#belperarttrail at the 2013 food festival

what a magnificent day it was.

we knew from previous festivals that being present in the crowds is a great way to meet and chat with people, both who already knew about the trail and those that didn't.





our stall was on king street just opposite the council building and it proved to be a good location for all day shade.

postcard by jo kirk

as the festival opened there was very early sales for the crisp stall next door and much humour generated by the names of the beers on the other side. on  a personal note i spent the first two hours preferring that our stall was in an area that had other stalls offering information and opportunity.  

as the day progressed the ill feeling eased as i saw a pattern emerge of a steady increase in interest in the art trail.

the other pattern i definitely noticed were the groups of people taking a map. year on year i saw alot more groups of four taking a map and leaving the stall in full on discussion about the trail and the whereabouts of the venues.

mid way through the day we were joined by artist jo kirk who headed up the activity to "make a postcard from belper". we had lots of children and several adults who took some time out to create their very own postcard. we all enjoyed the smiles from the children at their creations and the deliberation that were started when asked "who are you going to send this to?"

postcard by andrew martyn sugars

throughout the day we received much feedback and i'm happy to report that it was almost unanimously positive.  here's a small selection of the comments that i can remember:

"a lady from the walking group told me about the art trail"

"i'm from matlock and i go to wirksworth quite a bit"

"can you go round this in the week? there's too much to do"

"there's an art trail as well"

"it''s really inventive"

"what a great idea"

"fantastic"

postcard by jo kirk

shortly before 2pm the current mayor of belper came over and said hello.  i can't remember talking so easily to a person in public office. she had many praising and encouraging words and has offered a photo opportunity with any of the works in the trail for the artists and venues.  i asked her about the track day fund raiser for the drop inn. her photo came out of her bag and we chatted at length about the endeavour.

so looking back on the day as a whole, i did start off being a little disappointed at the low level of interest in the trail. i accept now that actually the day was a food festival after all and those early visitors were looking to buy quality food.

as the day progressed there was a steady flow of interested people and overall there was an increase year on year in interested people.

just before we packed up for the day we spoke to one of the exhibiting venues. they reported that they were pleased to have opened (normally they did not open on a sunday) and had seen a lot of visitors and had made sales "it was a good day"

as i said yesterday to so many people, the trail is on today and the works are on show until next sunday.

postcard by jo kirk

[edit] we also spoke to a gentleman who was the quality control manager of the north mill. we spoke at length about the mill and what he did and personally i really enjoyed listening and talking with him.[edit]

greetings from ........ belper

is a participatory activity that we're running at the belper food festival this sunday.

it's come about as a result of the june peer to peer meeting at which we met artist jo kirk. 





at the meeting she brought to the table an idea of a postcard based participatory activity to do at the food festival.


between us we've developed the proposition of making a postcard to send to a friend.

on the stall at the food festival between noon and 2pm will be jo with postcards, stencils, a rubber stamp, pencils and felt tips.  in fact all the components to make a "greetings from belper" postcard that you'll be able to take away and send to a friend. the activity is both for children and adults.

we think that making a postcard is a perfect accompaniment to our journey of favourites themed art trail.

on the stall on sunday we are also going to be handing out trail maps and the strutt's north mill entry discount vouchers.

we look forward to seeing you on sunday :)

today's discovery #belperarttrail

i had some time to wander before the last install of the day today.  i took some time to look at the things that ordinarily i perhaps wouldn't have the time to look at, like the station for instance.

as i walked to the venue to meet the artist and the staff of the shop i strolled along a street that i'd not ever had cause to walk along before.

to my amazement at the bottom of the narrow street complete with really old street furniture i came across the mural as shown in the accompanying picture.  i stood with it for a while and took in the magnificence of the image. i started to wonder who "gibsons" were and what all the products were in the window.

i took in the surrounding environment. the glow in the dark stars, the lady sitting in the window at a sowing machine and the small cctv cameras.

