Good news just in time for the holidays…..

We have been awarded an Arts Council grant for the tour of the exhibition.

There’s great excitement about this and we are looking forward to taking the project forward in the New Year.

It has taken quite some time for me to get on the blog again and this is mostly because there has been so much going on. In the past few weeks we have met up with Carl Honore, the author of In praise of Slow and the relaunched blog SlowPlanet which Andy and I will soon be blogging on: www.slowplanet.com

I also met up with Judith Van der Boom www.judithvandenboom.nl Judith had been in touch with us through the blog and funnily enough when I met her we discovered we had met and spoken before through an old student of mine. It felt like our common held interests had connected us again. Hopefully Judith will keep in touch with updates of the projects she is up to in Holland. Judith will also be one of our first ‘At Home’ Analogue contributors in February.

Earlier this week I was in Birmingham with Andy having a look at the Waterhall Gallery at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery where the exhibition will launch in October 2009. It was interesting to see the space and to imagine the exhibition and what we need to consider before the panel meets to finally select for the core exhibition. This will take place on 27th January and Andy and I will be joined by Judith Robinson curator at Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery, Dr Elizabeth Goring Director of Innovative Craft, Prof. Lesley Millar Reader of Contemporary Craft Practice at UCA and the maker Laura Potter.

I am also pleased to announce that Russell Martin has launched the Analogue project on the blog and that our first contributors will be podcasting from here in January. You can listen to a impromptu conversation between Russell and I which we recorded last week at the ‘At Home’ page of the blog.

And finally we have an exhibition title: ‘taking time: craft and the Slow Movement’. Hopefully we will have more updates soon and will be able to let you know more about our bid to Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts for some of the costs of the exhibition tour. Fingers crossed.

Until then happy holidays,

ever your slow blogger,

Helen