Book Cosies (Art as Evidence)

It is mainly knitting that goes on at the St. Ninians Craft Group meetings every Tuesday afternoon. Well actually, it’s mainly talking. One woman announces with surprise in her voice, “I’ve done 6 rows today!” The group is the only one that does not take a summer break, but continues to meet all year round. Sitting around the table with them and hearing the right good blether going on around me, I instantly understood that the knitting is purely a vehicle for companionship amongst the women who attend.

Most had a hand in knitting the cosies for this book, and a few made it their mission to produce them. I was told, “Every time you ask what she’s knitting it’s another cosy, she’s made hundreds.” The task to construct each cosy was often shared between people, with each woman’s forte used in collaboration. There are knitters and sewers in the group, and when squares were created they were often passed to those who got the satisfaction of sewing up the end product and popping on the button.

I spoke to one woman who had not long started coming to the group. She was on her own and found meeting each week a great source of friendship and company. She had knitted a cover for the book, but shawls were really her thing. She knitted away with lilac-blue wool as she told me about the Prayer Shawls that the group knitted. This is particularly impressive to me since I relearned to knit not that long ago, and keeping a pattern in your head, counting stitches, remembering which row you are on and talking all at once is way beyond me. Every few weeks the group gathers in a semi-circle and a prayer is said to go with the shawl to whoever receives it. Each member holds each shawl and sends their thoughts with it also. The shawls go out into the local area but they are also sent to Malawi. She seemed very proud of this connection to such a far-flung place - a little piece of Abbeyview’s creativity and community spirit travelling the world.

On the mention of being creative, however, the woman said that no, no she wasn’t, her friend was arty and chose all the paint colours for her flat because she wouldn’t have a clue what would go. The suggestion was that knitting is different to drawing or painting, but I disagree. The connection between brain and hand to produce or reproduce something is a fundamental act of creativity. It seems to be our perception of being creative that limits us. Society and upbringing moulds people into labelling themselves as ‘arty’ or not. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to point out the creativity involved, to show the person the evidence, and so give them the confidence to create. The knitted cosies of this book are evidence, both of creativity and of community.

Carol Lambie



Nicola Atkinson Does Fly

The Buzz at the Bus Stop

The bus stop at the Abbeyview shops was where it was at for Nicola's stall at the Abbeyview Festival on Sun 23rd August. Nicola, Hanna and I adorned the bus stop with paper chains, crows and cardboard house which blew in the familiar hill top wind. Armed with materials for colouring in and making paper chains at one end of the shelter and project memorabilia at the other end, we drummed up business.

Nicola wanted to create an evolving exhibition by asking young and old to colour her drawing of a chair and have it displayed in a frame on the windows of the shelter. For their efforts they received a choice of specially designed badges, cloth bags, the SEE EYE book, Stevie Jacksons 7" record and entered into the competition to win one of four golden chairs Nicola had made for the Take A Seat project. Four Runners up received children's chairs which we decorated on the day with vinyl designs.

Being on the peripheral of the festival made the art stand an event within the event, people got word of something up at the bus stop, kids told other kids and by word of mouth our bright paper-chained oasis became a bit of a destination. Kids loved choosing their colour of frame and seeing their artwork on display straight away, for all to see, parents loved the wee seat on the wall while it all went on.

At 4pm quite a crowd gathered back at the bus stop to hear the winning entries and collect the artwork to take home for their wall. Piece by piece the exhibition dissolved just as it had evolved until only the paper chains were left moving in the breeze, seeming to symbolise all those who walked up to us and creating our link to the festival through the people of Abbeyview, just as it should be. (The Lamb)

Nick Miller talks about Abbeyview

I enjoyed the experience of working in Abbeyview immensely. I was especially drawn to the idea of an artist-led project marking this great change in the built environment of Abbeyview and responding not just to the physical environment but also to the changing social environment. I found Abbeyview interesting in that it is similar to many housing schemes all over Scotland - a place built in the 1950s for people moving out of the cities and towns to "nicer”, “cleaner” areas with improved facilities and better housing. Curiously now, with the regeneration, the area is being made even more suburban, replacing flats with small semi-detached and detached houses because this is what people want to live in now. These buildings of the ‘50s seemed to mark a new cycle of impermanency both architecturally and culturally. By only lasting a few decades they sit in marked contrast to the presumed permanency of architecture and social engineering of the ever dominant Victorian era.