i returned to looking at the image. i started to wonder when it was made, who had made it and why was there a strip of wood near the base of the image.

happy with a discovery to accompany the other enjoyable memories of the day of introducing artists to business owners and being part of artistic fusions i happily (almost skipping ) strolled to the expectant shop.

in keeping with the slightly teasing nature of the blog as to who and where the trail combinations are in this year's trail i met the artist whose work is the only work this year to be situated on the first floor.  to discover where that is there's a trail guide available from the link on the right......

so there i am in the shop, chatting away about stuff and would you believe it .... the artist whose work we were about to install had been part of the mural creation. the coincidence was astounding.  we chatted about the mural and it's creation and i learnt a bit more about it.

still wanting to not be a spoiler... i'll leave it for the artist to tell the story of the mural for herself .... over to you ......

meet the artist event 7th july #belperarttrail

from 1pm on the 7th, artist tim shore will be available to meet and chat with about his work as installed in the basement of strutt's north mill.

more information about shore's work and all the other work in the trail is now available to download at

www.corridor-arts.org.uk/abcd/belperarttrail


tim will be available until 3pm.

news ! #belperartrail

we're really happy that as a result of a discussion at the most recent peer to peer meeting, we'll be having a participatory activity on the belper art trail stall at the belper food festival on sunday 14th july.

it's fabulously a last minute arrangement so i post more details near the time. what i can say is that it's an activity that is connected to the idea of journey.

in other news the trail starts in 14 days time with the installation process spanning 9 days.

on wednesday look out for a story in the belper news about a special preview event happening at strutt's north mill.

this coming weekend is the open garden weekend and there will be information about the trail at each of the venues. we're hoping for fine weather for this most excellent annual gardening event.








also on wednesday of this week we'll be launching the trail map and guide on the main corridor arts website. 

with the guide you'll be able to start your own journey ..... 

#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 artist submission deadline 10th march

this post is a reminder, a nudge, a go on, a don't worry: the deadline is sunday, there's still time to complete your journey.










the bevvy of submissions yesterday reminded me that the deadline is this sunday.  we've come a long way since october when the journey began and with the call out period coming to a close it reminds me of the next stage of the trail for us, the preparing and pairing of the chosen works with the retail outlets that want to take part.

i'm not sure if i've spoken about the words that accompany each work in the trail this year.  my feeling is that we'll make those available in the first incident within the downloadable guide. in the past years these words were held on the blog before the event.  with the works in this year's trail being very much closer to those who made them, i feel it would be interesting to keep the words closer to the viewer.  handling the words this way also helps to maintain the idea of the trail being a journey of discovery for the viewer as much as it was for those who submitted.

and that leads me to think about the viewers and their feedback.  i wonder if we need a method of feeding back.  utilising the communication streams already open to us we have a twitter account and a facebook profile on which to add a comment.  there's also leaving a comment here on the blog and there's also sending a email.  for me written feedback is better than verbal, simply because my dyslexic condition means that i struggle to retain those little comments in the moment of wanting to remember them.  the importance of receiving feedback is two fold. to hear what those exhibiting and those viewing get out of the experience and also to demonstrate in the future that we've had a potential impact on people's lives by staging the art trail.  the second point becomes relevant if we attempt bigger projects that require funding.  the collected feedback helps to show the funders that we have experience in producing and hearing what is said about what we do.

so for those of your in the final stages of your journey of favourites i wish you well in completing that and look forward to receiving your submissions for we shall stage ... this summer ....

a journey of favourites

how to submit can be found on the corridor arts website call out page >>>>>> http://www.corridor-arts.org.uk/abcd/call-outs/

#love & #sun & #creativity

it's valentine's day and the sun is out and the snow looks fantastic below the #bluesky.

there's horses rollicking in the fields and far below the wooded glen, a brook babbles towards the river.

oh to be carried away by the warmth of the sun.

so yes, there's been more snow and yet another thaw, so all looks good for this weekend's peer to peer meeting at the strutt's building in belper at 2pm.

i understand from chris that she is plannng to talk a bit about her creativity workshops that are taking place at studio 61 in march, april and june.  if you're interested in taking part in the workshop and would like to know a bit more about what chris is planning to do, contact her via the email address or phone for a chat.

