Welcome And Festival Origins

SPEAKER_00 0:04

It's Strathairn stories. Hello, I am Lynn McGregor, aka The Strathairn Snapper. For those of you who don't already know me, and I'm a photographer. Used to work for the local paper, the Strathern Herald, back in the day. Now we help local businesses with their marketing and visibility. And I'm delighted to be a guest host today with Strathairn Stories, interviewing my very good friend. June McEwen. Yay! So specifically today, we're going to be talking about the Creef Arts Festival, which June was a co-founder of back in the day. And it's actually how I met June because I was sent to interview you when it was resurrected.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Somehow we became BFS.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yeah. I can't imagine why that was, Lynn.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

So are you going to tell us today how Creef Arts Festival all started and then let us know a wee bit about what's going on this year?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah.

Saving St Michael’s Church

SPEAKER_02 1:10

I mean, Creef Arts Festival, people in the town don't realise it started in 1996. Wow. I know. That is properly back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Before my time.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Yes, it was a different century, Lynn.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Different century. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

And so it was to save a building. In the middle of Cree, there's a lovely old church, and it's called St. Michael's. And at one point, the council wanted to demolish St. Michael's and its graveyard and turn it into a car park. A lot of people think that Cree does need a car park, including me, but not the oldest building in Creef.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Now, June, can I just interrupt and say you are a community artist and a very successful community artist, well, a successful artist, and you're all about community, so I can imagine that's why you just wanted to jump right in there and save the building.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yes, I did. With Arch. Absolutely, absolutely. Because it was being used as a community hall. And so at the time my children were quite young, we used the hall, and I just thought it would be sad to see all of that go. So we used that as a venue to prove to prove that it still worked. We had theatre shows that came from the big cities, Edinburgh, etc., and um and lots of community stuff. At that time there weren't as many bigger groups in Craef. So we just got sponsored by local shops. And local shops paid me to do a print printing, John Hooker's books. I mean, I better not mention them all because it'll it will date me and all the people that remember all those things that used to be in the town. Nowadays that sort of we we saved that building. It it um it it was fine. A few years later, of course, it's in a bit of disrepair again. But in 2012, another building shut down,

Five Festivals Then A Hiatus

SPEAKER_02 3:28

and that was the local library.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So did you keep going with the arts festival after that first one?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Not really. We did we did about five. And then once once we had saved the building, um the group sort of gave up. We we did we did art stuff, but we didn't we were no longer a group.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So when I was sent that time to interview you and take photos, that was the resurrection of Creef Art Festival and then it's gone big ever since then.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah, yeah. And uh really I'm the only person left from that original committee. And so so that's why people think I founded it, but there was an a lovely group of people.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

So when was the resurrection then?

2012 Revival And The Library Fight

SPEAKER_02 4:14

2012. And yet again I went around trying to find people that I could work with. And we did, it was a promotion of the shops. I'd heard about an um a project about two brothers who fought against each other in the War of Independence in America, and both of those brothers had come from Crave.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Was that the Campbell's?

SPEAKER_02 4:40

The Campbell brothers, indeed. And so that tied in with the library because of the book.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

And this is when it was in Comray Street, the library.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Yeah, yeah, the old library, yes. So it had shut down. I'd signed petitions and stuff, but the it went down to the local campus, which uh fair enough, you know, it does provide for the young people of Crief, it's much nearer for them. Anyway, the the idea was to try and save the building and maybe make it into an art centre. One of my friends, David Campbell, he had a friend who did architect drawings for it and everything, and I just thought this is great. So it sort of all came together, and we did uh lovely ten days in the building with an exhibition of local people's work and of things that were sold in the shops. We got quite a lot of the groups in Creef supported us.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Oh because um Yeah, because it wasn't just art, it was music.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Historical exhibitions.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Did the Provost not open it as well?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yes, well, the Provost came to unveil my painting because I in order to get grant funding, I'm actually useless at sending away for money, but some people are quite good at filling in forums. But what I did was I did a big painting and it got unveiled at the Celebrate Creef exhibition, and so the Celebrate Crief the managed we managed to get the Provost to come and unveil this huge painting because she had never done anything like that before. So, in addition to unveiling the painting, she offered to pay to do a soiree. So we had two butlers wandering around with tab nabs and free booze. Oh, sorry, tab nabs um in Dundee are like little bits and pieces of little exquisite food canopies, but we don't really do that in Dundee, we do pies. But it was fantastic, and all of that was free.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

And was the painting of the Campbell brothers? So the Campbell brothers, just to explain, were from Crief and they fought in the American Civil War on different sides.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Yeah, they sent letters to each other, it's a great story, and they had sent letters to each other throughout the war, uh prior to the war and after the war, but of course they were on both different sides, and they discovered at one point the book the book that the guy was writing was actually the letters to and from each other, and from one of those letters when they discovered that one of them was in the jail, uh the brother who was winning at the time was able to see him because he had been arrested and put away, but uh he he learnt about it because the the letter that became famous used the words never was there a war where brother fought against brother. And that's really why those brothers became famous, and they're very famous in America. There's a statue to them in um Times in New York Square, is that called Times Square?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Times Square.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

