I’m buzzing after the Perthshire Open Studios 2023 art festival.
Blue Noun Language Hub has just enjoyed a whole 5 days of meeting local artists in their studios and workshops.
Every September, across Perthshire, 100+ artists share stories of their artwork, career and processes openly, and enthusiastically, to people dropping into their workspaces.
For the public, it is a treat to see inside the artists’ workshops and learn the processes and skills involved in making art.
For the artists, it’s an opportunity to sell and promote their artwork, as well as being visible and counted as part of the region-wide creative community (which brings other kinds of opportunities and support).
This blog is a taster of the overall Perthshire Open Studios 2023 event – and why it’s so relevant to this language school.
Future blogs will take you inside individual artist studios in more detail, as part of our Meet The Makers blog series, so watch this space!
Time and time I’ve heard:
‘I didn’t know there were so many good artists in Perthshire’.
I did!
But only because I’ve been looking for years.
Meet Artists to Discover Perthshire
For those of you who don’t know, Perth (& Perthshire) is the only UK UNESCO City of Craft.
This award status was granted in recognition of all the extraordinary contemporary crafters, artists and makers living and working here (as well as the city’s historical significance to craft).
The beauty of touring the Open Studios is that to discover Perthshire makers is not only to discover excellent arts & crafts: it’s a way to discover Perthshire from within.
Visit the studios and you’ll be immersed in references to Perthshire’s landscape (from misty mountain landscape scenes to individual windfallen trees becoming tabletops), glimpses of wildlife captured with paint, traditional crafts and modern technology (and how they combine in the same studio practice), as well as rural lifestyles: their rhythms, networks and communities.
Artists highlight details in all sorts of ways – the single unanimous theme they share: being in Perthshire.
You’ll also experience first-hand our culture of friendliness and hospitality. It’s not an add-on, it’s really part of our collective culture (and it’s lovely!).
“The kettle in my workshop is always on and I’m a sociable artist who spends too much time in her quiet workshop making things from items that have been tossed away by others”.
Beth McDowall, AKA The Treecycler, POS catalogue, 2023
Every Perthshire creative is a remarkable talent.
Collectively, they become a very good reason to visit this part of Scotland.
Celebrate the Vernacular
Many Perthshire artists work in adapted buildings, purpose-built sheds and/or in the most beautiful, remote parts of the landscape.
It has always seemed to me that artists fill these nooks beautifully: repurposing historic or agricultural spaces, where they work year-round, hidden in plain sight.
Meet the Makers
Perthshire has glorious landscapes and vistas that draw visitors from around the world.
At our language hub, we know that you don’t just want to ‘see’ Scotland.
Your English language skills need you to be you, in English, in varied, engaging contexts within Scotland.
Being immersed in wonderful landscapes and nature will help your English skills have deep confident roots, but you also need dynamic interactions with English speakers to make language progress.
Meeting local artists is one way of many ways for anyone to experience local culture and place on a deeper level (tourists and locals alike).
Perthshire Open Studios is an annual week-long festival, but did you know, at Blue Noun Language Hub, we invite artists to meet with our English learners, year round?
Meeting local makers and creatives not only offers you the rare chance to discover place so thoroughly: it simultaneously stretches your language skills in new directions, while deepening your connection to the language.
You don’t get that in a classroom!
‘Every single language holiday we provide gives financial opportunities and/or in-kind support to local makers and creatives’.
Ruth 2023
A Different Kind of Tourism
Artists and makers are busy people, but rural ones can be isolated and benefit from the outside world coming to meet them for a coffee and chat. (The Language Hub concept is about sharing expertise – not one person talking and others listening).
One of Blue Noun’s core values is to support local artists and makers.
Every single language holiday we provide gives financial opportunities and/or in-kind support to local makers and creatives (it’s a flexible relationship – the artists choose which).
Take our language immersion holiday, and you will see the best of Perthshire by supporting local artists and eco-businesses AND improving your English.
Blue Noun English Immersion Holidays don’t just show you places and communities, you become part of the story.
