OSH NEWSLETTER - October 2024

Welcome everyone to our latest OSH newsletter of 2024.

We’ve lots to report on following a very busy summer

AGM

Our Annual General Meeting will be held online on Tuesday 26 November 7.00 pm.We really hope that as many as possible of you will join in. 

Please let us know if you would like to stand for the Committee, there are likely to be a couple of vacancies.

Summer Open Studios

Thank you to everyone for your amazing work over the summer. Over 50 island artists took part, many opening up their own studios, and others in one of the shared venues. We have had lots of brilliant feedback!

We appreciate that a few venues did not have adequate signage (or at least not in time for the start) – we’ll certainly be addressing this for 2025, and we will be ordering more signs and banners. We also need to decide if we want Harris and Lewis on the same overlapping weekend in 2025.

Survey

Following this year’s Open Studios event, it would be very valuable to get some feedback from everyone involved. Your answers will help us to continue to improve OSH in the coming years. 

We have kept the survey as short as possible, and answers are anonymous.

Please click on this link https://www.openstudioshebrides.com/2024-member-survey and use the password 2024Survey. The deadline is 31st October… but please do it right now so you don't forget!

Schools Competition

It was very difficult to select winners from the wonderful work submitted.

However, the following pupils were selected:

Primary 1 and 2

Winner – Fiora Dalzel-Job (GM1 Sgoil an Rubha)

Runner Up – Innes Iain Manderson (GM2 Sgoil Ùige)

Primary 3 and 4

Winner – Hazel Main (GM3 Sgoil an Rubha)

Runner Up – Agnes DJ (GM3 Sgoil an Rubha)

Primary 5,6,7

Winner – Hannah Robertson (P6a Stornoway Primary)

Winner – Sarah Wright P7 (Sgoil an Rubha)

Runner Up – Iona Ferguson P7 (Sgoil an Rubha)

Their work was exhibited at Lews Castle during the summer.

Highland Art Prize 

We are delighted to share that the following member artists have had work selected to go through to the Highland Art Prize competition:

Kevan Cadman “Gearrannan Blackhouses – Isle of Lewis"

Debbie Cullis “Abandoned Crofthouse”

Lesley Mackenzie “The Edge of the Atlantic 3”

Christine Morrison “Petrology Series 3 #2”

Margarita Williams "On the Edge – Taransay / Aig an Oir Gu Tarasadh"

(The titles used here are the ones being used on the Highland Arts Prize website)

The selection was made by Hilary Dalke, an artist independent of OSH who has a wealth of experience in the world of art. She was very impressed by the range of work on show - in fact, she would have liked to put 12 pieces through, but we were limited to just 5 entries. 

Congratulations to the 5 successful artists, whose work is to be shown at the Rockfield Centre in Oban as part of the National Mòd, 11th to 19th October.

Future funding

Like everyone else, we are in a challenging funding environment, and we need to think broadly and creatively about approaching other funders for 2025. Please let us know if you have any ideas.

And finally a few reminders...

Remember: you can follow OSH on:

• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/openstudioshebrides

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/openstudioshebrides/

Please tag Open Studios Hebrides on any relevant social media posts you write. Use #OpenStudiosHebrides or @OpenStudiosHebrides (Put Studios not Studio and ideally use capitals for each word - better for people using text-to-speech readers.)

Posting and reposting of social media items helps to increase everyone's visibility.

And do join the Open Studios WhatsApp group

Please review your gallery on our website, if you haven't already done so. And let Charly know if you need anything updated (charlyhamlynceramics@gmail.com or via WhatsApp).