Take pride, take part investment plan story stones

CONTENTS

Partner organisations

Programme of work

Anticipated outcomes and long term impacts

The Need / Opportunity

Address equalities and inclusion

Partnership Potential Funding

Project Management

LEAD ORGANISATION
North Lands Creative Glass

Quatre Bras, Lybster

Caithness KW3 6BN

Website: www.northlandsglass.com

Email: info@northlandsglass.com

Tel 01593 721229

Company Limited by Guarantee, Registration No: 159007

Registered Scottish Charity No: SCO23805
PARTNER ORGANISATIONS
Timespan

Dunrobin Street, Helmsdale, KW8 6JA.

Charity SC009796, Company SC096873

Tel: 01431 821327www.timespan.org.uk

Old Town Hall, High Street, Thurso, KW14 8AJ

Company No: 269929, Charity No: SC036061

Tel: 01847 896508

 www.caithnesshorizons.co.uk
Moniack Mhor - Scotland's Creative Writing Centre

Teavarran, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire, IV4 7HT

Tel: 01463 741675

www.moniackmhor.org.uk
Yarrows Heritage Trust

Scottish Charity Number SCO33188

Kenneth Street, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, HS1 2DS

Charity number SC003287

www.lanntair.com
Borgie Forest Cabin Trust

megtelfer@tiscali.co.uk

The landscape can also speak and across Scotland there are many broken walls and crofts each with a tale to tell of lives lived, death, hope, despair and happiness.

The words have gone but the walls remain. The walls speak of change, of stories written and lost; the threads are broken but are being rewritten every day
The recent past, the present and future will see a change in the landscape and demographic of the Scottish Highlands, greater than at any time in its history. Windfarms both offshore and onshore, tidal power, the new approach to land use for forest, agriculture and tourism will completely alter the landscape. Interest in Scottish history and archaeology is growing as the case for an independent nation is argued and the need to validate a past which has a value beyond being part of a bigger nation.

It is a time of flux and the time to archive this is now. In 50 years’ time when the turbines have gone and there is a border crossing at Carlisle, people may wonder how this happened. Or likewise when the Highlands and the Pentland Firth are generating power for the whole nation, a record of the transition may be of interest.

It could even be the world imagined by Ross Sinclair.

This project would be a paradigm of now; the words of today speaking of the changing landscape, the attitudes, the ideas, hopes and perhaps fears for the future.

The words would be made real; cast into glass and given back into the communities they came from, built into the walls that first heard them.

Across counties, an unbroken prose of glass words returned back to the croft gables, the dry walled dykes and way markers in the landscape.

The residencies would be based on a single artist with a brief to engage the whole community. Listening to children in the schools, talking to the residents of sheltered accommodation, recording the thoughts of the fishermen, of the farmers, of housewives, construction and oil workers and the unemployed. Collecting information / words / prose / sayings / ideas / thoughts of people and phrasing them into some type of poetic form or distilling the thoughts down to a representational group of phrases and sayings.

The residences would not be about an artist taking influence and creating a piece of work but of a creative person articulating the thoughts of that area 

These would be fed back to North Lands Creative Glass, Lybster, where the words would be cast into or engraved onto glass stones.

Contributors from the various areas would be encouraged to come to Lybster to watch and be involved in workshops helping create the stones.

Exhibitions would be set up at the residency venues with the glass being built into stone walls for a concurrent exhibition across the Highlands.

Eventually all these parts would come together as a single venue installation.

Then the glass Story Stones would go back to where the words came from and back into the land.

On-line digital communication will be used as a resource and tool throughout the project through the use of a specific project website and Blog.

Contribution to Growing Audiences Highland Culture, “Take Pride Take Part” Strategy
The project is Highlands and Islands wide; it is multi venue with each venue being the focus of a residency for the collation of the words.

Each organisation knows its own area, is aware of the community it is part of and the community knows the venue. This will instil a sense of trust and place and by being part of the scheme people will become aware of the other greater community that is the Highlands.

Story Stones will aim to bring all the threads together and do so by using the most accessible of art form, words.

Many people are cautious about drawing, painting, dancing or sculpting but nearly everyone will talk. This project does not ask anyone to be an artist; just to be themselves and shows them that their words are as valid as any other. Eventually building a connecting wall between areas that will speak to the world and tells the story of what it means to be part of the Highlands of Scotland.

In time each community will have a sculpture that they can be proud of and identify with because without them it would not exist.

The stones would form markers on a pathway across the Highlands, not a sculpture trail but a single sculpture that spans the whole area.

Often things are done at personal not at organisation level, so that when staff members leave, the relationship between groups can be lost. The most important outcome of this project would be this ad hoc relationship becomes more professional and permanent.

The ideal would be that the website and blog developed for this project would become a level of intranet communication for arts organisations across the Highlands and that the project itself begins a strong dialogue between arts venues.

For the Communities this underlying level of professionalism is possibly more important in the long-term than a piece of art work.

For the Highlands an extensive and inclusive project which results in a major representational piece of artwork to be seen in a main urban centre will advertise the breadth and diversity of the life in the area to a national and international audience

The Need / Opportunity
The Highland region is a wide spread community. It can often be seen as a whole mass of small communities rather than all being a part of a larger one. A project such as this would help develop a pride not only in their own sense of place but as part of a bigger world.

Over the past 3 years North Lands Creative Glass has been expanding its access programme. Our specialism is glass and while we do have an ability to do some other arts activities our efforts are often hampered by lack of knowledge and equipment. Better cross organisational communication would develop reciprocal arrangements allowing for broader access to more varied art forms and activities for all across the Highlands.

By creating partnerships with organisations who already serve communities and groups then there is existent knowledge of an area, the people and how and where to connect with them.

Work would be done with schools. Some children because of family circumstance miss out on projects but by working in the class room then all would be included.

Partnership Potential Funding
For the community aspect of the project we would be looking to community funds with each venue applying within their region e.g.

IGAS

Various Wind farm community funds

10% in-kind

item	cost	amount	total
Venue residency	£3,100 each per 6 week residency	6	£18,600
Venue exhibition	£2,450	6	£14,700
Glass making residency	£23,740	1	£23,740
Major exhibition	£13,000	1	£13,000
Web development, Documentation, evaluation	£7,600	1	£7,600
Administrator	£15,000	1	£15,000
Legacy publication	£6,000	1	£6,000
Place in landscape	£900	6	£5,400
			£104,040

Project Management
North Lands Creative Glass was set up in response to a growing interest in using glass as a medium for artistic expression. Established in 1995 in Lybster a small fishing village in Caithness on the North East coast of Scotland, North Lands Glass has grown from a single class and conference based in the back of an old joiners shop to a pre-eminent glass studio with an international reputation for the quality of its tuition and facilities. It has a history of running successful international and local projects, residencies and partnerships. North Lands Creative Glass is one of three Scottish Craft Organisations to be awarded Regular Funded status by Creative Scotland.