Over the past several weeks I have been bringing my Degree studies at Northumbria University to a close. As part of that I have recently prepared a research paper on the Arts in Amble and the Surrounding Area. I worked with lecturer Dr. Julie Crawshaw who has set up something known as the Ecology Project.
The term ‘Ecology’ comes out of biology and is defined as being the following:
- The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
In the arts this term has come to be used in reference to what might have been traditionally referred to as an ‘arts scene’. Simply being the organisations and individuals involved in the arts in a given area and the extent to which they are interlinked and interdependent. The Ecology Project is a research project aimed at mapping the different live arts projects, organisations and individuals in the region.
From my viewpoint I was very interested in tackling the arts scene that has begun to emerge in and around Amble. I have lived in the town all of my life and the arts have never been particularly prominent. Spare looking at a Jimmy Thompson in N&F Young’s window, or later on perhaps the odd visit to the Old School Gallery, my exposure to art in the area growing up was limited.
In the past 5 or so years this has really begun to change. The Old Bath House opened in Broomhill bringing together a collective of artists in affordable studio spaces. The Old School Gallery in Alnmouth came under new ownership and subsequently began to draw in increasingly high profile exhibitions-including the recent terrific ‘Black Pond’ show by Ruth Murray. Further to this the Dry Water Arts Centre opened it’s doors in 2018, offering up a whole new variety of projects, arts workshops and wellbeing programmes.
(Credit: Google Images)
Looking ahead, the Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery in Alnwick is set to host a new programme of contemporary arts exhibitions by artists associated with Amble. These include myself, this November, Printmaker Nevill Wilson in February, then Painter Katherine Renton in April. This summer will see the return of the Alnmouth Arts Festival for the first time since the pandemic, a well-established and highly popular fixture in the area.
This summer will also see the launch of the Bord Waalk (A play on the pronunciation of ‘Bird Walk’ in the local accent) Sculpture Trail, a Coastal Communties Fund supported project that has been developed and administered by the Amble Development Trust. The project has received a total of £396,000 in funding from the CCF along with an additional £79,000 from the Arts Council to support its roll-out. The trail will bring together a whole host of work by nationally and internationally acclaimed sculptors placed along a trail running from Low Hauxley, through Amble and on to just outside of Warkworth.
In my opinion there has never been a better time for the arts in the area. These trends have the possibility of establishing the area as an arts destination within the region. Increasingly people are coming to the area from near and far, specifically for the arts provision here. In my report I have tried to cover this as comprehensively as I have been able to. The result is a 5,500 word, 25 page document titled ‘The Arts Ecology of Amble and the Surrounding Area’. I won’t pretend that it isn’t a very long piece of writing. So I am going aim to break the paper down into a series of articles, that I will be sharing across the next few weeks and months.
I want art to be easily accesible to people without comprimising on the depth and breadth of it’s content. I feel that people from working-class backgrounds such as myself may feel excluded from the arts for one reason or another, be it the language used or seemingly deliberately obtuse nature of the work. Art is difficult, and perhaps to some extent it is meant to be. Good art can take a great deal of time to appreciate. However more can be done to make art more accessible to people, and more can be done to give people the means to understand art better for themselves.
So if you would like to access a full copy of the report, please find it available below.
Luke McTaggart 
2 responses to “New Report on the Arts in the Area”
Thanks Luke, very interesting and hopefully the arts will continue to thrive and inspire.
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Thanks for taking the time to read it Joolly, yes onwards and upwards!
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