lego.

as deadlines for press releases approach we will soon have to make decisions and choices. 

once again my own journey is punctuated by height and lack of height. maybe it's this contrast that makes a journey interesting and memorable.  soon the audience will be able to make their own call on contrast as we will be there in july with the art trail.

i'm tempted to add..... come rain or shine ..... is this tempting something ....... time will tell !!!!!!

#belperarttrail provisional venue list

will be a list of the venues that makes up the trail.  we're rather keen for the trail to have an element of discovery so we'll be publishing the list soon.












so what else can i add at this time?  that the trail will be slightly bigger than last time...


that the trail will have at least two new venues...

and for now i'll leave it at that ....

more soon !

about ... 

 the journey of favourites...

2013  belper art trail ...

#belperarttrail june 8th peer to peer meeting

following on from the creative roadshow that chris spoke at last week we have a peer to peer meeting scheduled for saturday 8th june at strutts centre beginning at 2pm and running till 4pm.








the peer to peer meetings are for practioners in any medium who wish to talk about what they do to an interested group of people and engage in conversations and exchange of ideas and thoughts.

the format works at it's best when things that you've made are brought along to show and discuss.  we can offer you a safe place to talk about your work and experience constructive words and feedback about what you do.  it's also a place to gain advice on topics and to ask questions of the group to test out ideas/creative concerns/ or simply where to get something done.

we charge £3.50 and that includes a hot drink.

we look forward to welcoming returning and new participants.

#belperarttrail venue tastic !

i get so excited when a venue says yes.

attention now starting to turn to setting up publicity articles and the like.











for me it becomes about the cat and the bag and hinting at the cat while the bag is not fully opened.  

if we were sitting face to face i'd probably find it difficult to contain my excitement about how the trail is shaping up. as i'm blogging about it, part of the strategy of the blog is of course to develop a bit of tension as to what the trail looks like.  that tension being releaved in an article somewhere, probably in june or july or further hints here.

as to how long the tension can be held for ... this is of course something to guage ... 

everything is ok today #belperarttrail

yes... today the view looks much better than yesterday.








i put yesterday down to being tired and attempting to take care of publicity matters when i wasn't at top tip form. i must thank chris who set the meeting up and frankly was loads better in the meeting than i was.  it's good to work next to someone who is "on it" and generating a lot of momentum, especially in her own practice.

so yes it all looks loads better than yesterday and tomorrow is another day of working with prospective venues and catching up with emails.

i did wonder about yesterday.... wether or not i should be so open about stuff. what do you think?

i think in terms of for the archive of the trail, for when it's post july 2013, it is important to as well as plotting those up times to have some perspective and balance about what things were difficult, what things did take a lot of discussion and effort to sort.  i do acknowledge that as a live blog all the nitty gritty technical bits would be quite dull as a blog, so having had the wobble i intend to stick to the up times, the announcements of the venues, the listing of the artists taking part, the publication of the trail guide in which we set out which artist will be in what venue.  the cheeky chappy in my character what's the trail to be something to discover, something to ponder on, something that asks of the viewer.... what's your favourite piece of work?

next peer to peer meeting

we've another peer to peer meeting booked for june 8th at 2pm at the strutts centre.

chris will be talking about the peer to peer meetings at the creative roadshow,  part of the belper arts festival on 16th may.

for more information about the peer to peer meetings:

http://www.corridor-arts.org.uk/abcd/dates/

#belperarttrail : form

follows function. i love bauhaus and particularly herbert bayer as he's one of the less well know members of it's haydays.

i've had a bit of a rambly day today. possibly related to a disturbed night's sleep. i get them occasionally. they might be related to the fine balance of food or drink or something on my mind.  everyday normal stuff really.

chris and i sat down with amanda from artsbeat this morning. it was early and i'd barely finished my coffee when we began to chat.  just between you and me i was bothered that we haven't quite finished putting the full trail together and as yet haven't let the submitees know the outcome of their efforts.  

upon checking in with my project plan this afternoon our lack of progress to know what the form of the trail is isn't as bad as my initial slightly sleep deprived self made it seem.  it bothers me that we haven't yet been able to confirm the trail with the submitees because i feel we should have let them know.  this is of course simply me pushing myself and responding to the self appointed pressure.  what i can add here is that we are beginning to draw up the necessary emails and there might be a few situations where we want to show something but are yet to secure a venue.  

as it was said to me on monday " you're ok though, there's loads of time till july."

meeting amanda this morning brought home the reality on the monday comment. how can we publicise something we don't know the form of?  i think the reality of that is that one publicises the concept in general terms when the full form is not known as the form continues to take shape right up to the point of the trail being live. indeed in our pilot year we still had a venue to find during the installation week, which we did.

just between you and i, i've been worried and a little stressed. all self inflicted as i want the trail to be as good as possible.

also just between you an i, that stress is coming from the need to have copy for articles publicising the trail.

note to self... publicity stuff is stressful but very neccesary, because we want the trail to be seen by as many people as possible.

on that note, it's time for a cup of tea.

happy wednesday everyone, including that alex chap in manchester...

putting the journey together #belperarttrail

use the hashtag for all you art trail tweets.

i'm feeling happier today. why? because we have made really good progress through phases 1,2 and 3 of our venue relationship building programme.

it does leave me with a bit of a headache as we're not quite fully venued up and this always has a little domino effect on what we display and where.  i am very aware that we still need to make the announcements of who will be in the trail this year and chris reassures me that it's ok as she's experienced how other trails take time to let people know as it does take time to successfully realise the ambition of placement.

i am getting very excited by what we've done so far and i really really want to say more, however i need to finish some details so for now i'll leave it at that and not fully reveal the destination......

it's coming .........

the journey of favourites.