‘The work in this year’s show is very eclectic and the judges had a difficult job making their choices’ said Mary Smith, Curator. She continued, ‘ It is so good to see so many entries and I am looking forward to working with the prize winners to develop the next Open Quintet show in the spring of 2010.’

The prize for best craft exhibit, presented by Shetland Arts & Crafts went to Ruth Fisher for her ‘Shag’. Millgaet Media’s photography prize was awarded to Dave Donaldson for ‘Landlocked’, while Hilary Seatter won John Goudies’s prize for best print. Peter Biehl’s fine drawing of ponies received the Vaila Fine Arts prize for best painting and drawing.
The best newcomer award went to Ross Fulton for his painting ‘Pallets’.
The prize winners will take part in a joint exhibition in 2010.

The Open is on show at Bonhoga Gallery until 4 October. The gallery is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.30 am to 4.30 pm and on Sunday from 12 noon – 4.30 pm.

Shetland Arts’ Bonhoga Gallery will shortly be opening the annual exhibition of work by artists and craft-makers from across Shetland. The Shetland Open is showing at Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill from Thursday 3rd September until Sunday 4th October 2009.

The Open is a non-selective exhibition of work by amateur, professional and student artists and craft-makers who are Shetland by birth, education or residency. Each exhibitor, aged 18 or over, is allowed to exhibit one piece of work up to 1mx1m in size.

The show has been running annually for 14 of the last 15 years and attracts work from a huge range of people throughout the Isles, in many different styles. This year the work is as varied as ever, featuring wearable craft items, digital and metalwork, as well as the more conventional disciplines of painting, photography, printmaking, embroidery and applied arts.

There will be awards made by the following sponsors:
Vaila Fine Art, John Goudie, Millgaet Media, Shetland Arts and Crafts and Baker Tilly.

After the success of this year’s Quintet show, in which last year’s five winners were given the opportunity to stage a group show of work at Bonhoga, Shetland Arts hopes to repeat this formula by matching each prize with a further £100 towards the group show for 2010. Exhibition Curator Mary Smith welcomed this development opportunity, “this is an ideal way to encourage and further the development of Shetland’s artists and craft-makers and provide them with a platform to show their work in a professional capacity if they so choose. We had a great response to the Quintet show this May and a number of works were sold”.

The Open is always a popular show with locals and visitors alike – the work is eclectic and shows what a variety of talent Shetland has to offer.

All the work in the exhibition is for sale, giving an opportunity for collectors to purchase a piece by their favourite Shetland artist or spot a bargain by one of the younger artists or makers on the local scene.

The preview of the Shetland Open is on Wednesday 3rd September at 7.30pm this year, to avoid a clash with the WordPlay and ScreenPlay events of the following days. Everyone is invited to come along to celebrate the opening of the show.

The Bonhoga Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.30-4.30 and on Sunday from 12pm-4.30.

The Craft Blueprint is a workforce plan for Craft in the UK, developed in partnership with the Crafts Council and launched on 10th June this year.  Images of work from Wendy Inkster at Burra Bears, and Susan and Davey Inkster at Speiliks were selected for the Blueprint and featured in the launch.

Well this is the next stage; Creative & Cultural Skills has brought together a working group of crafts organisations, associations, guilds, livery companies and individuals to design National Occupational Standards for Craft. Shetland Arts has contributed to this process, and now C&C Skills are running an online survey and a series of consultation events to get individuals working in craft to help  define what those in the sector need to do, know and understand.

To tell us what you think please visit www.ccskills.org.uk/standards and respond to our online consultation. There will also be a series of consultation events across all four Nations in Belfast, Cardiff, Plymouth, Edinburgh and London. To find out more please email qualifications@ccskills.org.uk.

Why do we need standards?
•    Individuals working in craft will use Standards to inform their work

•    Employers will use Standards to write job descriptions, appraise employees and identify training needs

•    Awarding bodies and educational providers will use Standards to develop qualifications, and professional development courses

•    Creative & Cultural Skills will use Standards to approve qualifications.

