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One of the many good points about this residency is that several little “spin-off” projects have occurred along the way.
The latest is to create a piece that will be hung next year at the Ocean Terminal in Greenock, where all the cruise ships visiting the West Coast of Scotland dock. It is also seeing an increasing number of embarkations. The number of passengers passing through the terminal has mushroomed and next year there will be almost 40 cruises visiting.
The work for this project is on a maritime heritage theme, loosely based on "Sail and Steam". This gave me the opportunity to photograph completely different kinds of objects from the Museum collections and it has been a very interesting process indeed. I have created another gallery on the website to accompany this project and will also be reporting further on my progress.Today I attended a meeting of the Inverclyde TAIT (The Arts Implementation Team). At the partners news exchange it was decided that I should approach Clydeport about having the hanging date for my maritime heritage work at Ocean Terminal brought forward to coincide with the final visit of the Queen Elizabeth 2. The QE2 was built on the Clyde in 1967 and will return to the place of her birth for the last time in October before she leaves for her new life in Dubai as a floating hotel. There was much interest in this project and the support and encouragement I receive from TAIT is always much appreciated.
An integral part of the residency is to develop my digital art techniques in different formats, scale, and media. The project for Clydeport is a great opportunity as the maritime piece will be printed at 2.6m x 2m on heavy duty laminated PVC. This is new territory for me as I have never printed my work on PVC before and rarely at that size.
I researched several possible companies to print the work but finally settled on a Glasgow company "Double Image". The advantage of engaging a local company is that I was able to discuss my requirements face to face. Today I visited their offices taking with me the digital file and a sample print for colour matching. My requests and timescale were all met effortlessly and so it is now “full steam ahead”.
While in the area I decided to pay a visit to the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow’s West End. In particular Kibble Palace Glasshouse which is an “A” listed, 19th century curvilinear iron structure, of exquisite design and form. It was originally a private conservatory located at Coulport on Loch Long. It was moved to its present site in 1873 and used as a concert hall and meeting place, hosting speakers such as Disraeli and Gladstone. It has recently undergone a multimillion pound restoration when the entire glasshouse was dismantled and restored in Shafton in Yorkshire. Today it houses the most amazing collection of ferns, trees and other plants but my reason for visiting was the fine collection of marble statues including ‘Eve’ by Scipione Tadolini. A more recent acquisition is a collection of contemporary stained glass.
Today the dates for the residency exhibition were set for the 21 March to 25 April 2009. I am delighted with this as I think it will be an excellent time of year to exhibit.