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)

#belperarttrail going green

with 21 days to go to #belperarttrail i thought i'd share some thoughts following a visit to one of the venues for this years art trail.

the memorial gardens in king street will be one of two green spaces that feature in the trail this year.

i visited the gardens on friday to take some pictures and spend a little time reflecting after the last food festival committee before the big event on the 14th july.

i've been into the gardens countless times but haven't really looked at what's in there.  

while i mused the images that i'd taken a gentleman came up to me and asked "have you got it?"  we struck up a conversation. we chatted about what i was doing and about the trail and about the town of belper.  i learnt that he grew up in belper and he can remember "the clinic" that stood where the lighthouse charity shop now stands. i recalled how i'd seen an artist's impression of a civic building proposed for that spot in the mid 60's in an illustrated history of belper in the town's library.

i learnt from him about the bluebell pub that stood on the market place during the war. it had a cellar that got used for an air raid shelter. today the building is used as a framers.

his wife joined us and pointed out that there are lettuces growing in one of the flower beds.  it got me talking about todmorden in yorkshire.  i wondered if it was a community gardening project.

we looked around and found many other varieties of edible plants

i really enjoyed talking with the couple and i think we would have continued to chat for sometime were it not for the fact that it was lunchtime and the couple had a date at geogres for lunch. i wished them well and said my goodbyes.

the whole experience was one of pleasure and enjoyment and i thank them for chatting to me.

venue list published

we're please to announce the venue list for the 2013 belper art trail.

buttons and bows preparing the ribbon on june 1st.

#belperarttrail artists and venues announcement friday

yes this friday we'll be able to announce the artsits and venues that will the components of the journey of favourites.










one thing that has really emerged in this final phase of putting the trail together is a sense of discovery. we see that the trail offers an opportunity to meander through belper, discover a work, meander some more, discover another, meander.... and generally take some time to be out and about in belper.

the guide will be published later this month.

#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 ...

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?

#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.