Rural Arts and Me

Choosing where to hold your final exhibition is a very important part of the course. I've spent almost two years bringing this body of work to life and I want to make sure it gets seen by the right audience. Thankfully I had already done a huge amount of this footwork in my photography degree, so I already had some idea of what I needed and wanted.

The exhibition needs to be somewhere with good footfall, afordable, somewhere easily accesible and importantly somewhere Joe public frequents. Because of the nature of my work (one off peices) I can't afford to have it shown somewhere that isn't manned, so places like train stations, hospitals and unmanned spaces are all out.

However, I've known since March where I wanted to have my final exhibition; Rural Arts in Thirsk. The courtroom, where the Fresh exhibition was held, is perfect. It's a designated space with plenty of room, lots of windows and is manned at all times. As well as having a large arts based network of users, the cafe attracts people who aren't necesarily artistically inclined so you get people from all walks of life coming through the doors which is exactly the audience I want.

Knowing that it's a big space to fill, I approached my good friend Gordon, who is on the Masters with me, and asked if he wanted to do a joint exhibition. Happily he did so we headed up to Thirsk to do a reccy.

A quick look around confirmed that it would be perfet for us and after a few emails, we had a date set for our Final Exhibition.

One of the other great things about Rural Arts is their marketing. Thankfully we had secured our exhibition early enough to be included in their programme of events. This did however mean writing a small blurb and sending them an image.

At this point I only had the digital images to work with so I sent that up and thought nothing of it until a week later when I had an interesting reply. Rural Arts wanted to use my image on the front of their June to December programme. Of course I jumped at the chance, after all this was an opportunity to get it seen far and wide as they have connections all over North Yorkshire.

I'm also incredibly proud to be linked to such an amazing organisation and hope to foster a solid relationship with them in the coming years. To have such an amazing organisation practically on your doorstep is something that really needs taking advantage of, and I fully intend to get as involved with them as I possibly can.