Creative Perthshire

by Hugh Goring - Frames Gallery, Perth

Probably everyone knows that Perthshire is called “The Big County”, but when I moved here in 1979 I thought that it was a rather ostentatious title. However over the 27 years of living here I have come to realise that it is not only a “Big County” but a very “Diverse County” and the new organisation, Creative Perthshire has been founded to specifically tap into these very qualities.

Over the last 10 years or so there has been a massive growth in what is called “cultural tourism” and nowadays when people visit a foreign country they are not just content with soaking up the sun and doing a bit of sightseeing, they want to discover and explore the culture of that country. They want to drink the local wine, eat the local food, buy things in the local markets and from local craft workers and experience something of the local traditions. Many of these activities require people to spend money, and there is s realisation that this cultural tourism can have a large economic benefit to a country and it is this potential for generating income that Creative Perthshire intends to develop.

Creative Perthshire was started in April 2005 as the result of a report commissioned by Maureen Wright of the Rural Economic Development department of Perth and Kinross Council. Sandra Macrae of Macrae Associates undertook a study to quantify the extent of the arts and crafts sector within Perth and Kinross. Obviously it can be difficult to get an exact figure but the sector was calculated to be worth in the region of £7,000,000 pounds. This comprised a mixture of fairly large and successful galleries and craft shops, alongside individual artists and makers. Consequently a meeting of interested parties was held from which a steering committee was formed who then went on to formalise the structure, aims and ambitions for Creative Perthshire.

An organisation like Creative Perthshire stands or falls on the quality of the work its members produce and in this we are very lucky in the number of really talented individuals working in Perth and Kinross. It was decided very early on that membership of Creative Perthshire should be by selection and that these members would be either professional or semi-professional as regards their particular skill.

There is no shortage of these kinds of people in Perthshire but one of the challenges of the organisation is to market itself to potential members. It is always a bit of a chicken and egg situation with a new organisation to persuade people to join but having been running for 20 months we do have some concrete reasons to join. Firstly, there is now a professionally designed website www.creativeperthshire.org.uk where each member has their own page that they can update as often as they want. With the massive growth of the internet it is vital that the creative wealth of Perthshire can be seen and accessed from across the globe.