My aim with the Curiosity Cabinet was to highlight this sense of change by using old, discarded furniture, from the decades when the flats had stood. And with the furniture to create a new object which seemed to lack a single defining form, instead offering many different perspectives and space to engage the viewer’s imagination. For me, my brief time working in Abbeyview was extremely rewarding, especially in the connections I made with other artists as we found ways of incorporating their work into the cabinet.

NICK MILLAR

The Fly and the Lamb have started working on the concept for the book that marks the final series of collaborative projects. It will be contained within lovingly hand-knitted book covers created by the congregation of St Ninian’s Church and available in the Autumn.

In my drawings I wanted to play about with the scale of the urban and natural landscape. The simple dandelion struck me as an irrepressible shaft of green and yellow that manages to spring up no matter how urban, how concrete the landscape is. That is why we term it a weed, a plant that we do not want growing in the prolific manner it does, in the random way it does, but this weed seems to captures time and regeneration beautifully. The aging process of the dandelion follows the set pattern of a vibrant yellow flower appearing, closing and opening once more to reveal a wispy globe of seed heads, waiting for a gust of wind to send them to new cracks in the concrete landscape. As Nicola and I talked about it, we saw that it symbolised man’s stucggle to control his environment, and particularily nature, in his quest for progress and refining his domain.

While I am studying and drawing the nature of the dandelion, Nicola is responding to these images with drawings based on the workings of manmade construction. Construction that is used in the regeneration of the area to build upon the newly created wasteland, obliterating any naturalisation that swiftly takes place when ground is left bare. And so they co-exist, each an unhalting process of establishment, maturation and termination with man living amongst it.

Meanwhile, Nicola and I have also been busy putting together the document archiving the Nicola’s residency in Abbeyview. I have been interviewing artists on their experience working in or responding to Abbeyview and will be putting a new featured artist on the blog each week. (The Lamb)

Drawing © Carol Lambie.

FOUR MORE HAPPENINGS IN ABBEYVIEW

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly, the Abbeyview Artist, has been given six months extension (April - Sept '08) of her residency. With this time we can take stock of the Art Projects that have taken place in Abbeyview since Jan 2007. Here are the follow artworks that will take place: Tweed Street Tour 2; Please Take a Seat/The Grass is Greener; Artist Stand at the Abbeyview Park Festival & Art as Evidence Book with Knitted Covers.

Tweed Street Tour/2
Tuesday 29th July 11am – 4pm

Gerard Love from the Teenage Fan Club has created music for Abbeyview entitled "all I have to do is sit and wait" (18.43). Eighteen minutes and forty three seconds is time it takes to travel from Dunfermline Centre to Abbeyview by bus. It is part of the Tweed Street Tour art project. Nicola will ride on the D6/D5 bus all day on July 29th
inviting people to listen to the piece.

Please Take a Seat/ The Grass is Greener
Saturday 2nd August 11am – 4pm

A summer gathering in the Lynburn Corridor on August 2nd 11am – 3pm will bring together two artworks, both of which are about being separated but very much together in the community in Abbeyview. Nicola has transformed four dining chairs from the 90's and covered the seats in gold leaf fabric, separating the words 'Please Take a Seat' and embroidering one on each seat. She will invite people from Abbeyview and Dunfermline to bring a single chair from their home out into the park of the Lynburn Corridor to sit together and celebrate the summer. It has all the makings of a family event. Happening at the same event will be the other project where people can visit the two bridges that divide Abbeyview that will be painted with the words: 'THE GRASS IS GREENER'.

Artist Stand at the Abbeyview Park Festival
Sunday 24th August 11am – 4pm

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly will be there to talk to people about the artwork that has taken place in Abbeyview, it will have items from Art Projects Jan 07 – Aug 08.

