Young Blood

Thanks for inviting me to Gracefield, it’s over twenty years since I left Dumfries to go to Glasgow School of Art but I remember exhibiting here when I was at Dumfries Academy.

It’s increasingly important to find places where the public can see how and what creative people do. All too often the public and the politicians like what we produce but aren’t interested in seeing where it comes from or investing in its production.

Educating creative people is a dirty business that’s not as straightforward as teaching sciences and many other subjects. It’s less easy to quantify and measure the progress of a painter than a scientist or a linguist. And in today’s educational climate we have to fight ever harder for the right to exist (banks) but its just as well we do because (interdisciplinary) creativity is at the heart of the new creative economy and it will continue to be so for quite some time as the the arts and sciences continue to converge. An exciting time to go to art school, as ever.

I believe it’s vitally important that different creative disciplines are shown together because regardless of technical specialism whether we’re designing trains, books or wedding dresses or creating sculpture or art, we’re all using exactly the same creative process. It’s the stuff that makes us different from animals and the stuff that allowed us to create civilisation from a pile of dirt and some pretty strange rituals.

It’s also good that new creative talent is given the chance to show itself in Dumfries and Galloway, it’s own patch. All too often in the UK and in Scotland we forget we’re as good, if not better that other more exotic sounding countries. It is possible, and for me preferable, to have in international business based in Scotland and it would be nice to see some of the cultural and economic potential displayed in this evening’s exhibition come home to roost in Dumfries and Galloway.

In this exhibition we have 17 graduates with different technical skills ranging from the design of jewelery and garments to painting and drawing.

Graduates are Kirsty Martindale, Julianne Foss, Stuart Webb, Kirsten Lyons, Pauline Montgomery, Linda McGill, Fiona Lammie, David Shannon, Lee Dickson, Andrew Brown, Derek Payne, Teresa Moore, Iona Somerville, Clare Benson, Claire Roddick, Helen Scott and Julie Houston and they’ve come from colleges throughout Scotland and the UK to exhibit here tonight, so welcome home.

Thankyou to Dawn Henderby and Leslie Jardine for inviting me to open the show tonight and the Arts Team at Dumfries and Galloway Regional Council and the graduates for all their hard work, with the support of Dumfriesshire Educational Trust. The exhibition will tour to Stranraer Museum on 1–29 April with the help of the European Development Fund, so make sure your friends go along and see it.