And um I was sent a picture of it years later by a lady who'd moved from Crief to America and um a commemoration plaque in the park.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

So they're way more famous over there than they are here. But I thought it was a great thing, and it I doubled down on it because my friend Colin Mail had done all the research into their history, and he said we should have a plaque on the wall. So of course I couldn't really, I could not get in not get involved because they had lived in a wee sort of button-ben thing that is became a wash house round the back of my house in Mitchell Street.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, so you couldn't not get involved because you basically live where they lived.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Absolutely, totally.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

So that started off all Creef Arts Festival. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And after that, you just continued the momentum.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

That's like the 21st century. Yeah, yeah. But always we've been based on oh, sorry, I should have said that local groups got involved and we were funded for this brilliant book that we were able to produce and a concert, all funded by what was at the time I used to do an art class, and Nigel, the musician, did a music class for what were they called? They were the local adult education classes.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

This is Bonnie Strathern.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Songs and music of Craven Strathern by uh Nigel Gatherer has put this together.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah. Of course, the illustrations are especially beautiful because they're by me.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

So uh Crief Arts Festival went on to become like an annual event.

Shop Windows Become An Art Trail

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yes, and yes, well, some very quirky um things happening around town from that, such as decorating the square, and that's become quite a thing, quite a feature of it, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

The main thing with the Crief Arts Festival is I I was really keen to involve the local shops because they had always been involved back in the day, and and also Crefs High Street was looking a bit um tired, and so and then the shutting of the library and now the drum and arms. So Nigel and I really thought what what we would do would be concentrate on the shops and have an exhibition in shop windows. So we started that in 2013, just the exhibition in shop windows, and decorate the town centre.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And were you inviting local artists to put pieces in the windows then? So it was like a town centre exhibition, like an art gallery, but it was the whole town centre.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Exactly, exactly. And so the whole town centre, we have a we have a fantastic little thing in Crief called the Sugar Mouse Competition. And people get a piece of paper and they go around ticking off where they've seen the sugar mice. And so basically, we just hooked into that idea and to have works of art in shop windows, and people could follow the program and tick off all these paintings that they see. To pop into a shop, not a competition or anything, just to pop into shops, and and to this day that is what people do. And uh, quite often the shops and the artists do a deal where the the artists can sell their work through the shop. Not every shop is up for that, they're not required to be, but um, but really it's been quite successful that way.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

And then you also did like a day of um fun in the square with music.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Well the other dancers one year, I remember.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

That's right. With that that was um that was a flash, a ukulele flash mob, which we are hoping to try and plan for. And shh and a ukulele this this year again, but don't tell anybody.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

So where did the bunting come from then?

SPEAKER_02 12:52

So that time, the two things were to decorate the town and to put um an exhibition in shop windows.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

So Can we have a look at some of the um things that you've done over the years?

Yarn Bombing And Town Reactions

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So I think I mean I do have like millions of some of the crazy things that have appeared on the fountain.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

The first time we decorated the square, I think that's from the first square.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

We decorated quite a few letters got sent into the paper for that.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Well, we knitting bombed.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yarn bombed the fountain.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

The fountain, yes. And um the year before we the the group had done knitting in in McCrossy Park. But we progressed that to um a yarn bombing the fountain. Not everybody in Creef thought it was a wonderful idea, and I have to say that every year somebody moans about what we've done in the creek. Yes. Last year we did tassels and I still had a complaint.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

But what about I mean, why would you complain about putting a kilt on the fountain?

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Well, you know what, in this in this world of potholes, I do think there's possibly more. The kilt, I don't know. The kilt was fab. Oh, it might have been that year. Oh no, there's the the poppies we did pre-fromembers.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Oh, the day. Oh, there's look, this one's good. Because there's the kilt.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Now can I just say that a local person, because I usually I I've got a very small house and I usually dump um the things that go around the fountain because they get a bit tired. But a local person loved that kilt and they asked me for it, so they it's still in somebody's house.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

So actually, this article is the one that I obviously did in 2021, was a look back at all the things that have gone on in the square, and uh one year you actually brought the stocks back, yeah. And you you've been giving visitors public floggings. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Oh well, I personally loved that.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

You had the mermaids?

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yes, my favourite thing every year was the mermaid.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

What do you call that when it's like a that's a piece of art, but it's a person you know living art.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, living art. That'll do. But Shauna has moved. She's one of my favourite people.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And the the puppies that was to coincide with Crief Remembers.