Art as Evidence Book with Knitted Covers
Tuesday 23rd Sept 2pm, Book Launch & exhibit of the Knitted Covers

This will be the second book from the Abbeyview Artist. It will be the same size as the SEE EYE Book with the writing from Daniel Jewesbury and drawings by Carol Lambie & Nicola Atkinson Does Fly.

The St Ninians Congregation in Abbeyview will create the 1000 Knitted Book Covers. These have been designed by Nicola Atkinson Does Fly using 10 knitted squares and one coat button. The choice of the colour and button will be made by the knitter, along with which charity will receive the donation for producing them. The Minister Rev Elizabeth Fisk and the Congregation have really got behind this art project to create a movement of knitters for one common goal. I feel that they want to be involved in an artwork for the Abbeyview Community for several reasons, not just for a donation to the charity of their choice, giving the activity a real sense of purpose and community. The 1000-knitted book covers will be exhibited in the St Ninians Church in Sept 2008, it will be lovely to see them all together.

image credit

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly in Abbeyview with Claire Barclay R.A.D.A.R artwork 'We need more and different flags'

A Review by Lynette Snedden

Flowers versus Portraits Public At Gathering. 13th March 2008
Featuring: Nicola Atkinson Does Fly – Abbeyview Artist, Hanna Tuulikki, Gerald Love, Daniel Jewesbury and Clare Barclay


I sat at the back of the hall, trying to keep a low profile. Nicola called me over and asked me if I would ask everyone to take there seats as the exhibition was about to begin. I did so in the least nervous voice that I could muster, then as Nicola, accompanied by Ben Reynolds on guitar, started their piece, I crept back to my seat.

As the guitar melody filled the hall, I felt a shiver of excitement; this was what we had worked for. Then Nicola’s voice joined the haunting melody. The song was from The Flowers of the Season, and a screen behind the performers showed beautiful illustrations by Cecily Barker, from 1925. The song reminded me of the old Scottish folk songs which where sang in Gaelic, and had a ‘Clannad’ feel to it. I enjoyed the song immensely and by the sound of the applause, the audience thought likewise. The song and drawings combined, had me enthralled from start to finish.

As they finished, my nerves started to show. Thankfully it was dark at the back of the hall and no-one could see how much I was shaking. I was more nervous for Hanna Tuulikki, she stood to one side looking petrified as our CD began and the slideshow of portraits she had drew, came to life together, for the first time. We had spent 7 weeks traveling around the Abbeyview area, hi-jacking unsuspecting people into singing musical notes for us. No-one was safe! The staff and students at the Tryst Centre, on a snowy, freezing cold afternoon, the staff and scared looking punters of the local bookmakers, even the local librarian lent her ‘’shy’’ voice to our quest! The list goes on and on… local schools, nursery children, local residents ‘’captured’’ on their doorsteps, and almost everyone asked, gave there all. The portraits of everyone who gave us a note, shone for all to see, some of the portrayed smiles, smiling for real as they saw themselves on the screen, these the result of photographs that Hanna had taken as she recorded them singing. It displayed all together like that, was everything I had hoped and more, Hanna had done a fantastic job, and the proof was there, literally in black and white.

We then where treated to a piece of music called ‘All I have to do is sit and wait ‘ inspired by the bus route from Dunfermline Town Centre to Abbeyview. The duration is 18 min. the same length as the journey, written by a musician called Gerald Love of the Teenage Fanclub music band. Because of the length of the piece, the audience members began quietly chatting with each other. I had to smile at this as, having ridden the bus on that particular route, I found myself on that journey again, in my minds eye and could imagine the different views from the window. The shops, houses, gardens and even the traffic lights all clearly pictured. I also felt myself relaxing more as it played. This is a beautiful piece of music, and I look forward to hearing more of Gerald’s music in the future.

