Cove Park

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 that same attention to our working practice and take time away  to consider the direction we are going, the work we are creating and engage in conversations that push our ideas?

Many consider this an indulgence that we are too busy to address and this  is understandable when bills need to be paid, families cared for and life to be pursued.

Having the luxury of spending time to reflect alone or with like minded people, to assess and develop your work and to really take time away from  daily life (including family!) can be so beneficial.

We are delighted to be offering two Highland Craft residencies at Cove Park this year (through Rural Innovation Funding) and hope to do the same next year. We will watch and wait to see how our makers enjoy and benefit from the experience but I am confident that they will return inspired!

Cove Park is an international arts residency centre that allows artists working in all forms to undertake research, develop new project and take time away from ‘normal’ life.

 All the artists I have spoken with who have participated in Cove’s unique programme say that it is an incredible experience and one they look back on as a defining moment in their creative practice.

Places like this are so important and should be an essential part of any professional creative person’s development!

Perhaps those who are not so fortunate to be able to visit Cove Park should take note and build in time their diaries to take a break away from the day to day and to take time in a new location to concentrate on how their work is progressing.

 A sort of business and creative health check!

 Even events like Makers Days, exhibitions and trips to conferences can have the same effect – we are still counting the benefits from our Makers trip to Orkney last year, our visit to Stroud and countless makers’ visits through our Go and See and Makers Awards funding.

So please don’t make it an indulgence and make it essential! I look forward to hearing from you with your success stories.

Pamela

 www.covepark.org

TINA ROSE looks at the experience of ceramicist Frances Priest at Cove Park, and considers the implications of a discussion on the future of ceramics in Scotland

COVE PARK, the international centre for art located beside Loch Long on the Roseneath peninsula, awards several craft residencies each year.

In 2008 ceramicist Frances Priest was chosen for their three month Scottish crafts residency, and she finished her visit by inviting guests to come and see her new work and by talking about the residency experience.

One of the first changes she noticed when she arrived was the pleasure in moving from a dark studio in the city to a light space surrounded by stunning countryside and wildlife. In this new environment the 4,000 photographs she had taken in recent visits to Thailand, Cambodia and Japan, many of which had been pinned to her studio wall, suddenly gained a new importance.

She started playing with them, forming them into groups and mapping the visual imagery. Fascinated by the surfaces covering the landscapes and building, she began picking out patterns, which then developed into drawings, and collages which began crawling up the walls.

She then began creating a range of different ceramic shapes and forms and exploring patterns on them as an extension of the structure, developing the language of drawing for the ceramic surface. “I like the playfulness of these objects” she explained. “Objects people can interact with. The idea of creating an object that is about discussing the visual language of a place.”

The experience of working at Cove Park, however, was much more than the opportunity to work in a new environment. “The diversity of activity is really exciting” she says, referring to the fact that you meet other people doing residencies at the same time, such as poets, musicians, writers and visual artists from all over the world. Although everyone has their own living and working space, they meet each other informally over dinner in the evenings, and she found explaining her work to people from different backgrounds and other areas of the arts very challenging. This led her to reflect on what she is doing in her work and how she defines it.

Cove Park’s residency programme begins in April and continues until November. In 2008 their programme brought together over fifty national and international artists working in a wide variety of art forms and at all stages in their careers.

Next year they will award up to five three-month residencies and two six-week residencies in crafts, literature and the visual arts. The application guidelines and confirmation of application deadlines for these residencies will be published on their website on 1 October 2008.

The broader future of ceramics in Scotland was the focus of an informal discussion during Frances Priest’s residency. Everyone involved in crafts in Scotland was shocked at the news earlier this year that Glasgow School of Art will no longer be teaching ceramics at undergraduate level. This development was the driving force behind the discussion at Cove Park.

Frances gathered together key makers and professionals from throughout Scotland and the UK for the event, which marked the end of her three month residency at the centre.

The aim of the discussion was to map current ceramics activity and look at ways to sustain future making. It began with a listing of the high quality ceramicists currently working in Scotland, examples of organisations supporting young makers including studio spaces, shops and galleries who sell ceramics, opportunities for exhibiting work and web presences with an international reach.

Balancing these positive aspects were concerns about the poor studio provision, lack of networks for makers, lack of venues to show innovative and experimental craft and the closure of courses which makes it harder for makers to maintain and transfer skills.

