Central Fife Open Studios

June 19th, 2012

It’s official – Central Fife is at last going to have an open studios event! Yippee. I’ve been wanting this to happen ever since I moved to this part of Fife, but never had the time or energy to organise and get anything started myself – just done loads of talking about it to lots of artists in the area – everyone has always agreed that we needed to get something organised. Well at last someone has taken the initiative to get things moving and how thankful we are!

The lovely folk at Buckhaven Beehive have taken on the task and done a great job so far. They applied for a Fife Council Culture Grant of £1000 and this is allowing them to organise the first ever Open Studios in Central Fife. Currently there are similar schemes in North Fife and the East Neuk where local artists open their studios to visitors who can then see the artist at work, ask questions, purchase art work and in some cases “have a go”. So it’s great that artists in Central Fife can now collectively open their studios to the public in the same way.

The grant will be used to produce a booklet highlighting all of the artists who will be opening up their studios during the first Open Studios event in central Fife in August 2012. The booklet will also give information about other events happening in the area throughout the year.

I’ve signed up but initially wasn’t sure if I could open my studio to the public during August this year as (a) I’ve just had a baby and (b) I haven’t got a working studio in place yet. But in the end I decided to put myself down for the first two weekends and commit to this – there’s nothing like a deadline to get a job completed.

So now I have until the 11th August to get my studio finished and move back in and start making stuff again. There’s a lot to do but I’ve got into the habit of doing a little bit each evening after we’ve put Milo to bed and had our tea. Doing little and often is doing the trick – really enjoying it and having a deadline to work to means I have to get up off my arse and get on with it.

All my stock is in boxes in the spare room. All my tools and equipment are also in boxes somewhere else in the house and I’ve got a load of stuff in the loft as well. It’s going to be so great to get it all back into one room again. But I’m determined not to clutter the place up and try and be as organised as possible with the new space. I’m sure this will be easy once I have peg board and shelving in place – something I didn’t have before and that’s why a lot of stuff took over the floor most of the time and it was impossible to work as the surfaces were also always cluttered.

Anyway, back to the Open Studio event…

It’s happening all over Central Fife between the 11th and 26th August and so far there are about 30 artists involved. Milomade will be opening the studio doors to the public on the first two weekends – 11th/12th August and 18th/19th August – so please come along and say hi and see me at work in my newly renovated space. I will have a whole range of stock on sale including jewellery, stationery, accessories and decorations.

Not sure how I’m going to work it with regards to feeding Milo as I’m breastfeeding him – might just need to leave a note on the door whenever it’s feeding time saying to pop back or just put Colin in charge while I’m busy with feeding Milo.

Further information and forms to get involved can be found on Central Fife Open Studios website where you can also view the 2012 brochure (Milomade is on page 11).

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