Next to take the stage, was Daniel Jewesbury, an artist and writer, based in Belfast. He brought with him some of his ideas on public art. He made some very interesting points on what exactly public art was, and how we are sometimes mislead to believe that what we think is public art, isn’t always what it seems to be. He spoke of a particular statue, the ---- in ----. This was always believed to be classed as public art, when in fact the piece of land that it stood on, was actually privately owned, and as the public never actually asked for this to be put there, what gave the donators of the piece the right to call it public art. Daniel paced the stage, expressing with his hands as he spoke, this along with his passion for the subject, had the audience intrigued. He received a well deserved round of applause. And added kudo’s must be bestowed upon him for his dedication to his work, he had travelled that very day from Ireland to appear at the exhibition, was absolutely exhausted but went and gave his talk like he had just stepped from his house on his way to a party!

The final artist of the evening was Clare Barclay, she had completed her project, ‘’We Need More and Different Flags’’ by placing some of her 40 flags around the Abbeyview area and had more strung up around the hall. She had designed and made each and every flag there. A huge variety of colours and shapes adorned them. The flags that where on display in the hall, where gifted to the visitors of the exhibition. A few of the children who attended also posed for the resident camera man with the bonnie banners. Every one of the flags shown brought a colourful glow of warmth on an otherwise cold and dreary night. The weather may have kept a lot of people indoors, but to those who did attend, I would personally like to thank you for making the evening a huge success for myself and everyone involved.

CLAIRE THOUGHTS ON FLAGS

"We need more and different flags"

I have enjoyed making this artwork for Abbeyview; learning a little about the place and meeting some members of the community in the process.



My idea, which led to the making of the many different flags, was to celebrate this moment of change in Abbeyview during the process of regeneration. A moment for both the collective community and individuals to think about identity and aspirations for their surroundings.



The flags were designed as a colourful stimulus to get people talking about these issues. I hope all of you that chose a flag to take home are enjoying them, and maybe even inspired to make your own flags.

Claire Barclay

She is part of the R.A.D.A.R (Random And Dynamic Art Risks) Art projects in Abbeyview. The unforeseen happenings and inspiration in Abbey view have been created by Nicola Atkinson Does Fly, Abbeyview Artist, Alan Grieve, Luke Fowler, Sophia Pankenier, Hanna Tuulikki & Claire Barclay.

we need more and different flags

Claire Barcley with one of her 40 flags in Abbeyview - March 13th 2008



Hello Nicola

Good to meet you last night at the art evening. It was very sparky, thoroughly entertaining and stimulating!

I will be in touch next week to arrange to meet and show you the print workshop. I will know my plans better and can find out what might suit you. congratulations again for a remarkable evening in Abbeyview!

Cheers Steve Ratomski





THOUGHTS OF A NOTE CATCHER
Stage one: Collecting notes in Abbeyview

Now a month into the project, I have finished collecting notes from people in Abbeyview and am busy with the second stage of the project - drawing portraits and editing the sound ready to make into a musical composition. With the valuable assistance of local resident Lynette Sneddon, we have collected musical notes from 130 different people by asking them to contribute a single note. We organised visits to the primary schools, the Beanstalk Nursery and the community centre, engaged people in their homes and met others on the streets at the local shops, bowling club and library:
it has been a busy month.

When we began the project, I was unsure how people might respond to being asked for a single sung note: even though it is something we can all do, it is not an everyday request. Singing is a very personal thing, a form of self-expression. It is difficult to sing on the spot or perform in front of others, especially when you are asked to sing just one note. However, people have been very open to the project and more often than not are willing to participate. Lynette suggested that people’s notes are either “shy” or “diva” and certainly the recordings we have gathered reflect this.