#belperarttrail : which is your favourite?

entitled  nearly 6th . (image)

we've entered the period of time now before the submission deadline (march 10th 8pm) in which one can choose which is your favourite piece of work you have made, write why it's your favourite and submit it to the trail.









for the journey of favourites needs your favourite to help make the journey of favourites.

#belperarttrail what really makes our favourite?

as the daylight begins to get longer, we're focussing on another round of promotion of the artist callout.  it was launched back in october and there's about two months left to run.  at a personal level, being this organised is giving me the space to develop my own practice and ideas some more.

this morning while preparing my thoughts for this post, i spotted some information about the mostyn open 18.

i learnt that for the first time in the open's history they will be awarding a prize to the artist whose work receives the most public votes.  the open states about this vote:

 In doing so, the questions that are raised, and central to this renewed edition, are: How do we examine and judge artwork? What criteria do we bring to perceiving, interpreting and understanding artwork? What really makes our favourite? [1]

the last question caught my eye as it resonates with our journey of favourites call out theme.  the proposition in the callout will allow the audience in july to connect with the chosen outcomes of the artists who set out to arrive at their favourite work.  in those works being presented, we're then putting the audience members in a position where they can then select their own favourite from the works that we selected to be displayed.

unfortunately we don't have a financial portfolio like the mostyn, however what we do have is the process and opportunity to get out into the community and look at art work and experience what then happens as a result of seeing it.






happy new year everyone. 






[1] http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/mostyn-open-18/ accessed 09:57 8th january 2013.

#belper winter food festival

"we normally see you behind a stall" was a comment i received as i wandered around the second belper winter food festival.  

we'd taken the decision to not have a stall at this winter festival as we didn't have an activity akin to the murmation project that we ran in 2011.  





so being able to wander around and take in the sights and smells of the day was a treat. for the first time campbell street was closed and i think if it's closed again in the summer that it'll add an interesting extra arm to the festival. something else that was being tried for the first time was using a truck for a stage on the market square. i think it worked well, however if it's to be used again i do wonder if the angle that the truck sits at needs to be considered further.

sara brighty had an open studio event for the day and i enjoyed a warming cup of fruit tea while we chatted and caught up.  there was a steady stream of visitors.




chatting with sara brought home that after the new year holidays we'll be about  2 months away from the submissions deadline for the art trail in july. 

belper can be justly proud of their now bi-annual cultural offerings.

a workshop with julie

saturday morning, cold, a bit damp, very november. definitely a porridge and golden syrup for breakfast day. the other distinguishing thing about this saturday was it being a peer to peer meeting day and also a workshop run by julie clare day.

i don't get to go to workshops that often, so despite feeling a little under the weather and just a little cold i assembled the items prescribed and ventured out to st john's chapel where a beaming julie warmly greeted me and i immediately knew that the journey was worth it and this workshop was going to be fun.

julie was running the workshop for transition belper and i found it very interesting to learn about the origins and uses of bio-plastics.

once we covered that and had a very lovely cup of tea we all moved onto the really fun bit playing with stuff from the kitchen cupboard.  the image above shows the phase where we played with milk, food colour and washing up liquid.  we also played with a cornflour and water combination.  i got quite into watching how the liquid rapidly turned into a solid and as quick back into a liquid.

after the excitement of that we all had an opportunity to make one of the several tree decorations made from paper that julie had on show.  i chose the one that i couldn't easily work out how it was made.  while we made the decs we'd chosen, julie effortlessly chaired a really interesting discussion.

i thank transition belper for facilitating julie to run such an excellent workshop.  i hope that julie gets more opportunities to run more of these style of workshops as she made accessible bits of physics and chemistry and i certainly left with some ideas to try out in my own kitchen / studio.