For more information about Standards and their use please visit: http://www.ccskills.org.uk/Standards/tabid/193/Default.aspx

The need for Standards was identified as part of our Craft Blueprint. For more information visit: http://www.ccskills.org.uk/Industrystrategies/CreativeBlueprint/tabid/81/Default.aspx

Those helping us to develop Standards in Craft include Applied Arts Scotland, British Toy Makers Guild, Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society, Cockpit Arts, Craft Northern Ireland, CraftScotland, The Crafts Council, Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Fforwm Crefft Cymru, Heritage Craft Association, Hi-Arts, National Glass Centre and The Basketmakers’ Association.

What are the next steps?
Once we have compiled results from the consultation we will write detailed units and the final standards will be available once approved at www.ccskills.org.uk

A Craft Research trip to Orkney, including a Makers’ Day at the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness 23rd-27th September 09 in collaboration with HI- Arts, Orkney Islands Council and the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness

Craftmakers from Orkney and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland are meeting together in Stromness on the 25th September. It’s an opportunity for Shetland makers to join them and to add value, do further research on craft marketing and development in Orkney, to gather information, share our successes, and learn through shared experiences.

Shetland Arts is part-funding 10 places for Shetland-based craftmakers to attend the weekend events in Orkney. See below for further information and application form

info and application form

After the schools we wandered down to the boating club for dinner and as we were basking in the glorious sunshine spontaneous tunes broke out down at the shore giving a few of the cars in the ferry queue a real musical treat.

Baked haddock for dinner was very appropriate, as Whalsay is an isle famed for its fishing heritage. We then set off in our busses, some heading back to Lerwick for the Singing concert, others like myself headed to Voe village hall for the “An Evening With…” concert.

Host Davie Gardner interviewed the performers after their sets. Its great to find out a bit about the history of some of the groups like The Shetland Fiddlers who will have their 50th anniversary next year, or catch up with Andrew Gifford, who has a wide musical life outside playing with Fiddlers’ Bid. The evening went from strength to strength, and our dance band Da Fustra were cooking; the floor was never empty. It was a warm summers evening but the heat of the hall didn’t prevent highly energetic Strip the Willows’ , Dashing White Sergeant’s and, Shetlands favourite, Boston Two Steps interspersed with a few waltzes.

Shattered but happy is the only way to describe everyone as they headed back on the bus, arriving in Lerwick about 1.30am

More fun for today; Phil and Aly have just arrived and the concert is a sell out. Another great night in store for us all.

Tavish Scott, our MSP, was due to welcome everyone to Shetland but a pressing and much more important engagement arose (congratulations to Tavish and Kirsten on the birth of a baby boy!). Director of Shetland Arts, Gwilym Gibbons took the helm to welcome the visitors and, after a few words about ferries and workshops from myself, our students dispersed into their classes. This is the first year we have run The Art Craft Experience (contemporary knitting techniques) and Makkin Wi Wirds (creative writing) and our workshops run by Wilma Cooper and Jenni Bradley (ACE) and Jen Hadfield (writer and winner of the TS Elliot prize 2008) continued well past their allotted time due to the enthusiasm of both tutors and students.

The fiddle workshops on day one give everyone a chance to re-grade their speed of learning; we teach by ear and each of the four classes are set by the speed a student can learn. This year we have fewer absolute beginners and more of the medium to fast learners, and the fastest class learned four tunes from Bryan Gear and Violet Tulloch in the first hour… that’s going to be some catalogue of tunes by the end of the week!

The afternoon was rounded off with a great youth session. We sprung on the under 25’s that they could play a set of tunes in our headline concert on Saturday, but listening to that practice they were all more than up for the task; there are some great young players with us this year.

The evenings Dance at Islesburgh was a sell out and from 7.30 until 9.30 the floor was never empty. A short story from Elma Johnson about a magic fiddle that broke into a thousand pieces after its owner died was quickly followed by a Boston Two Step and the night began. Jim Halcrow’s Dance band is always a hit on the first evening of Fiddle Frenzy and Maria Leask, Shetland Arts’ Traditional Dance tutor, was on hand to walk our visitors who are new to Shetland through some of our dances before firing into the full speed version.