One aspect that may be hidden or forgotten in making this kind of work is the moment of personal connection that is often made with individuals. On one level, the very act of singing and sharing of something personal implies a connection with the listener, but similarly a shared emotional response to the situation, for example moments of shy awkwardness turning to fun jokes and laughter, clearly suggests some kind of connection. There have also been moments, however, where connections have been made that are more personal, where time has paused a while to share a story or listen to a song. These are the moments in particular that I have enjoyed the most and have made this project special to me. (Hanna Tuulikki, Artist)


This project has connected with the residents in a very intimate way. I caught up with Hanna and Lynette a few week's ago while in the process of catching the notes of Abbeyview and it was clear that the activity of recording them has touched them both. The essence of a public artwork like this is to connect with the residents on many levels, engaging with a wide cross section and exposing them to art practices that may fracture preconceptions of art and artists. Lynette's involvement in the process of making an artwork was seemed exhilarating for her. She loved the job of meeting people she had never spoken to before, in the place she had lived in for years, and folk saying hello as a result of her being part of the Note Catcher. And of course she now knows Hanna, whom she says she will never forget, such has been the impact of her experience.

Thursday 31st January 2008
Today the fun really started. We decided to go to the local shops and start collecting notes. It snowed... Great we thought but went for it anyway. We set ourselves a target of 8 notes. At the Tryst Centre, we collected 11 notes alone. And a young lad named Brian sang us a song he had written himself!! We then, through blizzard like conditions, went into the local bookies. 3 brave souls sang notes for us. We managed to get another note from Keri in the library and of course Hanna and myself made out contribution too.
So we were off to a great start. Lets hope it continues.
(Extract from Lynette's Diary)

They had many stories to tell of the shyness, the confidence, the rawness and the openness of the characters that they met. This is the magic of making art involving a large group of people from a specific area, the pickings are rich and untapped if you care to go looking for them. Connections with the note-givers have stood out for different reasons, Hanna and Lynette recounted a story from one of the schools where a young girl was keen and confident about singing her note but froze at the crucial point of delivery. Crushed and embarrassed, Hanna led her to a secluded area and she managed the whole song. The pride in overcoming that hurdle will stay with that girl forever and is a special thing to give to an individual. Another was with a man with whom the chance of finding a practising artist on his doorstep moved him to share his very personal creativity with them. He has created his own intimate gallery space for his own pleasure and now has become part of Hanna’s project, connecting his art to the community in which has lived in for many, many years.


Wednesday 6th February 2008
Today is totally devoted to one man. The amazing Bob Clarke. This wonderful, 83 year old man, let Hanna and myself invade his private domain for the best morning so far. Once he had heard that Hanna was not only a musician but an artist, he took us in and showed us his work. He is a very modest man, lives alone with his ex-wife just upstairs and loves to paint. His paintings are the most fantastic I have ever seen for someone so humble about them. Seascapes and landscapes adorn his whole home, all painted by himself. Considering these where painted from photographs that he had taken while on holiday, the realness of them are a joy to behold. Hanna and I both left his home an hour later not only with a Note from him but tears in our eyes for the passion this man inspired in us. We love you Bob. Thank you xXx
(Extract from Lynette’s Diary)

Projects such as this one reach an audience who may be shy or indifferent about entering a gallery to 'appreciate art' and it makes people aware that art can, and does, exist in forms other than in a gallery situation. The exposure and impact of Nicola’s work in Abbeyview is hard to measure, since it exists in memories, experiences and the occasional shift in attitude of the residents there. In terms of opening up a dialogue about public art, however, she has made her mark and laid the foundations for a continuing relationship between Abbeyview and art. (The Lamb)

Flowers vs. Portraits FREE

Flowers vs. Portraits
Fourth PUBLIC ART GATHERING
Abbeyview Community Centre, Dunfermline
Thursday March 13th 7pm
Free

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly hosts the final event. She will sing a song from the Flowers Songs of the Seasons, which is Illustrated by Cecily Barker from 1925. Cecily Barker is known for her drawings of flower fairies.

Hanna Tuulikki, artist & musician, will present her new work Note Catcher. Working with Lynette Sneddon from Abbeyview, Hanna and Lynette travelled around Abbeyview together, from the bowling club to homes to local shops to community centre to street to engaging with 130 people. People were asked to sing a single note of their choice, which was recorded and Hanna has created a beautiful composition using their notes.

