Research Town

19 October -24 November 2024

It was the opening day of my exhibition titled Experimental Art-Publishing. I arrived at Birnam Arts (BA) at 9.30am to help set up before I began my artist talk, scheduled for 10.30am. It was I think the busiest that I had seen the BA. The weather was chilly but with blue skies and golden autumn-winter sun. A crowd of people came off the train from Glasgow to spend time in the countryside, go walking and come in to the café at BA. Morning coffee and breakfast as well as lunch, or brunch, was in order for most people! I know this because my colleague had come for the day to be at the exhibition opening. She mentioned how busy the train was. On reflection, I think this is something relatively new to Birnam, it certainly felt busier than usual for an autumn day. There was a tangible buzz around the building. I stood with Helen at the drinks table which had champagne flutes laid out and orange juice waiting for people attending to arrive. Helen is the Visual Arts Programming and Development Manager for BA, and my friend from the days at Breastfeeding Support Group in Perth Royal Infirmary during the early infancy of our respective baby boys.

My talk was well attended. Some people I know from when I grew up in the village came along to hear what I had to say, as well as my parents, my husband and my son, an artist I knew, and other people I was yet to meet. Helen helped me to record the talk for both its value in the research and a plan we have hatched to make a podcast with it, so hopefully more on that to come soon!

After the talk I managed to get some lunch in the café which was full to bursting. The zine workshop was scheduled to start at 1.30pm and run until 3.30pm. It was fully booked. Attending were some friends of mine, my colleague from Stirling University, two people from Inverness and someone from Auchterarder who was very interested in working with young people with zines and wanted to give it a try. The artist in residence was also at the workshop in a shadowing capacity.

We all had a great time in the workshop. I brought along lots of different papers which were well used! I didn’t quite have enough glue sticks, but everyone managed by sharing. I must get that sorted the next time we do a workshop. I had lots of the London Review of Books and some Good Food magazines. The content in the former had lots of colourful designs on the covers and interesting adverts. The latter was full of wonderful foodie images. There was also a collection of other randomly selected publications from our house – travel catalogues and leaflets that are posted through the letter box. I wonder what it would be like to have a bunch of other different kinds of magazines. I have made some zines with an Italian magazine subsequently which was interesting working with content written in another language. I made a note to myself to find some Gaelic publications in Skye (my second research location) to make some zines with and potentially learn some more of the language in the process.

The exhibition has come down now. My ‘exhibition in a box’ as Helen liked to call it! Yes, that’s true apart from my drawing desk – but that fitted in my car, so all very transportable.