The day didn’t finish there, as everyone left Islesburgh they headed for the festival Club in the Garrison Theatre for tunes and tales. This is the first year we’ve used backstage at the theatre for the Festival club and it seemed to go very well. Carol Duncan not only administrates the festival she also stepped up to the mark to become our barmaid this week (now that’s dedication!). The Shetland Fiddlers joined us for a tune and the theatre was ringing to the sound of fiddles, banjos, pianos and mandolins till well after midnight. Slightly earlier than we sometimes end up playing until, but not surprising on the first night as many folk had travelled up that day, and some had taken the ferry option and not taken cabins. 14 hours overnight followed by a full on day of tunes. I’ve still to speak to the writers, knitters and story tellers about last night, but I’ll catch up with them this morning and see how they got on.

It was a great day and I hope that everyone got some rest last night as we’re about to start all over again. Having realised that all we ate yesterday was one bacon roll and a Panini, I’ve had a huge breakfast to ensure my energy levels remain up…. and lots of coffee will be the order of the day!

Looking forward to the first concert in the Garrison tonight at 7.30 with Bryan Gear and Violet Tulloch, and our tutors and storytellers.

Shetland Arts’ Creative Connections is a marathon, seven-day and night festival, celebrating the contemporary creative culture of Shetland, incorporating four summer schools, cultural and creative visits across the islands, showcase concerts and dances, a specially curated exhibition and an artist residency.  This event is part of Scotland’s Year of Homecoming and takes place throughout Shetland between 3 – 9 August.

Now into its sixth year, Fiddle Frenzy is Shetland’s renowned fiddle school using top exponents of their craft to teach tunes and techniques drawn from the unique island traditions as heard world wide by our contemporary performers. In addition to the daily workshops held throughout the week in Lerwick, Whalsay and Fetlar, Fiddle Frenzy provides seven days of concerts in Lerwick’s Garrison Theatre, at the Clickimin Centre, in the village of Voe and on the island of Fetlar. This year’s showcase concerts include performances by Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, Fiddlers Bid, Bryan Gear and Violet Tulloch, Fullscelidh Spelemannslag, Kevin Henderson, the Heritage Fiddlers and many more.

For 2009 there have been additions made to the week long summer school event.  ‘Art Craft Experience’ is based on Shetland’s well known textile culture, grown from our knitting techniques and continuous creative development. During the workshops the tutors will teach basic Shetland knitted structures and their contemporary application for creative textiles.  Afternoon visits will take students to the studios of some of Shetland’s visual artists, craft makers and applied artists, to see their work and share in their experiences of working as an artist in Shetland. Students will visit the Bonhoga Gallery for the ‘Diaspora’ exhibition featuring four Shetland artists who have chosen to live outwith Shetland, and four artists who have made their home in the islands.  An artist in residence with family connections in Shetland, Hazel White, will spend a month at The Booth, an artist living/working space in Scalloway.  She will take part in some of the workshops while developing a project around her work in digital jewellery.

‘Makkin’ Wi Wirds’ is the title of the writing workshops with T.S. Eliot Prize winner, Jen Hadfield, exploring ideas of place through praise poem, myth and music. Shetland has a well respected literature scene, and these workshops will give students the encouragement to realise their ideas and visit some of the dramatic sites that have inspired some very high profile writers, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Will Self. Students will have an opportunity to share their compositions by stepping up to the ‘open mike’ at Creative Connection Club nights.

Another integral part of Creative Connections is ‘Shetland’s Storytelling Festival’, our top storytellers accompany the afternoon cultural trips and provide an insight into the folklore of the islands and the contemporary yarning that still flourishes in day to day Shetland life, act as hosts for the concerts and the festival club and provide that invaluable insight to Shetland past and present.

Clickimin Comedy is a stand up comedy event on Friday 7th at the Clickimin Centre, Lerwick, featuring visiting comedians Michael Redmond, Steven Dick and Eilidh MacAskill together with local comedian Les Sinclair and compère Sandy Nelson. The event is part of Shetland Arts comedy development programme which has so far included events such as Stand Up At Sound and Stand Up Helly Aa.

Creative Connections ‘Festival Club’ at the Garrison Theatre, provides a chance, each evening after the concerts, for all students and visitors to mix and enjoy traditional music and storytelling sessions until the early hours.

Bookings can be make from Shetland Box office 01595 745555 or in person from Islesburgh Community Centre, King Harald Street, Lerwick.

Contact us for more information on Creative Connections.