The Commonty: wha's like us

News is getting around that changes are afoot at The Commonty - the current disorganised and frankly ramshackle (but well-loved) will come to an end on 23rd May. The Commonty will announce more detail on this as it becomes available - The Commonty has done its bit to shine a light on the amazing work happening in our region, and particularly to support the emergence of a new way of the sector running its own affairs....yep, you guessed it - the FreshChamberStartHub. It is hoped that The Commonty will continue in some form as part of the way that we all work together as part of the new regional arts strategy - The Commonty aims to be the rebellious cousin in the FreshStartChamberHub family.

By way of marking this moment of change and saying farewell to the current Commonty team, here is a wee trip back through the last 3 and bit years.

Our opening post in march 2011

The Commonty started in March 2011 following the now legendary Rhonehouse Summit - following this meeting a group met to propose ideas for 'the artists doing it for themselves' and The Commonty was born.

At the outset there was not a really clear vision - other than this would be something that was completely free access for the creative community in D+G and that we would publish everything that we were sent....we have stuck to this aim and have published 2228 articles to date - this represents an average of 2 per day for 3 years and 2 months.

Quickly it became clear that one of the main functions of the blog would be to report on and be a platform for debate about the local Arts Sector - and the seismic shift brought about by the loss of DG Arts (aka The Arts Association)

The Commonty was a place to ask questions about what was going on with DGArts

The Blog also received answers to some of the questions it asked - this post published a letter to The Commonty from DGArts board .....and we believe that one of the comments on this post by Fiona McRobert is the first mention of some of the ideas that were to become the new model for the arts that we are now building in the SouthWest

The sad demise of DGArts led to the development of a new model (currently our beloved FreshChamberStartHub) -The Commonty has been at the frontline of these developments and the search Label 'Regional Arts Scene' has a unique record of the developments at a regional level over the last three years.

The Commonty also waded into the fray of the great Creative Scotland Stooshie - memorably becoming the target of the bile of national arts journalists when we published a letter from artists and organisations in D+G that dared to say the CS#1 was not 'all bad'!

Frankly it all got a bit bonkers

Of course there has been some top notch arts stuff in as well and some suitably leftfield stuff too:

Liminal by Helson and Jackets at 2013 D+G Arts Festival

Some things that have featured a lot:

too many to mention in fact.....but have some fun clicking the label links in the right hand menu of the blog (not on mobile version)

one of our favourite labels in the Phenomena label - this just has stuff that seems out of the ordinary...it started with Andy Priestman sending us a video of the strange floating ice formations in the river next to his studio:

Ice Floes on the Minnoch by Andy Priestman

Those we have loved:
- Everyone who sent material in for posting
- Everyone who has worked on the blog over the last 3 years: Katie A, Matt B, Betty W, Mark M, Mark Z, Will M
- (nearly) everyone who has commented...including (but certainly not only..) Upland Shepherd, Amy Able, Denis MacCunundrum, Ray Gin Pedant, cheekygal, Prof Pat Pending, JK Huysmans, Horst Hrubesch, Parental Control Software, Andy Goldsworthy, Joanna Lumley, Lonesome Pine and Phil.S. Stein

Those who have commented on the blog have made it the place it is - a particular favourite at Commonty Central is the lovely Phillipa McSoirée - grandee of scottish arts journalism, auntie to the Herald's Arts Correspondent Phil Miller and patronising cow about anything that takes place outside the Central Belt - we love her!