Each year the Scottish government conduct a Scottish Household Survey that gives us an insight into the composition, characteristics, attitudes and behaviours of Scottish households and individuals. The […]
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Pamela Conacher explains how jewellery designer Gilly Langton made her move to the Highlands & Islands.If you are selling directly from your website as an artist or crafts maker then you might be wondering how you can increase your traffic, improve your website […]
]]>Blogging has become quite the social media phenomenon in the last 2 years. They’re a fantastic tool to be using for both marketing and promoting yourself, your artwork, your organisation, […]
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After all the preparation and planning we have finally arrived in New York after an early start, straightforward flight and taxi to the hotel. ‘We’ are a group of twelve Craft curators/officers who are […]
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Before I went on my travels, my son took it upon himself to organise my MP3 player – alphabetically, by genre and with a special section of music for New York! The one song that keeps playing through my […]
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The best part of working in the Crafts Team at HI-Arts is that I get to know the work of so many great makers from throughout the Highlands and Islands.
Early on in my job we featured the work of Plockton […]
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September has been so jam packed with events, I felt it best to chart them from the beginning and work my way through!
From Skye to London via Inverness, I have seen work that has ranged from community knitting […]
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One of the many great plus points about my job as Craft Development Coordinator for the HI-Arts is that I get out and about throughout the Highlands and Islands to meet many inspiring and positive people.
On […]
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After being overwhelmed by SOFA on Wednesday evening it was great to return yesterday and actually meet some of the makers and talk to people involved. We still came to the conclusion that the European and […]
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When I was a girl growing up in Arisaig, a friend of my mothers came to stay. Norma Morgan was an artist from NYC who was on a sabbatical to the UK as she was fascinated by moors and mountains and wanted to […]
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In the depth of winter, we planned a Makers Day with An Tobar on Mull.
May would be lovely we agreed, as we battled against snow and gales and thought of spring, sunshine and calm seas! Little did we know […]
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I always look forward to visiting Collect – ‘the international art fair for contemporary objects’- in London. For the past 5 years it has been held at the V&A and at the beginning of the year, around the end of […]
]]>The menu bar is right at the top of my screen, which being a Mac, all the tab lines and catagories are on a grey bar which is EXACTLY the […]
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Today I am going to try to add a picture to my blog. This will be a challenge for me, but I do have a friend visiting (I hope) who will help me through this. But just on the off chance that she can’t make it, here goes!
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Taking Time
Taking the West Highland train home from Edinburgh takes around 6 hours compared to 3 ½ hours in the car. It is a spectacular journey in daylight and one I have done numerous times since […]
]]>I always love getting new images sent through to me, whether it is for the crafts newsletter which we send out every month, the online galleries or for Making Progress web pages on the HI-Arts website – it’s […]
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Producing new work is demanding. It requires investment in time, money, focus, inspiration, invention and hard work. The first two of these things, ‘time and money’ are usually in short supply. It is easy enough […]
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Travelling Makers
From Shetland, Westray, Iona, Lochaber and Inverness, we arrived by trains, ferries, buses, taxis, planes and in some cases, all five!
Organising Highland invasions like this seems to be an […]
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Stroud International Textile Festival – May 2010
Having read through the selection of events and talks in the Stroud International Textile Festival brochure, I was thoroughly looking forward to our visit to this […]
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Collect
Our group visit last week was for makers who aspire to participate at Collect in the future. It was good to have a group who, once more spent time together catching up, discussing their own practice […]
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Eileen Gatt, beaker
On the 4th June we had our afternoon event to Celebrate Craft and our Mentoring Project, Making Progress. It also saw the opening of our exhibitions, Made It! and Laura West’s Spotlight.
As […]
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Assemble
On Tuesday I was in a very hot London for the Craft Council Conference, Assemble. Set in the lovely surroundings of LSO St Lukes, I had high expectations for the day, hoping to come home inspired and […]
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Time Out
This is the time of year when many of us try to take a break and escape from our usual routine by relaxing with family and friends, hoping to return refreshed and inspired.
How many of us devote […]
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Crafting TogetherMany of our projects address the need for our makers to get together; sometimes in a formal way through events such as Makers Days and at other times it just happens that the people involved […]
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On Wednesday I spent the day in Edinburgh with a group of colleagues discussing, amongst other issues, curating craft exhibitions.
Amongst all the doom and gloom of funding cuts and the difficulties of making […]
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On the first hot and sunny day for several weeks makers came from far and wide to listen to inspirational speakers for our summer event in Inverness.
‘Selling the Sizzle’ was Tina Rose’s suggestion for a […]
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At the end of last month Facebook users saw one of the biggest refurbishments to the social network there has been, since it went global. The introduction of the Facebook Timeline has created a lot of […]
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What is it that stops, prevents, or puts people off attending or participating in the arts? One of the biggest hurdles we face when considering marketing or audience development is how to attract those who have not engaged before or have become a lapsed attender. Of course there are numerous reasons why individuals may not be […]
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Some of the more tricker aspects of Audience Research is thinking about the types of questions that you might like to ask your audience, or even knowing what questions to ask in the first place. Tomorrow I am off to Melrose in the Scottish Borders to talk to a network of venues and promoters in the […]
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The Tip Sheet: Family Friendly Initiatives is my most popular blog post, recieving 719 views last month. With that kind of interest I have complied some more practical help guides, tips and advice which could help you on your way to developing a family friendly initiative, organisation and/or event. The Family Friendly Iniative – Making Your Arts […]
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“Culture and creativity are important drivers for personal development, social cohesion and economic growth.” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Back in 2007 the Education and Culture Directorate-General of the European Commission commissioned the TNS Opinion & Social to carry out a survey of public opinion on culture and its…[Read more]
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