The creative urge and the desire to explore ideas have walked hand in hand for millennia and this free course for adults, led by Paul Fagan and held at Working It Out in Darlington Town Centre, will illuminate links between Art and Philosophy, moving from prehistory to the post modern age and looking to the future. If you’re looking for something thought provoking and affordable then why not drop into the first session running 1pm to 3pm on Friday 6 January 2023. The Philosophy of Art is backed by the Darlington for Culture small grant scheme, which remains open to applications.

The Culture Bridge North East (CBNE) fund provides grants of up to £1,500 to support collaborations between education and youth settings, arts practitioners and cultural organisations anywhere in the North East. Priority is given to projects which improve access to high quality arts provision for those who would otherwise face barriers to taking part.

CBNE Programme Manager, Mel Burgess, says: “While the grants available are small, we know teachers and artists can use these practical, manageable amounts to make great things happen, so we’re confident the fund can have a big and lasting impact on the lives of young people across the region.”

The Culture North East fund is managed by the Community Foundation for Tyne & Wear and Northumberland and is open for applications until 15 January 2023. 

BRIEFING SESSION

Culture Bridge North East are holding an online briefing session for schools, led by Jo Cundall from Community Foundation. The session will provide more information about the CBNE Fund and about fundraising for arts activity in general. Apply for the CBNE briefing session on Wednesday 7 December, 3.30-4.30pm by clicking here.

It was great to see so many people of different ages get involved in the first Autumn Almanac session at the Friends Community Hub on Skinnergate in Darlington on Saturday 22nd October. A big thank you to all who came along and got involved, and to Cabinet of Curiosity Studio for bringing this opportunity to Darlington as part of the Big Draw Festival 2022. I was struck by how much time people committed to exploring paper craft techniques, by how people explored their imagination to beautiful effect through fantastically coloured card, and by what a rich source of inspiration our flora, fauna, animals, bird and sea life provide (currently) for adults and children.

The final session is taking place on Saturday 29th October 2022 and anyone aged 6 years old and above who wants to get involved can drop into the Friends Community Hub anytime between 11am and 3pm. There’s no charge to take part, you can drop in for as long as you like between these hours and all the equipment and materials you need are provided.

Clore Leadership Tees Valley Roundtable Event

When: Tuesday 22 November 2022 (Doors open for refreshments and registration at 9.30, with the event running from 10am -12 noon)
Where: The BIS 3-17 Whitby St, Hartlepool TS24 7AD https://www.investinhartlepool.co.uk/locations/the-bis/

Calling all cultural sector workers, freelancers, creators and artists!

Clore Leadership presents the second of two roundtable gatherings shaping the development of a new Tees Valley based leadership development programme launching in 2023, exploring arts & cultural leadership and change making across the Tees Valley region.

Guest Speaker writer, thinker and strategist Mark Robinson, founder of Thinking Practice https://www.thinkingpractice.co.uk/about-mark-robinson/ offers a provocation on the current challenges for arts and culture leaders and change makers in the region.

Followed by an opportunity to hear more about the outline programme of leadership development and a facilitated roundtable discussion session exploring ideas and possibilities with Clore Leadership Associate Amanda Smethurst.

This session will be BSL interpreted.

Book your free place here.

We’re delighted to be supporting Cabinet of Curiosity Studios in bringing free, drop in, family friendly activity suitable for those aged 6 years old and above to the Friends Community Hub on Saturday 22nd and Saturday 29th October 2022. Their Autumn Almanac sessions look to creatively celebrate the wonders of nature through paper craft techniques. Autumn Almanac Saturdays are part of The 2022 Big Draw Festival, Come Back To Colour, and we hope they’ll brighten your day if you want to get involved. There’s no need to book, just drop in to the Friends Community Hub on Skinnergate, anytime between 11am and 3pm on either or both Saturdays, and get involved.

Just last year Cabinet of Curiosity Studio shared work created through their Grand Constructions programme in Queen Street Shopping Centre and at Darlington Library,. Grand Constructions encouraged people at the Head of Steam railway museum and at Darlington Arts Festival, to try their hand at making models of some of the regions iconic architectural buildings and constructions using everyday materials.

We’re looking forward to two creative fun filled days of activity led by Cabinet of Curiosity Studio at the Friends Community Hub this October, and hope that further creative fun for families will blossom in future.

Tracks Darlington’s Noisy Daughters project champions women and gender minorities in the
music industry and on Friday and Saturday 23rd and 24th of September will be bringing their
activities to The Forum Music Centre. On Friday 23rd there will be a gig celebrating strong female voices with Scruffy Bear headlining, special guests Pave The Jungle, and Darlington’s own Eve Conway.

Scruffy Bear melt minds with their monstrous riffs, earth shattering sound and the unreal vocal
talents of Georgie Eaton twinned with a serious and stylish attitude. Pave The Jungle are an alt
rock two piece from Newcastle who build huge overdriven soundscapes around Rachael Whittle’s
swaggering sound. Eve Conway combines the song craft of a country star, writing relatable folk
ditties that talk of love, loss and the everyday grind, with the stagecraft of a contemporary urban
pop artist, featuring looping vocals and a stylish charm that hypnotises and energises crowds.

