A cultural commons for mental health in Edinburgh

Outdoor Sketching & Meeting like-minded Folk

We like to frequently take ourselves out of the studio to sketch outdoors, meet others and chat ideas while on walks in the great outdoors. Here’s one day’s adventures on Blackford Hill, The Royal Observatory and Hermitage of Braid Local Nature Reserve. We came across The Lodge Coffee House whose owners were super friendly, gave…

Sketching at Drift

Ellie, Alex, Lee, Adele, Franco, Maggie and Vic love drawing and wanted to get outside to sketch in the elements. We’d heard of new cafe venue Drift in East Lothian with amazing views of the Bass Rock and out to sea so we went to check it out for ourselves…

Jupiter Artland

We take our inspiration from many things…here we are soaking up a bit of arts and culture at Jupiter Artland.

Women’s Group & PROCESSIONS

Women from Artlink’s Curious Routes and Artlink’s Glasshouses arts for mental health projects came together to design and make banners in celebration of 100 years of women voting in the UK in collaboration with Processions public art project. PROCESSIONS was a once-in-a-lifetime mass participation artwork which celebrated one hundred years of votes for women. Processions was…

Bangour Fishery

We’ve been sharing Chelley, Diane, Alex, Ian and Franco’s love of fishing with some newbees to fly fishing at Bangour Trout Fishery in West Lothian. Erm zero fish caught but what a beaut of a day!

Hidden Door Arts Festival

Ellie and Lee and Curious Routes are doing some research around video projection and thought we’d visit Hidden Door Festival for some inspiration. We’re deciding whether to make our own wooden screen for projecting onto… Hidden Door is an arts organisation which aims to open up urban spaces as a platform for new and emerging…

OFF THE GRID – Kitchen Sink Film Season

Ellie & Lee are passionate about film and wanted to showcase some of the films they love to a wider audience. They have called their film group OFF THE GRID and want to show a series of Kitchen sink dramas from the 1950’s and 1960’s. The first in OFF THE GRID’s film season is Tony…

Broxburn United Sports Club Collab

We wanted to take our Common interests on tour!.. so here we are at Broxburn United Sports Club with their over 50s group Alive and Kickin’. We shared our passions for birdwatching and walks with Franco & Alex, mono printing with Ellie, Songwriting with Lee & Peter, Cooking with Franco & Kevin, Textiles with Dorothy,…

Pasta Masta Making

Inspired by Franco’s culinary skills we had a go at making our own pasta from scratch, needless to say it was delizioso!

Birdwatching

There are some passionate birdwatchers among us, Franco and Alex are our chief twitches and like to share their knowledge. Here we are in Loch Leven Kinross RSPB to spot some of the beauties in the wild.

Songwriting in the Studio

The studio is our base to test out ideas. Here are Lee & Peter jamming and creating song writing ideas and performing their latest creation entitled East Marseilles.

Common Play with Seasons

Season’s Project, a mental health and support organisation came along to our Common Play Exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art and loved what we were doing. They share similar interests, so we asked them to join us in our studio to get a flavour of what we get up to. We experimented with cyanotype photography…

Ping-Ponging

Taking our hand crafted ping pong table on tour starts up unusual, unexpected conversations with curious folk…!

COMMON PLAY Exhibition & Programme of Events

Making DJ Booth

We’re taking Lee and Ellie’s vinyl collection on tour. We’ve created a bespoke DJ booth for our up and coming Programme of events and exhibition launch of COMMON PLAY at Edinburgh College of Art’s Tent Gallery.

Vinyl Record Collections

Ellie, Lee, Peter, Alex and Richard are avid vinyl record collectors. Our musical tastes are eclectic; anything from Punk, Rock Country, Folk, Pop, Funk, Soul, Disco, Rhythm and Blues are spun on the decks. Our musical knowledge is immense and we like to share our tastes with each other. We have been visiting various remote…

Screen Printing Posters

Inspired by our interests in Birdwatching, film screening, Ping-Pong, fishing and Cycling; Ellie, Lee, Luke, Meg and Peter come up with a series of Illustrations inspired by their interests in collaboration with artist Bernie Reid in his screen printing studio in Leith. The prints will turn into posters to advertise our future events and happenings.

Printing onto Ping-Pong Table

Our beautifully crafted ping pong table is made! We’re now using Lee’s bespoke two colour ping-pong design to screen print directly onto the surface of the birch plywood ping-pong table, in collaboration with artist and screen printer Bernie Reid. Good to go!

