the evening before meet the artist

 

and i returned from an evening walk thinking i'd like to write down some stuff about the trail. 

sitting with my laptop to write i became aware of the achy limbs and overall fatigue from today's heat. i recalled the times back in january when i wrote about the snow.

it has been a long journey to get the trail to this point and i thank all those involved in getting it ready for their effort and patience for staying with the process.  

for me right now i'm too close to be reflective about the journey, in fact after my walk i'm tired and would really like a cup of tea.

the website description has been tweaked for new visitors and all that is left to do is ... well nothing really. there's  the odd tweak here and there to satisfy process end.

we still have some preparations to do for the stall at the food festival and that can wait till next week. my thoughts turn to tim as he prepares for tomorrow... the car packed and all things set to go.  we've has loads of really positive and complimentary feedback about the radio interview. i'll write about that...however not now as just maybe i should have something to drink and put my feet up.  after all ... all the hard work is done. 

#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 ...

lunchtime reflection...

after a morning where we braved the sun and the rain and the hail to visit prospective venues for the trail.











i'd forgotten just how delicate an operation this part of organising the trail is. i say delicate as i learnt a very big lesson last year about the relationship between the art work and the venue that it's in. maybe in our first year we were just lucky as everything we tried simply worked. the second year had some steep learning, so this year i'm certainly keen to apply what we learnt.


we've begun the delicate operation and while relaxing with soup felt that we had had a good morning. there's still a lot of work to do and more venues to talk to, however i feel a lot happier now that we've visited venues and shown images and begun conversations.

there's follow up emails and information to send and more waiting to be done.

for us another stage of our journey has now begun.

thank you to all of you

 who have submitted your particular favourite to this year's trail.



we (corridor arts) now embark on another phase, well several phases before we finally arrive at our journey of favourites in july.




alongside the trail we've (as a group) also expressed our interest in being involved in the belper well dressings again this year.






at a personal level, i'm now adjusting to the shift from not knowing who will submit to who has and all that follows.  we'll be in touch with everyone who has submitted when we have a little more to say than thank you for your submission.  i know if i had submitted that i would be wanting to know if i'm in the trail and where my work will be shown.  being on the inside of the process i know that to get to those two things there's a bit of discussing to do and leg work to be done. 

at some level we're all now on the same journey to the trail, experiencing similar things.  this part of the journey is a little bit up hill for us (corridor arts) so i can say at this time that we might be appearing to be slow but we are putting in the effort to get from the purple hedge to.....

the journey of favourites

#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/

#belperarttrail : we've begun

oh yes, oh smile, oh joy ! our first submission arrived today. thank you for your submission. i'm feeling cheeky tonight so the rest of you will have to wait for the news of  who is was !!!!

one thing i've not discussed much in the blog is the publication of the words describing why the images are the artist's favourites. i think this year those words will be made available through the downloadable guide.

we're so excited and nervous about just how many submissions we might receive.  the deadline is march 10th at 8pm.  

we're waiting for your submission to the journey of favourites