Gerald Love has created a piece of music called ‘ all I have to do is sit and wait ‘ inspired by the bus route from Dunfermline center to Abbeyview. The duration is 18 min. the same length as the journey. Gerald is a member of the Teenage Fanclub a music band.


Daniel Jewesbury presents a talk exploring ideas public art. Daniel is an artist & writer based in Belfast.

Claire Barclay, visual artist, has created a temporary artwork in open-air locations inspired by Abbeyview. Her artwork ‘we need more and different flags’ can be seen during the event.

NADFLY Presents - PUBLIC ART GATHERING - Permanent vs. Temporary - Thurs 28th Feb 2008 7.00pm - Abbeyview Community Centre Dunfermline

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly will discuss the concept of Permanent vs. Temporary.

As part of the unforeseen happenings and inspiration in Abbeyview.
R.A.D.A.R. Random And Dynamic Art Risks.

Peter Nicholson a cellist will perform a composition in reaction to the notion of Permanent vs. Temporary.

Luke Fowler has created a film in Abbeyview His film looks into the particularities of the environment of Abbeyview and its current regeneration process. This will be the first showing of his film.

Artists profile:

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly is the Artist in Abbeyview from January 2007 until March 2008. Nicola has undertaken artworks in Scotland, England, New York, Los Angeles, Karachi, Dublin, Havana, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Germany and across the UK. Each of her art works aims to be innovative, ambitious and meaningful for the participants and the public.

Peter Nicholson is a member the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and One Ensemble. Combining a classical training with his experience as an improviser.

Luke Fowler is a visual artist who makes experimental films, which interrogate the documentary as an art form. As a musician he collaborates in the bands Lied Music and Rude Pravo, he also runs the record label "Shadazz".

ALL WELCOME

Investigating the Unexpected

I have been working on the drawings for the second book of Nicola’s residency that gathers all of the projects together of 'Part Two: Art as Evidence'. I want to present drawings with typical silhouettes but intriguing detail and have been studying objects to incorporate into the Abbeyview landscape, in order to let them infiltrate and nestle in the familiar.

The mechanics of a convection heater, for example, have a surprisingly strong structural quality. By manipulating scale and environment, can I fool the eye into reading it as building? If one dissects the drawing above into a collection of lines then the linear components need only be read with a different emphasis to recognise a tower block rather than the element of a heater. If we do not look properly when presented with an image that seems familiar, the brain tends to fill in detail from its bank of pictures. Conversely, if it is unrecognisable it will search for, and decide on, the familiar. This helps it cope with the bombardment of information that reaches it via the eye every second, but the downside of this is missing the unexpected. If you skim through the pages of ‘Art as Evidence’ you may miss them, but take your time and something may catch your eye long enough to investigate and find the unexpected. (The Lamb)

Daniel Jewesbury visits Abbeyview

As we stand waiting for the bus to Dunfermline the snow is getting heavier. We are caught in a pretty hefty moment of indecision as to whether to chance the roads - Nicola's heard that the motorway was blocked with an overturned truck - or to play it safe and take the train. We deliberate.

Hanna arrives. She is running and out of breath. This is a good way to meet someone for the first time, in a bus station in the snow when they're out of breath and you don't know whether to get the bus or the train. It stops you from standing on ceremony.

The bus is now late. We decide to get the train and cut our losses.

Then the bus arrives. We get the bus.

I'm fairly ignorant of the east coast of Scotland and the flames atop the refineries are pretty interesting to me, very dramatic, dark and satanic, but understandably not especially wonderful once you've seen them once, twice or ten thousand times, so i'm the only one staring at them. I tell Nicola that apparently the suspension cables on the Forth road bridge are starting to break. That's my store of local knowledge exhausted.

Nicola calls Dunfermline 'Dunfernland' and one of the things I hope to discover, during the course of my explorations of Abbeyview, is whether anyone else says this or whether she has a particular reason for pronouncing it that way. This I intend to find out indirectly. Perhaps I will start using it myself when i'm over next, and see if people start staring at me, or maybe treating me like one of their own (unlikely).