Screen Printing Ping-Pong

Working alongside artist Bernie Reid in his print studio to create initial sketches and ideas for the screen printed ping pong surface design. The final design will be hand screen printed onto the birch plywood portable ping pong table.

Portable Ping-Pong Table Making

Franco and Alex are avid woodworkers and were super keen to work with furniture designer Susan Harper to design and make a bespoke ping ping table. The idea was inspired by Lee’s passion for the game and the idea of making it portable so we can share this passion with others.

Passion for Ping-Pong

Lee is absolutely passionate about ping pong. He loves it and plays like a pro. He took us to his favourite free outdoor space to play down at the concrete ping pong table in George IV Park on Eyre Place on Edinburgh’s New Town. We brought along a portable speaker to pump out people’s playlists…

My Dunfermline – Vic MacRae Exhibition

We have known Vic and her creative practice for many years. She’s a talented artist, designer and illustrator. Through Artlink, Vic first met with the artist Alan Grieve, when we visited him at his studio/gallery and hairdressing salon in Dunfermline. Vic’s now a local resident in Dumfermline, and has gotten to know Alan more and…

The Art of Being Civic

We like keeping up to speed with other interesting and inspiring projects from all over the world. So we attended a two day Symposium at The Tate Modern, in London called The Art of Being Civic with Public Works. We listened to speakers and had conversations around ethics of community engagement and alternative models of…

Film Screenings

Lee is an avid art film follower and has an archive of British Film Institute (BFI) art films and art documentaries and regularly screens films from his collection. Luke is part of Dalry Open Film (DOF), who meet weekly to create and make short films. They have screened for us: Invisible Edinburgh, people who have…

Archipelago Exhibition

Alex and Franco are cooking up a storm in exchange for creative talks with artist Alan Grieve about his current Archipelago Exhibition at Summerhall.

Pentland Peeks

Start Up – Climbing Training

Adele, David, Laia and Vic wanted to develop their climbing techniques and learn more belay basics so we can start to climb independently. Learning the ropes. safety checks for climbing and belaying. How to Tie Yourself In & Belaying Basics Steeping into harness red for right – tighten up around your waist & legs For Climber:Tie…

Where You’re Meant to Be Screening

Lee is really interested and has a vast knowledge in documentary films. Over the next few months we’re going to have a series of documentary film screenings chosen by Lee and others. First up… is the documentary film with Musician and former Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat “Where You’re meant to Be” by Paul Fegan….

Rock Climbing & Abseil

Vic has chosen the first of the taster Sessions in Rock climbing at Ratho International Climbing Arena. We tried out abseiling and basics in rock climbing. David and Adele are both afraid of heights and initially found this terrifying, but after a few tries they have got the bug and have signed up to another…

Deep End Team ideas

The Name for Deep End Team comes from – quote from the GP Vic, Adele and David are interested in increasing their physical health and like the idea of having taster sessions with various specialists in exercise, fitness and activity. We want ot try out taster sessions. Suggestions are: climbing, table tennis, yoga, experimental dance,…

Storytelling

Taking the time to hear people’s personal stories, inspired by music or a song that takes them back to a certain time, place or memory with artist Donna Rutherford.

Documentary Film Maker – John Samson GOMA

We’re thinking around how we want to document elements of the project, Lee Ritchie is really interested in working in film making and so it made sense to go and see documentary film maker John Samson’s show at Gallery Of Modern Art in Glasgow. Lee is starting to capture people’s individual stories in film. http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/GoMA/exhibitions/Pages/Gallery-1.aspx John Samson …

Soup Vans and Storytelling

David having experienced being homeless for most of his adult life, likes the idea of giving back to the homeless community. He has an idea for Soup vans and Blankets. Here he is practicing recipes. Exploring people’s interests and sharing stories with artist Donna Rutherford

Chapatis & Curry Craft

Deborah’s shares her passion for making delicious curry and handmade chaptis. This has inspired thinking around learning more bread making techniques and Chelley has suggested working with Community bakers Breadshare. Chelley met Breadshare baker Geoff Crowe whilst working at markets for her jam and preserves businesss “That’s Jammy”. We got in touch with Geoff and and…

Mindful Running

Vic has been practising and thinking about the idea of mindful running and how instead of counting her calories, competing with times or racing her peers for her it’s about slowing down and taking in her surroundings and being mindful of her environment. She’s thinking about the changing seasons, the way the sun filters through the leaves, the air temperature…

