ARTISTS and art organisations were meeting this week to discuss their position on the murky process of creating Creative Scotland. This "cultural alliance" will push, among other things, to ensure the heavy transition costs of melding Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council don't get taken out of the front-line budget for the arts.
They would also like, according to one participant, to see less sweeping rhetoric about what Creative Scotland can achieve and more about the fact that it enabl
"In a sense we are saying, 'Let's forget the past,'" said one arts boss. "'Lets preten
d this year never happened, lets all drink something liquid at Hogmanay and wake up believing we are starting again.'"
Speaking of déjà vu, it is now said that a new bill for Creative Scotland will have a policy statement attached, proposing "ongoing dialogue" between arts organisations, parliament and government. (Following the embarrassing failure of last year's bill to establish Creative Scotland, it has re-formed as a limited company, pending the passing in Parliament of the Public Services Reform bill.)
Salmond in oilsAN EXHIBITION of Scottish portraits tied to the North Sea oil industry opened at the European Parliament building this week. The 24 paintings by Fionna Carlisle, who famously painted Robin Cook in the months before his death in August 2005, include her portrait of one Alex Salmond.
It was made before he became First Minister – he was put forward by the workers at St Fergus Gas Terminal, for his role as an economist and as their constituency MP. "He was about the last person I got my mitts on for this project," says Carlisle. "There was quite a lot of resistance to me painting him, but now he's First Minister, suddenly it's everybody's favourite portrait." There's talk that the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has its eye on the picture.
A taste of revengeCRYING with Laughter, a new feature film shooting in and around Edinburgh, features the affable Stephen McCole, last seen as one the heist plotters in Stone of Destiny, performing as a stand-up comedian.
It is "a tense and dark thriller, exploiting powerful themes of retribution, justice and abuse," says Scottish Screen. A chance meeting between two men who haven't seen each other for 25 years, and the kidnapping of their former school-teacher, brings memories of childhood abuse flooding back. Locations ranges from Edinburgh to East Lothian and the Borders.
Like the recent Robert Carlyle film Summer, Crying with Laughter is jointly financed by Scottish Screen and EM Media, the East Midlands film agency, and co-produced by Wellington Films, also from that region. The former chief executive of EM Media is none other than Scottish Screen's own Ken Hay.
Picturing the worldMAJOR names in world music are lined up to play Scotland's capital in 2009 for a special season of concerts at The Picture House, in what has been described as a major coup for Edinburgh's newest venue.
Opening the season at the end of February are African superstars Amadou & Mariam whose new album Welcome to Mali is riding high in the end-of-year charts.
The couple, who have been performing since meeting at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind in 1977, have been propelled to international recognition for their vibrant, uplifting songs and their collaborations with Manu Chao and Damon Albarn.
Buena Vista Social Club's Eliades Ochoa comes to the venue at the beginning of March. The Grammy award winner, popularly known as "the Cuban Johnny Cash" because of his trademark cowboy hat, shot to global stardom on the back of the Buena Vista Social Club documentary by Wim Wenders.
The season also features the only Scottish date for a special collaboration between folk rock pop experimentalists Tunng and the desert blues group Tinariwen who are known for their hypnotic rhythms and trance-like melodies.
The full article contains 657 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