On Saturday 24th from 1pm-3pm there will be a free ‘Introduction To Live Sound’ workshop open
to all women, girls and people of minority genders. Tracks have linked up with the brilliant
Yorkshire Sound Women network to bring practitioner Jo Kennedy to Darlington to deliver the
workshop.

Jo works as a freelance artist and technician. She makes sound art, performs live experimental
music, runs technical and creative workshops and does live sound engineering for small events.
She is particularly interested in sound art as a means of environmental education and activism.
Jo explains: “The workshop will empower participants who are maybe wanting to run a gig night or
venue, or a performer wanting to speak with more confidence and authority to venue sound
engineers. This 2-hour workshop will provide a friendly, supportive space for you to get your hands
on PA equipment and understand the essentials of live sound. You’ll learn how to get signals from
instruments and microphones successfully into a mixing desk via cables, DI boxes and connectors,
what to do with these signals once they arrive at the desk, and how to get them back out to room
speakers and foldback monitors suitably amplified and mixed for a great listening experience. Feel
free to bring your own instruments for use in the workshop!”

Rob Irish of Tracks added: “It’s great to see a growing awareness of more technical roles in the
music industry nowadays – we’re seeing a lot more education and participation in recording,
production & mixing, however I feel like live sound is still overlooked, despite it being such an
important and exciting job in music. It’s no secret that women are underrepresented in the
industry, especially on the tech side, and ridiculously so within live sound – we know there’s loads
of women out there who wanna get their hands on a mixing desk, but maybe they’re not sure
where to start, and with confidence, so we hope this workshop can be give them that opportunity”
Tickets for the gig and workshop will be available from www.tracksdarlington.co.uk
The workshop is free but places are limited and must be booked in advance.
Tickets for the gig are £6.

Thanks to Creative Darlington and Arts Council England for making these events possible.

The “Missing Women” project is inspired by the 13 paintings of a father and sons that hang in Auckland Castle and the missing female members of the family.

Creative Youth Opportunities are recruiting two artists to create a life size portrait of one of the missing women based on their own research (supported by Creative Youth Opportunities) and a body of reference material created with young people.

Creative Youth Opportunities are looking to recruit early career artists with exciting ideas and who are confident working on a large scale. We would like to work with people with lived experience of gender-based bias/ discrimination/ prejudice and who are interested in exploring the idea of minoritisation and the un(der)/mis-representation of people in its many and varied forms. It is also critical that they are excited at the prospect of working in the community with young people and are also keen to develop professionally themselves. The role is open to people living in the North East or North Yorkshire.

Project fee: £1,608, closing date: 20^th September 2022, Full brief is available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bmIy763wiPDY1j0vo2Nwxj6Nly0_dzjz/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116076206841404516564&rtpof=true&sd=true

A new video work created by artist Carolyn Thompson, one of the Dover Art Prize 2021 winners, titled ‘This, of course, is all speculation’, which runs for 20 minutes, can be accessed via scanning a QR code on display panels at The Head of Steam railway museum and in Darlington Library’s Local Studies room currently, during standard opening hours.

Blurring sounds and stories from past and present-day Darlington, ‘This, of course, is all speculation’ is a 20-minute film created by artist Carolyn Thompson. It explores the lives of Thomas Wood, a 19th-century gilder, framer and gallery owner from Darlington, and his son, photographer Sydney H. Wood. The film is constructed from text extracted from newspaper articles of the time, spoken and written memories, descriptions of artwork and photography linked to the Wood family, and sound recordings taken in the vicinity of the various sites of Thomas and Sydney Wood’s shops. It examines the limitations and fallibility of historical storytelling and the assumptions we are forced to make when researching family histories. The project was made possible with a Dover Prize 2021 Creative Award from County Durham Community Foundation and Creative Darlington. Carolyn Thompson is a visual artist who was born in Darlington. Her artwork is about literature and place. She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally and her work can be found in several public collections. She is also the great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Wood. www.carolynthompson.co.uk

Photographer Andrew Gill will share his fascination with running water in his solo exhibition at The Friends Community Hub, on Skinnergate in Darlington. Rivers have fascinated many people and Andrew’s photography reflects this fascination. He considers water ” the driving force of all nature, and that’s what inspires me to get outdoors and capture its raw beauty. I love to take my time to capture the essence of the flowing water taking in the sounds is peaceful.”

We’re delighted that River Tees: Source to Sea is on display in the new exhibition space at the the Friends Community Hub on Skinnergate in Darlington. There’s no charge to view the exhibition which is open from 10am to 2pm daily on Saturday 3 September and from Monday 5th to Friday 9th September 2022. We hope you enjoy Andrew’s exhibition at The Friends Community Hub and to see other exhibitions on display in the months to come.

Autumn courses at The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts start in the week commencing Monday 19th September and finish in the week ending Friday 2nd December 2022. These enjoyable courses are open to adults and you can find out if they’re for you by e-mailing the artist in advance of the first session, the images above show their e-mail addresses, or just pop along in week one and speak to them to find out more. There’s so much happening at The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts, and lots of options to explore creative activity including ceramic, drawing, jewellery, life drawing, portraiture, pastels, watercolour drawing and painting.