The need to keep ceramic workshops spaces in colleges was seen as key to the long term future. Participants also believed there needs to be a centre for ceramics in Scotland if activity is to be sustained in any meaningful way. It would provide a hub of activity, giving a focus to makers and generating international networks.

Another important area was the exhibition side, where it was felt there was a need to develop different structures for showing craft and for museums to offer different ways to view craft and engage with it, such as Craft Rocks at the V&A in London.

Funding for makers and curators was also seen as core to the future growth of ceramics, particularly the Scottish Arts Council’s craft department, but that private investment must also be developed to sustain making.

The dissemination of information through a wide range of sources was considered vital – critical writing, exhibitions, websites, seminars, group discussions, talks and events, all of which will build a sense of community, and a crafts scene. Three organisations mentioned presently doing this were craftscotland, IC: Innovative Craft and Cove Park.

The conclusion was that this was just the beginning of an open dialogue which it is hoped will develop into a network which can grow and provide a valuable focus for the future of ceramics.

© Tina Rose, 2008

Links

• Cove Park
• Craftscotland

RODY GORMAN describes his participation in the Poet to Poet project in Israel and Cove Park

I WAS INVITED to take part in the Poet to Poet translation project in Israel and Cove Park by Loch Long, Argyll in April and May 2007. Under this project, selected poets work in pairs to produce translations of each other’s work, sometimes in a mutually enriching literary endeavour and at other times more like a form of charades.
 
The languages involved in the project in 2007 were Arabic, English, Gaelic and Hebrew, and the other participants from Britain were Polly Clark, Antony Dunn and W. N. Herbert.

The other participants were Ayman Agbaria from Umm Al-Fahm and Nidaa Khoury, a Melkite Catholic Arab – I think I’ve got that correctly – from Fasuta in Galilee, near the border with Lebannon (both writing predominantly in Arabic) and Yael Globerman and Amir Or (both from Tel Aviv and writing predominantly in Hebrew). Amir Or’s poetry has been extensively translated into English.

To read the full text of Rody’s article (8,000 words), download the pdf from the link below.

• Argyll to Israel

© Rody Gorman, 2007

Links

• Cove Park
  

EILEEN RAE looks at the Argyll & Bute residencies based in the artistic retreat at Cove Park.

FOUNDED IN 1999 by Eileen and Peter Jacobs, Cove Park is an international centre dedicated to artistic excellence and the professional development of individuals and groups working within the arts and creative industries.

Cove Park is located on a breathtaking 50-acre site overlooking Loch Long on the Rosneath peninsula. Through its annual programme of residencies and events, Cove Park supports individuals at any stage of their careers in a multidisciplinary environment.
 
Accommodation at Cove features two of the original four Pods commissioned by the BBC for its ‘Castaway 2000’ programme, refurbished and redesigned internally, with turf on the roof as insulation, which also helps them to blend into the landscape of the park.

There are also the “Cubes” – these are converted freight containers joined together to produce individual units of accommodation. In 2006, the Scottish Arts Council agreed funding for six new “Cubes” on site.

Since its launch in 2000, Cove Park’s annual residency programme has brought over 500 national and international artists to the region to work on residencies from one week to three months.
 
Many of the projects initiated at Cove Park have subsequently appeared in leading national and international art galleries, theatres and publications.

In 2006, Cove Park commissioned Simon Starling to produce a major new work specifically for the site, responding to the unique context and environment of the Rosneath peninsula.

From a pilot project in 2004 between Argyll and Bute Council and Cove Park, The Argyll and Bute Residency programme was devised in order to offer four awards annually to artists living and working in Argyll and Bute, or from the region, or artists with a project which has a strong connection with the region.

This year a Call for Applications went out for submissions to be returned by the end of May, and the residencies are scheduled for two weeks in September.

A Steering Committee for the project was initiated in 2005 with Cove Park’s Director Alexia Holt; Argyll and Bute’s Arts Development Officer, Eileen Rae; leading Argyll artist Jane Kelly; and Gordon MacLean (Director) and Lee Hendrick (Visual Arts and Crafts Officer), both from An Tobar, Mull. They are responsible for the final selection.

Each artist is provided with accommodation on site, dedicated studio or work space and a budget for materials. The aim is to provide artists with the time and support to concentrate on new projects within the context of a cross art form programme. This year, three of the artists are Argyll and Bute based from the disciplines of music, writing and craft and they will be joined by a visual artist from Germany.

© Eileen Rae, 2006