Open Air Theatre

Lee suggested visiting Braidburn open air theatre to check out the space perhaps as a venue we might look at for a public event, film screening, cooking etc. (Dave’s soups and blankets….) Lee has also been hoping to set up a Badminton game, Alex wanted to cook a Portuguese inspired rice dish for lunch he’s been…

Pool & Pentlands

Adele, David and Vic are wanting to pursue running in different locations in and outside of Edinburgh. Today, we decided to venture out of the city and head out to the Pentlands…on probably the coldest and wettest day in August. YES Great decision guys. Thank goodness for the Flottestone inn and it’s hot homemade soup,…

Dazzle Ship

https://edinburghartfestival.com/dazzle Inspired by Adele’s striking drawings and thinking about how you could use design/drawing on a much larger scale we went to visit Ciara Phillips’ Every Woman, co-commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival and 14-18 NOW (the fourth in a series of dazzle ship artworks developed by contemporary artists to commemorate the First World War). We were interested in…

KALOPSIA Textile Collective

Thinking about Adele’s drawings and an idea to convert them into design for sportswear we thought we’d visit Kalopsia Textile Collective. Nina and Adam, founders and owners of Kalopsia were showing us samples of sportswear and other garments that have been created as a prototype and explained the way they work and the what’s important to…

Island Bagging & Table Tennis

Curious Routes met last week at ESW research space to look back at what we have been up to this far, discuss ideas and talk about what we want to work towards with new artist to the project Donna Rutherford. http://www.donnarutherford.org/ We asked Donna to come and join the project because she has a unique…

Workspace

https://www.facebook.com/workspacedunfermline/ Alan Grieve’s is Workspace – He’s an experienced hairdresser and artist based in Dunfermline. Alan loves hearing and collecting people’s stories. He’s an incredible character, brilliant personality and exchanges stories for haircuts. We wanted to go meet him and Dave was keen to have his mohawk manicured by Alan. We cooked for Alan in exchange for…

Ogling over outdoor Oven

We’ve been taking our outdoor cooking from location to location, this week Franco and the guys wanted to try out the wonderful clay stone pizza oven at Bridgend Allotments. Franco shared his recipe, from his old bakery, of his incredible Italian spaghetti cake and stoned baked handmade pizzas. While Alex and Alison made the dough the runners jogged…

Emily Millichip’s Studio

Artist Kevin McPhee and Adele have been chatting about possible ways of working with her designs in textile and fabric design. So it seemed like an idea to go and see fashion designer Emily Millichip’s collection in her studio. Adele loved Emily’s designs and showed Emily her portfolio of drawings and talked about possible ways the designs could work…

Pehchaan Art from another India

Inspired by the vibrance and pattern in Adele’s drawings Adele, Kevin and Annabel visited the Pehchaan Art from another India Exhibition at Tramway, Glasgow. “Pehchaan (meaning ‘Identity’ in Hindi and Urdu) is an exciting collaborative project at Tramway, which showcases a new collection of North Indian art commissioned for Glasgow Museums. The collection features folk…

River Run and Risotto

Adele took us to a spot she used to love going to along the Water of Leith. Adele and David have been talking about wanting to increase their health and fitness, so we decided to go for a jog along the Water of Leith and Colinton village. Warming up… Franco, Helen. Lee and Alison prepared…

Drawing with Adele

Adele showing us her beautiful and intricate drawings. Making Celtic knots glamorous. Helen, Laia, Kevin and Annabel were interested in Adele’s drawing technique, so she showed us how to re-create them. Breaking for lunch by the river. Tough times.

Favourite Fishing Finds

Alex is wild about fishing, he wanted to show us some of some of his favourite local spots to dangle his line in the water. So here we were in Crammond river. Food with the Francos…If Frank had a cookery show he’d call it “Half-Baked with Frank”. Total chaos but chuffing delicious.

Sea Life at Seacliff

Putting the benches into action. Alex and Franco suggested this spot to test out the benches, cook and look out for local sealife. Alex brought along his telescope to show us the gannet activity on the bass rock. incredible. Franco and Adele wildlife spotting. Both very avid animal spotters.

Bench Building

Alex, Lee, Adele, David, Laia, Franco and Richard have been working alongside artist Kevin McPhee to make and build portable benches for future outdoor events.

Shelters

http://www.fcac.co.uk/event/shelters/ Last week’s Bothy Project trip inspired this week’s visit to Kirkcaldy Gallery for the Fife Contemporary Art &Craft exhibition highlighting the human need and drive to find and make shelter presented as part of Scotland’s Festival of Architecture 2016. Curated by Bobby Niven of The Bothy Project this will introduce the history of Lloyd Kahn’s…