Opportunities from Patchings Art Festival 2014

In June I attended the 2014 Patchings Art Festival. This year it was celebrating its 21st birthday, and the festival just seems to grow year on yea. However, with the introduction of the new photography section I can see that this festival is set to go stratospheric!

If you want to find out more about the Patchings Art Festival please see my earlier blog post here>

2014 Art Interviews

I’m excited to announce that this year I managed to track down even more artists and art suppliers who were all really generous in giving me their valuable time to be interviewed.  With my new interview questions for artists I managed to capture some amazing stories, unique insights, and specialist knowledge and know-how which I’m really looking forwards to sharing with you over the coming weeks and months.

My interviewees:

I have to say that there is nothing more rewarding than an interview with an artist, and to hear at first hand their passion for their art, and to learn about what inspired them on their artistic journey.

The Patchings Challenge 2015

On the friday evening I was very flattered to have been invited to dinner by a group of prestigious artists, some of whom I’d interviewed last year. During the meal they challenged me to attend Patchings next year, not as a visitor, but as an artist with my own stand, and selling my own art creations. Given that I’m between houses at the moment, and my studio is still packed away in boxes in storage there is no way that I would be able to produce enough work in my preferred medium of watercolour. However, as I’m currently taking The Complete Drawing and Painting Certificate Course with Cindy Wider I decided to rise to their challenge and agreed that I would be here next year, as an artist, and selling my drawings. Look out for my upcoming Patchings Challenge 2015 blog post for more details!

Possible Art Project to Interview Fellow Artists

I couldn’t believe my luck when Ken Howard OBE RA accepted my request to give him an interview. Being a hugely successful artist, he had attended the festival to judge the winning paintings in the Patchings Art Competition, and had done his tour of the event to visit the winning artists on their stands. We settled down in the Patchings Café with a pot of tea, a plateful of fruit cake, and I switched my recorder on and we began the interview. Without a doubt, it was an amazing interview where Ken shared his passion and the stories behind his journey to becoming such a successful, and world-renowned artist. When the interview was over Ken leaned forwards and asked me “Why are you doing this Ian?” I held up my recorder and said “What I hold in my hand is a historical archive of Ken Howard’s passions, insights and the advice he wanted to share with fellow artists. In years to come when future artists are studying your work they’ll be able to listen to this and hear first hand what’s inspired you, your passion and your journey. If there had been someone like me around to interview Turner or Constable when they were alive, wouldn’t you want to listen to their interviews?”. Ken sat and thought for a moment and pointed out that I should turn what I’m doing into an art project to interview the UK’s top artists. Ken suggested I prepared an outline for the project and to contact him in a few weeks time with a view to explore if there was any arts funding available for it. Again, watch this space for developments.

Social Media Training Courses for Artists

One more set of opportunities that arose from my visit to the Patchings Art Festival was from the many artists who were there who also follow me on social media. Almost without exception they asked if I was going to put on any social media training course for artists. It soon became clear that I should work on developing two social media courses, one for professional artists, the other for hobby artists as they have quite different audiences and different approaches to social networking. Unfortunately it was difficult to find the time to talk with Liz and Chas Wood (Patchings Art Centre proprietors and organisers of the festival) but we’ve put a date in the diary for me to travel up and meet with them with a view to discussing the possibility of holding these courses at the Patchings Art Centre. I was also approached by several professional artists who have asked me to give them one-to-one consulting on how best to use social media and help them build social media strategies that will help them to reach more people. Again, please watch this space for updates and developments, particularly on news concerning my new social media for artists courses.

Patchings Art Centre Address and Contact Details:

Patchings Art Centre

Oxton Road

Calverton

Nottingham

NG14 6NU

Telephone: 0115 965 3479
Fax: 0115 965 5308

Social Media and Web Links for Patchings

 Photo’s by kind permission of Bob Owen