Research Town

Monday 5th – Friday 9th August 2024

Commencing my first week of fieldwork for the Contemporary Art-Publishing Ecosystems project, I arrived at Birnam Arts (BA) at 10 am on the Monday morning to meet Helen, who is the Visual Arts Programming and Development Manager at the arts centre. I was quite early so got a coffee and started to make some notes. It was feeling hard to shift gears from my annual leave only a few weeks prior. I was also camping on the weekend. Helen was too. We know each other from the breastfeeding support group at PRI where we met. I had my son in March 2017 and Helen came along with her first a month or so later. I recall at the time we met thinking that we could do some work together with our respective background in Fine Art. I’m glad to be doing work with her now connected to this research project.

BA is busy and bustling in the café area at this time of the morning. I had my coffee then realised that I needed to get Luna out of the car and give her a walk. I went to get her at about 10.30 am and walked her by the river. She really enjoyed being by the river while I remembered all the times I have walked this way, down the track past the pub and the Birnam Hotel, by the houses towards the Jubilee Park and along the river path towards the fishing hut. We walked for about fifteen minutes then I headed back the way we came until we came to the end of the park area, and I decided to walk back up through that. It’s grown an awful lot since I was last there playing rounders as a girl guide! The trees have grown so much that there’s no flat expanse of grass that’s kept mowed short like it used to be. 

I came back to the car and dumped my jacket and cardigan in the car. It’s so warm and muggy. I took Luna with me into the BA café and set up again – this time by the window in a little nook space. The sun was shining, and Luna lay down and relaxed quite quickly. I had a nice perspective of the café and made a drawing of the space and all the people at that time (11:17 am). I sat there for a while drawing, looking and absorbing the sounds of the space – coffee cups being stacked or un-stacked for filling and drinks being served echoed in the distance. I made another drawing while sitting in that spot, of the signage towards the studio, the gallery, meetings, the gift shop, and the Beatrix Potter Exhibition. I notice publications over towards the toilets, leaflets and information from various organisations. An exhibition by Jo Foo is on called Beyond Expectations. Helen told me of the talk that’s on Wednesday evening for the exhibition which I booked to go to. It cost £3.00 (is a talk a publication?)

BA is a friendly space with lots of chatter. There’s a lot of greenery with plants dotted around. I move to a table nearer to the entrance to get some fresh air. Luna seems to be relieved. I draw another couple of views from this position, the signs that show the way to the nook where I just came from, the shop, the Beatrix Potter Exhibition and the auditorium. From this position I also notice several posters printed and posted on the walls to advertise upcoming events and current ones. Multiples of four are displayed on the back wall of the café. The events are the Paul McKenna Band, Rohallion – the summer ceilidh – a Unicorn Dance Party, Jo Foo exhibition, and Sian. Sian is another weeknight music event happening in September (I think). I picked up the programme to check. There’s another bank of posters in the hallway entrance to the café from the other front door, which is the entrance to the original version of the building. There’s an indication towards sustainability aims of BA with their poster that says: ‘Go Green’ Coffee, ’20p off hot drinks using your own coffee mug’ – I’ll need to bring my own mug tomorrow. Today the café is only selling drinks, cakes and ice cream. 

The first night, I slept well in the spare room of my parents’ house at the end of Birnam Glen. I woke to a sunny morning and absolute peace and silence. The morning was spent after coffee trying to find the chickens through the overgrowth of ferns and hedges that must have grown up while my parents have been away. I got soaked from trying to get through all the wet greenery and then finally found them and gave them the feed that they needed and some fresh water. I also fed the goldfish and the dog! Everyone was happy then I did some admin for my dissertation students. Afterwards, Luna and I walked down the glen to BA. It’s funny bringing the dog into the building as she attracts a lot of attention. There’s a lot of people in the space at the moment (Tues 6 Aug, 12:57) – three walking down the stairs from the upstairs exhibition, three sitting at the table opposite me and two at another towards the entrance. There are two café servers working today. I’ve only had two coffees this morning but feel that this is enough for me today. Yesterday I was quite jittery and struggled to relax into the space. Two more people have just walked down the stairs, and I seem to see the one guy a lot – maybe he works in the building as a member of staff. Three more people have arrived and another family. The ages of everyone are quite mixed – people in their 50s and older, people in their 30s and 40s – families with multiple generations. The people serving the coffee are young, in their 20s I would say. The sunlight is streaming in through the ceiling, and I’m sat just to the side of it.

In the evenings I have been making books for making more notes and drawings in. I wonder what role publishing may have had in the historical developments of the BA building and the BA as an organisation. An obvious link that BA makes to book is with Beatrix Potter. I went to have a look around the Beatrix Potter Exhibition and the shop which takes up quite a lot of space (Wed 7 Aug). This history however and the connections to illustration and to nature are interesting. This is a link that I plan to explore more in the coming months as I develop the first Fount publication. I have a lot of reading to do around sustainability and the environment and the creative arts. I took a lot of photographs which I will organise this evening.

It’s nice to chat with people in the village again who may know me through my relatives or friends in the village. At the Post Office, I met someone I used to work with at the Birnam Hotel when she was much younger and I too – she worked at the reception, and I worked in the bar. We had a nice wee chat as I posted off a copy of Stryvling’s latest publication for a student (Wed 7 Aug). Stryvling Press publishes an annual anthology of creative writing by students on the MLitt in Creative Writing at University of Stirling. Postcards was a theme of the chat with Mridula that connected to my discoveries in the BA shop where I picked up a book on Perthshire postcards by David and Ian Robertson. 

Walking has been a big part of this week, and being in the countryside has had an impact on my stress levels but perhaps too its the slower pace of Birnam. BA opens at 10 am and closes at 4 pm, unless there is an event on in an evening when it opens till late. I began the week feeling quite anxious about this research project. I had a hundred things going on in my mind around lack of childcare for Caelan for after school, around the house and the state that it’s in, around my workload and other responsibilities that I have this month. However, now after week one already I feel more focused and clear on what I’m doing – at least in Birnam. I have a lot left to explore!