FUN AND GAMES...

It was Dufftown's big day yesterday as the sun shone down on the annual Highland Games. Held on the last Saturday of July every year since 1892 the games attract visitors from far and wide. With the influx of visitors the towns population easily doubles and yesterdays fine summer weather brought out a bumper attendance.

All the usual attractions were there, large men tossing cabers, small girls dancing, tug of wars teams, bagpipe bands, Ali Buchan's Thames Trader Truck  And of course as one of the games main sponsors the Glenfiddich star shade was there staffed by Glenfiddich's answer to Charlie's Angels.

With no repeat of the Friday's massive electrical storm, the weather stayed fine all day and well into the evening providing the perfect opportunity for a games night FIRE CLUB. Which due to a number of artist's friends arriving over past few days also saw a bumper turn out.

SUMMER FRUITS....

Finally! Dates have been set for the first residency exhibition of 2013. The private view will be held on Friday 30th August from 6.30 pm onwards. The exhibition will then be open to the public as of Saturday 31st until Sunday 22nd Sept.

Coming right at the end of the their three month stay the exhibition will showcase new film work and sculpture from Jonathan Ehrenberg while Daniel Barrow will be showing the results of his summers labour 'I can't stop looking at you'

Daniel will also be giving a live performance of 'I can't stop looking at you' the preceding week in the Glenfiddich Visitor centre theatre. Places are limited for this special event so advance booking is strongly advised. Reservations can be made by contacting the distillery at the details given in the image above.

FACES WASHED, HAIR BRUSHED...

Everybody was up bright and early yesterday dressed in their best clothes ready and waiting for Anna of Recite Films to come a knocking at their door. Anna has been commissioned to produce a number of short video profiles for each artist. .

 

With a health and safety induction and seven artists to get through in one day it was a packed shooting schedule with filming taking place in the studios/houses as well as out and about around the distillery site. Of course on such a busy day we had a surprise fire drill and once again the Slug decided to start stop starting. Thankfully closer to home than the last time and so the emergency call out was handled by Bob Lawton of the distillery maintenance team and his fork lift truck.

 

Despite every thing, - even a downpour mid afternoon (the first in weeks) everything was achieved. And the final shoot of the day took in this weeks presentations which were hosted by Jungho and Eric.

 

Anna returned for a few hours this morning to get a few more background shots and will now begin the process of editing the  footage into the individual profiles. These will be released through you tube/facebook early in August along with a longer overview in October.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IF YOU ARE ALL SITTING COMFORTABLY...

With exception of Yuvan - who is just embarking on his third and hopefully successful visa application - all of this summers residents are now at Glenfiddich and so the weekly presentations have begun.

First up on the rota were Agi and Daniel, who both took turns to give a short introduction to their working practises. Agi chose to share the evolution of the cartoon colour series of works she has developed since 2006. While Daniel performed excerpts from an existing work 'Everytime I see your picture I cry'  

The social nature of the week was continued when the artists cohort enjoyed another AiR tradition: the welcome dinner in the distilleries Robbie Dhu Centre. Joining the artists were Stuart Watts, the site leader at Dufftown, Libby Lafferty, our head of Scottish PR, who is also based at the distillery and Peter and Griz Gordon.

Peter is a fifth generation descendant of William Grant and former Chariman of William Grant and Sons. He is also very much part of the residencies heart and soul, being responsible for the programmes inception back in 2002.

As Peter has pointed out in the past, the notion of a distillery being central to the production of new creative works is not alien. Distillers, more than most, truly understand the virtue of patience, of giving some thing time to develop fully.

Not such a fanciful notion really as this short video demonstrates

 http://www.wimp.com/creativityaffected/

TO CULTIVATE A VIGOROUS SPIRIT...

This week Jungho installed his scare crow in the barley field overlooked by Balvenie Castle.
 
Scarecrows are known across the world, in Scotland they are called Tattie Bogles. Their origins are said to come from effigies representing Priapus (the Greek god of horticulture and fertility) who was abandoned by his mother (Aphrodite) in a vineyard. Disfigured but well endowed, he was taken in by the keeper of the vineyard who noticed that birds tended to avoid fields where Priapus resided. The tale spread through the land and as Greek influence spread into Roman territory, Roman farmers also adopted the practice of building effigies of Priapus to protect their crops.