First impressions of Abbeyview are mingled in with the feeling of an initiation, or the conferring of membership in a society. I'm introduced to a number of people quite quickly and before I know it I'm having lunch in the bowling club and holding forth on public art, and community, and commitment and involvement, and trying to find out where everybody stands.

My own position on public art is that there are many people and interest groups who misuse it. Governments and local authorities have instrumentalised 'culture' to the extent that they often only see an appropriate use for it, in public contexts, in achieving specific policy goals (under the broad heading of social inclusion). This means that 'culture' as something that doesn't have definite, measurable 'outcomes' is seen as a bad thing, or even as elitist. Meanwhile, libraries are closed down and access to galleries, theatres and so on is ever more restricted. Where I live, in Belfast, public art is usually of the classic 'sticking plaster' type - intended to distract attention away from the terrible conditions that continue to blight everyday life here. There are lots of sticking plasters being put up in Belfast right now. They're all pretty ugly.

I know that Nicola's approach to public art, and to working with artists, is very subtle and that it avoids at all cost patronising those who might see it. All the same, at this stage, I know very little about Abbeyview, and I'm meeting the funders of the project for the first time. Are they sympathetic to her way of working? Are they in on it?

Nicola seems to have won them round fairly early on. In fact she seems to have given them something that they could never have asked for, which they could never really have known was exactly what they wanted. I guess this is because it's not a project 'aimed' at anyone, certainly not at some sort of half-imagined 'community'. It doesn't presume that art has to be compromised or reduced when you present it outside of a gallery, in the places where people actually live. Over several years of living in Belfast I've become very wary of that idea of 'community'. More often than not it's a handly way of keeping people in their place, and I really hate the idea of people having a 'place' that they're not expected to move beyond, whether that's a real place, where you live or work, or a place that you go to in your head. I've never really had a place myself so I tend to keep on the move.

By the end of the afternoon I've been given the guided tour and left to have a wander on my own. I come across a large main road just beyond the high school, and I realise that the estate has very clear boundaries. I wonder how much people respect, or observe these boundaries and what they really mean to anyone. A couple of desolate pieces of street furniture appear to be attempts to make the dead space somehow meaningful but i can't imagine anyone ventures down here for any reason, except perhaps to walk the dog late at night.

After only a little while I've left Abbeyview again, and as we pass the refinery flames I'm wondering what I might find out about it over the next couple of months.

by Daniel Jewesbury, 24 Jan 2008

Photographs © Nicola Atkinson Does Fly

NOTE CATCHER OF ABBEYVIEW

Hanna Tuulikki an artist and musician. Over the next month she will be looking for people in Abbeyview to sing to her a single note of their choice and used in a composition. The finished piece of music will be premiered:

March 13th @ 7pm
Public Art Gathering:
Flowers vs Portraits
Abbeyview Community Centre Dunfermline.

If you want to get in touch please contact the Eco House on 01383 632314.

Putting locals at the heart of public art

Art Feature in the HERALD by Jack Mottram. 18 Jan 2008



Last night, inside Abbeyview Community Centre, Dunfermline, resident community artist Nicola Atkinson Does Fly channelled the spirit of ballerina Moira Shearer, tapping out a rhythm with her feet to accompany viola player Aby Vulliamy, performing her score based on Shearer's finest hour, when she played Vicky in the Powell and Pressburger masterpiece of cinema, The Red Shoes.

The evening also saw attendees biting into oranges as they watched a slideshow by "cultural broker" Ben Spencer, whose installment as part of an ongoing series of public art gatherings, dubbed Clock People, was entitled What Is Beautiful?

Not, you might think, typical entertainment offerings on a rainy Thursday in Fife, but almost run-of-the-mill for the residents of Abbeyview, who, since last March, have been working with the artist who goes by the nom de guerre Nicola Atkinson Does Fly (adopted after she made a video about a fly, chosen because it is "irritating and essential") and also with a brace of invited artists.

"I almost see it as like working in a band of musicians," Atkinson says, explaining her collaborations with artists and community alike. "We all have our instruments - our artistic forms - and we're working together as a collective, but still distinct."