Crieff Remembers And Poppy Making

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, Passion Dale. Yeah, we managed to get enough funding that year.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Well, we joined forces. Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

And yeah, that amazing book came out of Crief Remembers.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

People people actually gave their stories.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

So that year sort of Creef Arts Festival was um given over to Crie Remembers and a huge parade that year as well. Yeah, there was for a drum head service.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, there was a drum head service. I mean, there was a lot there was everything because there was um uh a lovely committee that we just helped really. And we that that year we put poetry in the windows instead of pictures, and I did poppies with local groups all over the place, and people handed in poppies, and we sewed them onto a black mesh, and then at the end of it we donated the the poppies all to the local cadets, and they still use them. I think they're getting less and less every year, but they use them in the square in November. And then another so that was quite a serious one because it was uh uh Yeah, it was a anniversary, and it it was a different uh committee that put that together, you kinda and they held their um Creef Remembers exhibition within the old library, which of course was still bubbling under with David Campbell and Tom Barn trying to get it as um Strathair and Artspace. The Strathair Arts Space Some of that had to come out of it as well. Well they had it, but they were still trying to get some money to to keep it going. And funnily enough, one wonderful thing that David and his friend Neil Thompson, who's a musician in Crave, they made an amazing 3D model of the passion deal.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yes, I remember that now.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yeah. And that was Nigel Gatherer and Gina and Scott Miller and Chris Macintosh was r uh he represented the army and so he did a lot for the drumhead service.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

So back to Crief Arts then, Creef Arts Festival.

Flower Canvases For Everyone

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Um following on from that, then you went on to then focus a lot on exhibitions in the square. So was it the one with all the pictures after that? And that had a huge response. I loved that. Yeah, that was really anybody that wanted a canvas and the theme was flowers. That was an amazing exhibition in the square. Hundreds of people got involved in that.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Absolutely hundreds, literally hundreds, to do an actual painting with a flower theme. On a flower theme, but I had gone around the brownies and all of the usual suspects doing paintings of flowers. Instead of bunting, we did paintings of flowers, and so the the paintings were all strung together and used like bunting to create the biggest outdoor art gallery in the world.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah, it was, it was amazing, all by local people.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

I know. I remember your one, Lynn, and funnily enough, of course, this being April Fool's Day, um you did two packets of flour. True.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

You just said the theme was flour.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

B roll.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Took it literally.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, I can't remember what, but some people did little lovely little sayings on the back, and you were one of them, and I can't remember what that saying was.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

I think it was I so I did an actual one with flowers as well. And um, I think it said something like, If friends were like flowers, I'd pick you.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

That's right. Oh I just thought that was lovely. And you know, anyway, so it was a really great, it was had a great vibe. We'd done the paintings to decorate the town prior to the festival. That's the same as what we do every year. And on the day, all comers came to do a painting. We were actually very lucky though, because it was sunny.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, but you couldn't move in the square for people um painting pictures. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

And singing, and doing um it just brought so many people in here.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, it really did.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

And uh they started doing the what's that in do do do the jump where everybody's a snake going around the square. The conga.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Um there was singing.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, it was, it was it was a lovely happy vibe. You couldn't have wanted more for an arts festival than a lovely happy vibe like that. I think actually that might have been the year before COVID.

unknown 20:51

Could it?

SPEAKER_00 20:52

I don't know, because I was thinking, was that one not so was that one after the year of the bunting? Was that one after the year of the Guinness World Record attempt for the year of Well, we started um I got together with Fiona of the Captain. Can I just say um as well, from the paintings one, yeah, paintings that were all left over ended up in care homes, etc. Yeah. That was the idea of it as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Yeah, because it as usual I had um tried to connect with another group, and there was a lovely young man who was who had set up a Facebook page called Flowers of the People, and it was about mental health. And so he had contacted me uh in the winter, and I said, Well, I'll I'll try and do something for you. But then I thought, do you know, we could do really do something. And that's why that's it was basically that's where the idea for doing flower paintings came, and I gave not all of the paintings, but my Most of them back to him because he had contact to hang them up in local wards and stuff like that. So although I've not Anthony was his name, but and he was a singer, young, young man. But I've not um seen him for years now.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Back to the year of the bunting, the year of the big bunting

The Giant Community Bunting Build

SPEAKER_00 22:22

project. The big bunting.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah, well that was great. That was a really good um vibe as well, because that coincided with the year that the the Prince of Wales. He's now the Prince of Wales. Cath and you're talking about Prince William. Prince William. Yes, sorry. Um I'm not much of a royalist, I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Because they are the Earl of Strathern, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

And so but that was just happened, chance, uh, because obviously we'd already started the whole thing. And um it was Fiona, who I always call her Fiona Remake, she's now left, but the there's a place in Creef called Remake Scotland, and so we teamed up with Remake, and um she lent me the place as a venue to make bunting.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