There is a wonderful duality around scarecrows, on one hand they are preforming a benevolent role in protecting the farmers crops, but at the same time, by virtue of the very role they play, they also carry air of malevolence. In Japan scarecrows were often fitted with swords or other weapons to make them look even more fearsome. Jungho's scarecrow might wish over the coming weeks that his creator had supplied him with at least some means of defence given what lies ahead.

As an active kendōka (剣道家^?), - one who practises the Japanese martial art, Kendo. Jungho intends on documenting his daily 'blessing' of the scarecrow while dressed in full ceremonial Kendo armour and bamboo sword. This will continue until the barley is ready for harvest and the scarecrow's job is done. The blessing of the scarecrow in turn gives a blessing to the crop itself. Given that after harvest, this barley will be malted and distilled the blessing  is not only Jungho's gift to Glenfiddich but it also fulfils one of the disciplines' of Kendo: To Cultivate a Vigorous Spirit.

Jungho's skills extend far beyond his practise of Kendo, he is also a dab hand in the kitchen as this lunch he prepared after the mornings scarecrow fixing testifies.

A BRAW DAY OOT...

Today was spent in the affable company of Mr Ian Millar, the Glenfiddich global brand ambassador. Having been in the Scotch whisky industry almost all his working life, including a stint as distillery manager here at Glenfiddich. Ian has a great wealth of knowledge which he is more than happy to share. Each year we set a day aside to take the residents around the local area giving them some locational experience to the story of William Grant, the distilleries founder, and for the Class of 2013 that day was today.

First stop was up the Conval hills overlooking the distillery to visit the Robbie Dhu spring, the source of the natural spring water used to make Glenfiddich. A quick tour round Dufftown saw us take in locations central to the life of William Grant, such as the cottage he was born in, the house he and his family stayed while building Glenfiddich. And Mortlach distillery where he spent twenty years learning his trade while saving the money he would need to realise his dream - to make the best dram in the valley.

Lunch was followed by a distillery tour before Ian cracked open a few bottles from the Glenfiddich range to introduce the residents to their subtle variations in nose and flavour. On offer were our 12, 15 and 18 year old expressions, unfortunately he was unable to locate any of our 21 year old, so had to make do with a 30 year old instead.

aye some days it's a sair fecht.

HOT, HOT, HOTTER THAN HEYL.....

The thermometer continued to climb this week as Dufftown basked in glorious summer sunshine, streaming down from a cloudless blue sky. So it was a very warm welcome indeed to Marie Von Heyl and her husband, Florian who arrived on Wednesday. Marie who only just graduated from the Royal Academy in London becomes our fifth resident to be selected from that hallowed institution.
 
Employing a mixed media practise that includes drawing, collage, film and text. Marie, who describes her work as being an attempt to 'trace the uncanny and tap into the absurd'
is intending to use her residency investigating spaces that function only to allow the passing of time: Waiting rooms. Such as to be found be at train or bus stations, health clinics, dentists etc. Equally reception areas for offices, hotels and visitor centres could also be seen as types of waiting rooms. As are in a sense are the distillery warehouses, providing as they do a constant, passive environment allowing the passage of time to flow in a quiet and undisturbed fashion as the casks of maturing spirit they house sit and wait....

http://www.marievonheyl.de/
 
The fine weather saw artists break out of the confines of the studio and enjoy the sunshine. Jon chose to make al fresco art while Jungho went for a walk with his new friend.

WHAT DO ARTISTS DO ALL DAY.....

 

Now that we are a good month into the programme everyone is finding their own rhythm and settling into working routines. For Daniel this is a pretty ordered discipline which sees his days being divided between time at the drawing board and long walks in the surrounding hills, developing the narrative and visualisation of the presentation that will complete his residency in just over six weeks time.