It's this sort of approach that marks out Atkinson as a sensitive, engaged practitioner of public art, a mode of working that can all-too-often see an artist descending on a community with a set project in mind.

"My approach is always very gentle," she agrees. "There might be a lot of work going on, but I'm not interested in just parachuting in. For a piece called Dwellings, I had the idea of making little cardboard houses, based on the houses that are going to be knocked down in Abbeyview. I presented them to the school so the students could put them together, but they did everything you could imagine with them. I ended up with hundreds of different crazy houses.

"That was interesting. I'd presented them with something that was complete to me, this really beautiful aesthetic piece, and they really matched it. Another example would be Belle & Sebastian guitarist Stevie Jackson's songs - he wrote two inspired by Abbeyview - and the school music department said, We can do this song', so they took it away, worked on it, and presented it back to him."

Such easy interactions are matched by the use of happy coincidences and a free-wheeling approach to fresh ideas, tactics that Atkinson has developed under the banner of Random And Dynamic Art Risks - or Radar.

"The Radar project is about doing something slightly mad, and about taking risks," Atkinson says. "With public art, there is an unpredictable aspect, and that's exciting. You really get into a zone, and begin to have an intuitive trust in what you are doing."

That intuition binds together the wide array of events taking place at Abbeyview. Clock People earned its title when a clock was suggested as a useful piece of public art, and Atkinson joked that residents should just ask other people for the time. That simple concept - of people as the focus of projects - now informs the regular gatherings, which seek to define the future of public art in the area by discussing allied ideas - from last night's meditation on beauty, to November's edition, The Importance of Time.

Atkinson's performance in the guise of Shearer grew in a similarly organic fashion.

"I was researching Moira Shearer for another piece," Atkinson explains. "I knew that she was born in Dunfermline, but when I saw that the event, What Is Beautiful?, was planned for her birthday, I just had to do something involving her. These sort of serendipitous things just seem to happen."

And they keep happening, spreading Abbeyview art around the world. For instance, a project that saw Atkinson drawing the stock of a local hardware store, selling her efforts for the price of the goods drawn, was mirrored in New York by artist Sophia Pankenier, and Stevie Jackson performed his Abbeyview songs earlier this month at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles.

"Things can reside here and start here," Atkinson says. "But the work has to have a life outwith the place. I like the idea of it being a worldwide thing - but an intimate worldwide thing.' In its quiet way then, Abbeyview is making its mark on the wider art world, and looks set to continue to do so with Atkinson's light hand on the tiller, generating oblique strategies and working towards, ultimately, a public sculpture in the area.

Before the Abbeyview artist enterprise draws to a close in March, though, there is much to be done. For instance, artist Luke Fowler is preparing a film for a Clock People event entitled Permanent vs Temporary, a Cabinet of Curiosities, which is touring the country.

It seems safe to say, the public art scene in Abbeyview will remain in rude health, long after Atkinson flies on to her next project.

The Cabinet of Curiosities is at Fife Contemporary Art & Craft, St Andrews, until Jan 30. For information on past and future events in Abbeyview, visit www.nadfly.com.

WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL ?

The Year 2008 has started with a great event. Stevie Jackson perform, the songs “Bird’s Eye View” & “The Electric Box” at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on January 8, 2008.As part of the Concrete Frequency: SONGS OF THE CITY. From the bright lights to the dark alleys, music has allowed city dwellers an outlet for their joy, urgency, depression, and heartache. Whether it's a lighthearted pop song or an elegy of isolation, come inside to hear the walls of the city sing.

We have been working on ‘What is beautiful’ for the 17th January 2008 @ 7.30pm Abbeyview Community Centre, Dunfermline. To celebrate the life of Moira Shearer King who was famous for dancing in the film 'The Red Shoes' (1948) and was born in Dunfermline on 17 January 1926 then attended Dunfermline High School, Nicola will perform with Aby Vulliamy, a Musician based in Glasgow.

See you on Thursday...

Photographs © Nicola Atkinson Does Fly & Stephen Robinson