And people were just making it at home, you were giving out bunting packs, people were putting together bunting, you had so many donations, people were cutting their little triangles, and hundreds of people involved hundreds of meters of bunting got made, and it was stretched like square all the way to McCrostey Park, all around the railings in McCrossy Park. Yeah, I mean, how long was it?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

It was three and a half miles long, half miles long, which is approximately 33,000 triangles. And I gave out bunting packs to local people of seven triangles. So that gives you an idea of how many people got involved in that project.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Amazing. Although two ladies made it their mission and they created oh, a thousand meters each themselves. I don't know how much, but like loads and loads and loads of.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

And you you would think that would be a world remote. I would have thought. Uh you would think, but then a community in Yorkshire had other ideas and loads of funding. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Well, I have to say, our only funding for that project.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Well, we did we did um a refunding thing with Jess Smith, local author, who did um a brilliant songs and stories evening, and we raised £50. And so with the £50, I bought tape, bunting tape basically, but really most of the fabric was donated, and most of the bunting tape was made by a lady called Helene, and she cut it, cut sheets up into slices and ironed them all.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

And then it all had to be attached. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

They were for my packs, you know. Everybody got a meter of and seven and seven triangles.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

So then the theme has really been bunting after that, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 25:45

It has it has. Yeah. They were lovely. The pom-poms were lovely, but they were quite hard to do. I I think because I go around quite a lot of um places where people are don't really have the abilities, the pom-poms they found them quite difficult.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

But then you have adapted to make things easier. So tell us about last year and tell

Tassels Then Butterfly Plans

SPEAKER_00 26:12

us about this year. What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 26:13

But last year we did tassels. Tassels have been the best, easiest thing. I loved the tassels because everything about tassels is fun. You know, you can't help but your mind goes to various things about tassels. Anyway, this year, not speaking about tassels, I'm speaking about butterflies. I don't know if you can see these. These were made on my first workshop um at the weekend. The the library offered me very kindly uh their venue, and we made these and quite a few more. That's a gorgeous one. And um and we made we've covered, we covered a hula hoop with with butterflies. And I've basically started the butterflies because I was speaking to the local brownie um leader, Joanna France, and she said they had a project on about butterflies. And so I thought, oh, that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

I'll see if we can do that, how easy it's make a butterfly for people to do.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

But I had to do it because then I met a friend called Fiona, and she said to me, June, I know something. Oh no, it wasn't, it was Helen. Helen McClellan told me. She said, I know something about butterflies. What's a group of butterflies called? And I had no idea that they're actually called a kaleidoscope. Oh I know, and I thought that is beautiful. That that that just has to be. So yet again, fate has led me to.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

What do you need?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Well, clearly, after Saturday, I realised how much fabric can actually be used. It's gonna be a bit more than I still have a lot of fabric myself, actually, from the donated bunting fabric, but we went through loads. I didn't realise I did devise a nice, easy way of making them, in my opinion. And so with a bit of help from YouTube, but um there were there weren't many at the at the workshop on Saturday, seven or eight, and yet we did we did maybe a hundred butterflies. I know in an hour.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Well that's good. So of course it could be and if it didn't be. Yeah, you could if you'd done just a few metres more, it would have been.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yes. I know. So um anyway, but I think they are beautiful, and so this year we hope to have bunting from all kale uh a beautiful kaleidoscope of butterflies in the square. I've offered myself to community groups, um, then I'll come along and help them make their butterflies for free, and then they can maybe make more. I usually say you've got to make two, you take home one. So I only got fifty of the ones that were made. You can take home one and make me one.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, keep one and make one for arts festival. Will you be doing packs this year?

SPEAKER_02 29:48

I think I might do, yes, because the template. I think some people are brilliant at sewing and knitting, because obviously they can be knitted as well. They can you can do whatever way you like to develop.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah. Some people will be crocheted and they'll do crochet ones.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

And when when we decided to go for the world record with the bunting, we actually started off and had different sizes of bunting, and I had to bin that because with a world record, it's got to be exactly the right size with the right spaces with the this, the that. So I mean, I am about community, and so we're not worried about records.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

We're just making butterflies and worried about making creatures. Making butterflies.

Creativity As Community Care

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yes. And so would you say that anybody can get involved in art? That's what you're all about, isn't it? Getting people involved in art.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

I think. And community art. I like creativity. And when people are creating something, it makes them happy. I do want to just make one word in for the other thing I'm doing this year. Because I have started doing um Santa's post office. Oh, and already this year, I've been sent stocking. Christmas stocking bunting. I mean So this is for Christmas time. So this can be whatever size, whatever you want, or just buy me Christmas stock socks and I'll put them together onto bunting. And um and we're going to be decorating for Santa's post office.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

That's a whole other podcast. Thanks, June. Yay! That's all from Strathern Stories for now.