feedback from in bloom judge

today belper has hosted the regional judges for this years in bloom competition.


i was lucky enough to be invited to the lunchtime reception at the town council offices where we listened to a couple of speeches from john nelson and one of the judging panel.


after the speeches one of the judges came up to me with big smiles and sat and chatted about the two works on the trail in the outdoor spaces.


the lady judge was complimentary about the trail and i thanked her for her feedback.


i believe that the lettuces in the memorial gardens are now ready to eat ....



( note : i feel this above many others demonstrates my dsylexic tendancy to bounce quickly from one subject to another)

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 :)

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.

belper news and the bbc #belperarttrail

there is soo much exciting stuff to write about today i'm a bit too excited to know where to start.









so as the song goes, time to start at the very beginning and in true big bang style will so swerve the opportunity to talk about the collection of gas that exploded and millions of years later we find ourselves with running water, electricity and a means of publicating words to a world wide web...


when we launched the call out back in october we had very little idea of what works would be submitted. we certainly didn't expect a work that would so well resonate with strutt's north mill.  we also couldn't forsee the evolution of staff at the mill so it is really pleasing that we've managed to once again include the basement of the north mill in the art trail.

so keeping with our sub-theme of discovering while on the trail, we're please to announce that on sunday 7th july we have a special event at 1pm till 3pm at strutt's north mill where artist tim shore will be available to chat with about his work installed in the basement of the mill.

this story is featured in the belper news

and is listed as something to do on the bbc website things to do. 

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 about strategy for audience development.

what we'd like for the audience is an experience of walking through belper from venue to venue and for that to be enjoyable from point of view of viewing interesting and diverse art works with time between them to discuss the work and the built environment.

and there's the wonderful art paradox.  for all our work and effort we can only hope and wait that as many interested parties get to see and experience the trail.

as we've progressed to the trail being live the notion of discovery has appeared. we hope that this in turns develops some excitement in the prospect of that walk through belper.





to reflect the notion of discovery, on our facebook profile page we're revealing a cover image that can be used to promote the trail.  thanks to debbie at artsderbyshire for inspiring the idea.

another part of the teasing strategy about the trail is revealing the venues and the artists and leaving the connections between them to be found in the guide and in the venues themselves. 

to gauge a realistic visitor figure we will use the download figures from the guide and map as one of the strands of data gathering for trail visitor numbers. in reality there may never be any way of knowing really how many people saw part of the trail. another paradox of mounting an exhibition in this way.

at a personal level this strategy is exciting..... and i feel the risk also. risk?  i'm pushing this strategy in the group and there is potential for it to backfire on me and the group.  there's a little bit of pressure that again paradoxically could go either way.  it's becoming a fine line between information overload and information drought.  there's only one way to find out what it really turns out to be and that's to make a strategy and see the it through.

i for one am looking forward to the trail being live and finding out what people think about it.

i've remembered a recent conversation with the drop inn.  they're going to be working digitally and i got myself in a pickle with thinking that involved an electrical supply.  it is in fact digital prints and as they said "80% digital, 20% surprise".

personally i'm becoming interested in surprise...  discovery. in my own practice that's what i want to research next.  on reflection i think that my own practice is impacting on the trail.  with so many people involved i hope that the intention of discovery.... and favourite... and discussion... are present for the audience, in their own ....

journey of favourites

in a field

there are times when the best thing to do is just kick off the shoes and feel the grass beneath one's feet.


obviously i'm now sat on rock in the middle of a field paused while walking to make a very quick blog post about being in a field and feeling the grass. it's a bit prickly but despite the tickling sensation it feels lovely.


i'm off with the fairies to explore the yonder this evening as it's been a very busy week and there's only so much one can do before it's time to kick back and relax for a few days.


there is a peer to peer tomorrow so my wanderings today will be only as far as i get with a eye on getting back.  



as i take in the evening smells, sights and sounds i do feel like there's something i've forgotten to do...


did i turn the oven off ........ ........   .............