 

On the surface at least his approach is miles away from that of Jon, who - from the pile of packages that arrive for him daily - would seem to stay up all night ordering more things to join the growing collection of objects he has amassed over the past five weeks. This eclectic grouping includes, a full set of armour complete with shield swords and crossbow, half a cask, numerous small brightly coloured plastic balls, one sack each of cask bungs and bung cloots*, lengths of cane, threaded steel bar and a bag of pigs eye balls from the butchers.

 

Yet it is from this chaos that also his final work will arise as it is transformed from just being random stuff into costumes, props and sets for his proposed film.

 

 

For our newer arrivals the priority has been to get their studio/working areas set up and begin the process of gathering the source material which will inform the final direction of their projects here.

 

This morning was spent with Jungho scouting round the distillery to find suitable locations for his photo shoot before heading to Elgin for a tour round the charity shops, buying clothes for the scarecrow that will be a prop in his forthcoming work.....

 

 

* a square of hessian sack cloth used as a seal between the bung and cask

 

SQUARE SAUSAGE...

 

After a few days off Summer has again returned to Dufftown ! Now that we all know not to look at the sun, making it self conscious and going away to hide we are hoping it will stick around for a bit. its reappearance came just in time for last night's FIRE CLUB & Scottish BBQ which was sorely needed after a hectic week.

 

The disappointing news that Yuvan had for the second time, been refused a visa came through from India on Thursday morning. It would appear that we can thank the potent combination of British regulation and Indian  bureaucracy for again finding the most slight technicality in his application as ground for refusal. However working to the old adage of 'Third time lucky' a fresh application is underway. So for now at least no square sausage for Yuvan.

 

As if to compete with the morning, Thursday afternoon got in on the act when the Slug was back to its old 'starting to stop starting' tricks and saw an unscheduled extra hours stop over in Elgin's Asda car park for the happy artist shoppers. This also turned out to be a bit of a Mini Adventure for Craig 'Countryman' Buchan our Finance Leader at Glenfiddich who raced up to our rescue with a set of jump leads.

 

On a positive note though the new Artists in Residence Personal Protective Equipment was given its first field trail this week.

 

 

 

JUST A TYPICAL DAY......

Now that we are one month into the residency the context of what can be considered normal is being slowly expanded.

 

Of course with the recent arrivals the days are getting busier. Today Erick got inspired by a large pallet. Jungho's equipment arrived, but as he is suffering from a cold he was unable to perform any rituals. A very pink Agi went shopping in Dufftown with Yunyao. Jon hung his bung cloots out to dry. Daniel stood in a river, and everyone got new portraits taken by our long suffering photographer John Paul.

 

 



UNLEASHED FROM THE EAST....

Its been a busy 24 hours. The Slug has been fair rushed off its own slime trail up and down to Aberdeen airport. Collecting firstly, Jungho Oak, who arrived in from Seoul last night and Agi Chen from Taipei this morning.

Working in digital print and sculpture Agi's primary focus is pop culture, cartoons in particular. Breaking down the identity of famous cartoon characters such as SpongeBob Square Pants and the Powder Puff Girls. She reconstructs them through their colours into concentric bands as shown in her reinterpretations of Batman and Spiderman below.

The Heroic Colours - MOCA, Taipei.

So far, Agi has mainly worked with American and Japanese cartoon characters. These being the most common in Taiwan, but she is keen to discover some new Scottish ones. So we may see a few monochromatic deconstructions of The Broons.

For his time at Glenfiddich, Jungho is looking to expand on his body of work known as The Sun Salutations: Surya Namaskar. – a ritual combining the ancient Korean tradition of “gosa” with Hindu practises and yoga to bestow sublimity and well wishes onto others.
As he himself explains....

This time will help me expand the meaning and the performativity of the project in a different cultural background. It will also be an interesting and unique experience to wish for happiness amongst Glenfiddich craftsmen, which could be exotic to them.'

For our coopers already used to working with both European and American oak it will indeed be interesting to see how exotic they find the Korean variety.
http://www.akive.org/eng/artist/A0000245/Jungho%20Oak

Finally on oak, this fine specimen at Spiney Place seems to have grown its own initial.