IC:Innovative Craft Blog

The latest developments at IC:Innovative Craft, including contributions from a range of guest contributors:

A busy July for IC

Posted Sunday 26 July 2009, 03:18pm

Image from A Pilgrimage website (see below), Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins' film journey in the Highlands

In early July Edinburgh was hotter than Rome. Curious grey/brown streaks appeared on the stairs up to the IC office as though all the ambient water of 100 years of swimming pool life was finally drawn up through the fabric of the Dovecot building.

This suitably damp presence provides a backdrop for a series of large pink and green duck illustrations guiding visitors up to the illustrator John Burningham’s exhibition on the balcony which opened in early July. Occasional rocket fuelled two year olds test the effectiveness of the double bar railing system on the balcony and a large stuffed gorilla hangs, slightly menacingly, over the Studio space.

July in Edinburgh often has a sense of lull or pause - a moment of languor before the adrenalin of another Festival kicks in. School holidays are in full swing - the 4 x 4’s are away negotiating the narrow streets of Italy; the open fields of France or sitting, quietly, on the airport tarmac. The streets have a strangely deserted air and even those of us still working sense a different rhythm to the city - lighter, less familiar.

At IC we have passed the holiday season preparing for the next 12 months of events at Dovecot. We have been form filling; statistic gathering; bill paying; brainstorming; recruiting; meeting; greeting; fundraising; talking; ordering lightfittings; reviewing progress; negotiating; hoping; praying; calling in favours; visiting workshops, galleries, degree shows; painting walls; reading; networking; planning and listening.

All so we can continue thinking about and acting on those two words, ‘innovative’ and ‘craft’. Recently, we have sponsored Matt Hulse to participate in Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins’ film journey in the Highlands, A Pilgrimage; we have part funded sculptor Scott Laverie to create a fabulous (installed Friday) modular Reading room; we have held a selection meeting in the stylish surroundings of the Bute Room for our craft and photography show with the National Museum of Scotland and have watched two2 men very slowly unload a large MOMART van full of the contents of Jerwood Contemporary Makers, ready for next weeks installation.

Not that languorous really.

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