West Fife Villages Exhibition

This will be the fifth consecutive year that an exhibition has been organised and hosted by the village of Saline. This event has proved to be extremely popular, attracting over 400 visitors last year.

The main art and photographic exhibition will be held in the Saline Community Centre whilst the the nearby church hall will exhibit specialist photographic collections, an exhibition of ceramics and demonstrations of various crafts will be take place each afternoon. The exhibition is planned for Saturday and Sunday, the 8th and 9th May and will be open from 10 am till 4.30 pm on each day. Exceptionally the church hall will not open until 12 noon on the Sunday.

A special feature of the exhibition will be the exhibits from the pupils of the West Fife village primary schools. This year we hope to include work from all ten schools located in the villages.

As well as established artists, we very much like to encourage those who have never exhibited their work before.

For further details or if you would like to enter some of your work, please contact John Crane, tel. 01383 852698

A special attraction this year will be craft demonstrations by local Fife organisation, “Daft for Crafts”. These demonstrations will take place in the Church Hall during the Saturday and Sunday afternoons and will include interesting activities such as stained glass copper and lead work. Additionally, we are extremely pleased that members of the “Cone 8 Potters Club” have agreed to exhibit examples of their work and we also hope to stage exhibits from members of the Dunfermline Printmakers Workshop for the first time.

The number of exhibits at the previous exhibition exceeded 600. This included 300 paintings from nine of the West Fife village primary schools. These exhibits from the pupils proved to be an extremely popular feature of the exhibition. We will again be contacting all head teachers, inviting their participation.

The exhibition, for work produced by artists and photographers from West Fife, is largely managed by the artists themselves under the authority of the Saline and District Horticultural and Handcraft Society and the Saline and Steelend Community Council. The local Church Guild and the WRI are also fully involved and provide the catering. Additionally, there is active support from the West Fife Villages Community Forum and the West Fife Villages Community Planning Group.

A good number of the exhibitors at our previous exhibitions were artists and photographers who belonged to art clubs and photographic societies. There were, however, a surprising number of exhibitors who were not members of any art clubs or societies. The exhibition had therefore provided a rare opportunity for these artists to display, and in some cases, to sell their work. Clearly, the success of the previous shows reflect a requirement to provide local artists and photographers with the facilities to exhibit and to give the community the opportunity to view locally produced works of art.

Gareth Turner, the President of the Saline Horticultural and Handcraft Society said, “Every year I am amazed at the high quality of the exhibits that have emanated from the West Fife villages. Jim Hensman, the chair of the Saline and Steelend Community Council, added “This event brings together a host of community organisations and is undoubtedly beneficial to the self-esteem of the West Fife villages generally.