Tag: residency

Announcing Our New Sponsored Residency at Cove Park

As part of our New Maker support we are delighted to announce that we will be supporting an artist to participate in a residency at Cove Park in March of this year. Cove Park creates residencies in all the art forms for national and international artists, collaborative groups and organisations. It is located on 50 acres of unspoilt hillside overlooking Loch Long on Scotland’s west coast.

This is part of our programming aimed at new makers and was launched in 2017. Identifying a need to support makers at the beginning of their careers, whether it be starting up their business after further or higher education or self-taught entrepreneurs, it’s definitely an area within craft and design practice that will have consistent growth.

Our New Makers’ support started with a pilot online exhibition in 2017 (Materialise) which featured 9 outstanding makers that were selected from degree shows throughout Scotland. The exhibition can still be viewed here. We also held a successful New Makers’ CPD session, Opportunities to Connect, which introduced makers to arts organisations that offer support at this stage in their career such as Applied Arts Scotland, Craft Scotland, Creative Scotland and many more. These introductions were recorded and will be available on our website soon. Look out for an extremely inspiring key note from Kirsty Thomas of Tom Pigeon. In addition, sessions were run throughout the day to give the participants time to interact with each other, build networks and informally ask these organisations what they really wanted to know.

This year we are currently working on the next online exhibition which will be ready early spring this year. We are working with web design agency Pooka to create an engaging and exciting new platform to showcase the work of a group of specially selected makers that graduated in 2018.

From this cohort of artists, a panel of staff and board members at Fife Contemporary selected a maker to award the Cove Park residency to Caitlin Hegney, a graduate from Glasgow School of Art. She will use the opportunity to focus on and research a new body of work. On return from her residency Caitlin will share her experience and progress which we will then share with our audiences. All makers nominated were of an extremely high standard and we can’t wait to share all of their work very soon via the next online exhibition and through our social media; so keep your eyes peeled!

Now that we are into our second year of New Makers’ support we are looking at developing ways to reach and include opportunities to a wider scope of new makers, such as college graduates, self-taught artists, and artists returning to their practice after a break. We would like to include them in future online exhibitions and residencies.

If you know or are a new maker or have come to your practice from an alternative route we would love to hear how and what kind of support you would be interested in. Please email me with any suggestions at stefanie.cheong@fcac.co.uk 

Methilhill Edible Garden Handbook

In the latter part of 2015 artist Claire Briegel was selected by Fife Contemporary to undertake a residency with children at Methilhill Community Learning Garden’s outdoor youth group in Fife

Through a series of creative workshops and engagement, Claire and the children explored the garden’s ‘edible cycle’ of waste, growing, cooking and eating. Together they made mini transparent compost ‘bins’, so that they could watch the natural process of waste happening; they made waste plant dyes which were then used to create batik pickle, jam and ferment jar covers; they tried their hand at making fermentation from vegetables grown in the garden; they experimented with different spices, making imagery of the garden’s biodiversity including a fantastic turmeric bee; and finally they tried cooking and eating including clootie dumplings! A real engagement of all the senses!

The booklet gives a brief description of the point of the residency and then gives short recipes for some of the projects enjoyed by the children.  An introduction was written by Eva Schonveld of Common Good Food who gave useful advice during the residency.

Methilhill Edible Garden Booklet is now available here to download for free – and it hopefully will encourage others to explore food’s natural cycle from beginning to end too.

24pp including 4pp cover
Full colour
ISBN Number 978-1-907346-05-7

On This Day – 13 September 2008

Brown Linen – Jeanette Sendler

On this day ten years ago, the Brown Linen exhibition opened at St Andrews Museum.

Following the success of a highly productive artist’s residency with Fife Arts Co-operative in Newburgh, Jeanette Sendler put together a body of work which was inspired by the town, its history and traditions.
The name, ‘Brown Linen’ indicated the fact that Newburgh never produced ‘White Linen’ which eventually brought about the death of the village’s cottage weaving industry.

150 years after the hand-loom industry of Fife come to an end, Jeanette learned to weave in Newburgh. The jute history of Dundee and Fife influenced her choice of linen and jute as materials, and she created fabric bearing patterns adapted from the floor cloth and lino dating from the 1870s to the 1940s.

The challenge for Janette was to work the woven material into 3-dimensional shapes to bring alive the people behind the industry and its history in Newburgh. The show therefore represented a culmination of old and new skills.

More information about the residency, and Jeanette can be found in our archive.