Award winning photographer Eamonn McCabe exhibits at the Gallery on the Green

The Gallery on the Green's first exhibition of professional art is by the award winning photographer Eamonn McCabe, well known for his work as a sports photographer and picture editor. His natural curiosity about individuals who work alone evolved into a wide ranging series of photographs of writer's rooms that appeared each weekend in The Guardian. Eamonn selected and printed a show especially for us, including gems such as the working spaces of such eminent authors as Edna O'Brien, Rose Tremain, Clive James and our local hero Bill Bryson.

Gallery wins BT Regional Award!

We are proud to report that The Gallery on the Green won the Yorkshire and Humber BT competition for adopted phone boxes. BT's area manager Mark Johnson and publicity manager Amy Walker arrived yesterday (Wednesday) with a cheque for £1000 to go to the community. Cultivating Settle Chairman Marion Armstrong, along with Curator Roger Taylor and Artistic director Mike Crompton received the cheque and thanked BT for their support. Marion thanked all the people involved in making the phone box such a success and a real credit to Settle.

More about Settle

If you are thinking of visiting Settle, you might like to see more about the local area. Mark Dale of Settle Festival Ltd has made a video of some of the recent projects. It includes our new riverside walk, footage of building works at Settle Hydro (our new renewable energy station), the recent cycling festival in summer 2009 and some local volunteer work done by Cultivating Settle. The video is on YouTube and can be found at this link.

Pictures from Public Collections

For October exhibition,we have teamed up with the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), based at the University of the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey. Working collaboratively with Amy Robinson of VADs, Gallery on the Green curator Julie Sobczak has made a wide-ranging selection of images which have been specially printed for the exhibition. Drawing on the collections as diverse as the Imperial War Museum, the London College of Fashion, and Manchester Metropolitan University, the exhibition includes examples of Victorian music covers, posters of conflict, fashion photographs, woodcuts and collages.

This is the first of a series of planned exhibitions to bring work of national significance to the Gallery on the Green and we are delighted to be able to work with prestigious organisations such as VADS as extending the scope and remit of the gallery will appeal to a wide audience.VADS have been interested in the Gallery since it opened in July. Amy Robinson said ‘We really like the idea of exhibiting some of our postcard collection in a phone box. The intimacy and size really lend themselves to the medium.’

The new exhibition will open on Saturday 24^th October.

Pictures added by Dorset Camera

Its wonderful to see visitors arriving from elsewhere and admiring the phone box and the gallery. A fan of the area from Dorset who is a marvellous photographer has featured the phone box on his web site -
http://www.dorsetcamera.co.uk/html/17_august_2009.html

We have now placed a guest book in the gallery and lots of comments are arriving - thankfully all good! Again, its great to see people coming to the gallery from far and wide. Art and visitors from all over the world! Not bad for so small a structure.

Cartoonist sees the funny side of the Gallery

We all know how art can feed the soul - and there is plenty of wonderful art to lift our spirits in the Gallery on the Green (GOG). A recent contributor to the GOG is the cartoonist Judy Steele, who has drawn a cartoon especially for the GOG with the theme "laughter is the best medicine". Judy has been a Political Cartoonist for 27 years. Previously with the Burlington Gazette, and Burlington Spectator newspapers in Ontario, Canada, she moved to the Cayman Islands where she was political cartoonist for the Caymanian Compass Newspaper in the Cayman Islands for 12 years. Now living in Canmore, Alberta, Canada and still continuing to draw for the Cayman newspaper. Judy is an avid mountain hiker, canoeist and camper....lampooning bears, elk and cougars.

Do you see the funny side of life? Send your own cartoon, humorous post card/drawing to the gallery so we can share a giggle with you.

Telefon Corner - by Debbie Rose Van Der Bol

Another international contributor to the GOG is Debbie Rose Van Der Bol, who was inspired by the GOG to paint an original watercolour 'Telefon Corner'. Debbie is a talented artist who lives and paints on the beautiful island of Grand Cayman (BWI) - where she also owns and runs her own art shop/gallery 'Pure Art'.

Debbie says " I enjoyed the charming colours in the scene of this red phone booth! The way it so belongs to this little spot is what inspired me, its intimacy, in our cell phone world of today". Thank you Debbie for your contribution.

