Some of the
artists and crafts people met this week to put the final touches to the
preparations for the first Art and Crafts Trail to be held in Whithorn over the
weekend of the 19th, 20th and 21 July. A
few even got together in the sunshine to reminisce about a certain Sgt Pepper
cover photograph they decided to slightly emulate – but this will not be a “lonely
arts club band”!
Showing the
strength of creative talent from the Machars and beyond, over 30 artists and
crafts people will be exhibiting and demonstrating their work in Whithorn. As
well as painters in oil and watercolour, woodcarvers, blacksmith, potter, doll
maker, printmaker, stained glass artist, embroiderers, weavers, photographers
and others are all taking this opportunity to flaunt their artistic flair!
Over 16 venues
are being opened for the Trail including the launch of 2 new private galleries and
a smithy that will be very welcome, permanent additions to Whithorn. The
Whithorn Trust’s Ninian Gallery and the Machars' Craft Workshop run by Gill
Bailey will be holding group shows. In addition, to cope with the demand from
artists for exhibition spaces, houses, gardens, garages and shop windows will
also be pressed into service.
Feathered inhabitants
of Whithorn will in for a shock as, through the famous Priory Pend archway in
Bruce Street, a new housing development for the birds is being created with
each artist designing a birdhouse that will range from the slightly sensible to
the wildly surreal. Judging by some of the birdhouse designs completed so far,
the approach to the ruined Priory church will be ‘on a wing and a prayer’. Of
course, the winning entry to the very successful Whithorn Primary School
competition to design a birdhouse will have pride of place.
On Sunday, the
phrase that identifies Whithorn as ‘the shining light’ will be reinterpreted
with a series of lamppost poems with the street lights hung with literary
quotations, each illumination another aspect of George Street.
Over the
weekend the Whithorn Story Exhibition, with its special loan exhibition of
Orkney’s St Ninian’s Isle Treasure from the Nation Museum in Edinburgh, and the
nearby Historic Scotland Museum, that houses amongst the finest collections of
carved stone crosses in Scotland, will also be open free of charge – 10.30am to
5.00pm.
Receiving this
year backing from West Fest, it is hoped that the Art and Crafts Trail weekend
will become an annual Whithorn event.
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