On Line Gallery

We will be changing the display at the Gallery next weekend, so have created a small on line archive of some of the current exhibtion. This can be seen on the website http://www.galleryonthegreen.org.uk/gallery.html

Calling all schools and colleges

The Gallery on the Green team have had various conversations with teachers who would like to work with us to get their classes to produce a set of postcards. Some of these are from distant places (such as Leeds!) and some from inner cities, so they would also like to bring their class up on a visit. We think this is a great idea. There is lots to see in Settle and the surrounding area and we'd love to help you plan a visit that includes our Gallery. To make this easier, we've appointed an 'Education Director' for the Gallery on the Green, who can be contacted at education@galleryonthegreen.org.uk.

Our phone box on Facebook

BT have a section (not sure of the technical term) on Facebook for the 'Adopt a phone box' scheme. (to find it, you have to be a member of Facebook and then do a search). Not much is there just yet, but there is a photo gallery, which includes a picture of our very own Gallery on the Green! There's also a little piece in the discussion forum which says that the Settle Gallery is 'an inspiration and we want other local communities to adopt their red kiosks and do something as amazing as this.' We think so too!

The spontaneous creativity of an eleven-year-old

Eleven year old Isabel Fawcett, visiting from Ecuador, created an art work of her own this afternoon when she drew a full-sized image of the telephone box using freshly mown grass-cuttings from the green. Her original intention had been to trace the outline of a car for her younger sister, but she realised that what she had begun reminded her of the Gallery on the Green, and adapted her design accordingly.

As a finishing touch she incorporated the word TELEPHONE using cotton wool for better visibility....and all of this spontaneously and without any supervision whatsoever.

It's a pity my photographs don't fully do justice to the piece, but well done Isabel for such an imaginative interpretation.

Another gallery in a phone box

Perhaps not surprisingly, since it's such a great idea, it turns out we're not the only people who thought of using a phone box as an art gallery. Local artist Teresa Crawford-Docherty converted a phone box in Halesowen into an art gallery where it has attracted lots of local attention. Her website has more information.

More about phone boxes

For an interesting article about the history of phone boxes as architecture, see the English Buildings blog.

The Gallery is launched!

Our opening ceremony yesterday was attended by around 70 people - more than we've ever seen at once on The Green! The picture was taken by Mark Rand and shows the Mayor of Settle, Councillor Barbara McLernon, cutting the ribbon.

A world record? Or not?

We put in a claim to the Guinness Book of Records to see if we really are the smallest art gallery in the world. We've just heard back from them that they are unable to investigate our claim as they have limited resources which can only be used for the most 'interesting' and 'important' of claims. So we'll carry on with our claim and see if anyone tells us about a smaller art gallery!

A noble tradition continues

The Gallery has hit the newspapers now and one kind reader sent the following interesting note:

I would like to point out that the Gallery on the Green is not the only art gallery in a building designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. Bankside Power Station, now Tate Modern, was also designed by Giles Gilbert Scott.

The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow was originally in a building designed by his grandfather, Sir George Gilbert Scott, and the Guildhall Art Gallery was designed by his son, Richard Gilbert Scott.

The opening on July 11th draws closer, things are gathering pace, not least with the installation of this splendid mosaic floor designed and made by Marion. It looks just great!!

Our first piece of contributed art has arrived. A drawing by 'H.Wilson' was left anonymously in the phone box. We are not quite ready, but it's great to know that there are already artists out there waiting to exhibit!

Plans are progressing well and we hope to hold the launch event in July. We now have a splendid ceiling, reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel. We just need to finish the installation with the back board and racking, plus a rather exciting floor (watch this space...)

The phone box looks a lot better - still the post box to do though.

At last the grass on the Green gets cut - so the whole area now looks a lot smarter.

Lion Foundry

For those of you interested in the history of the telephone box you can follow this link http://www.scottishironwork.org/lion.htm and read something about the Lion Foundry

Work starts! Well done to John and Ian for giving up their spare weekend time to the refurbishment galler

Fine weather spurred work on. The box needed a lot of preparation before painting could start.

Getting started

The Upper Settle residents have recently acquired responsibility for the phone box that will become the Gallery on the Green. The phone box was bought for £1 by the Town Council from BT, as part of the national 'Adopt-a-Kiosk' programme. It has been a bit neglected, so our first task is to clean it up, repaint and get it ready to be used for displaying artworks. Work started on a beautiful April Sunday afternoon, after ordering special paint from Unicorn.