Park Success celebrated

A GATHERING of the fans took place at Cove Park on Saturday as the artists' retreat opened its doors to the public.

The artists in residence at the hill-top "Mecca" for the world's top talent mingled with the crowd and shared the fruits of their labours with the audience.

Four writers, including author/artist Alasdair Gray, either spoke about their time at Cove Park or read from their works.

Alasdair surprisingly confessed to being "shy" about mingling with his fellow residents and admitted being so overwhelmed by their generosity in sharing their meals with him in the evenings that he took to "sculking" in his studio until meal times were over because he couldn't cook and, therefore, couldn't reciprocate.

Jake Gumbnell, Ruairidh Scott-Brown, Sue Scott and Rod Brown and Murdo MacDonald, standing with Alasdair Gray outside one of the Taransay pods

The other writers taking part in the event were Fiona Walton, who wrote and directed theatre in Britain and Europe before working on television and film, including writing for the Scottish soap River City.

She told the audience about her project to write a screenplay about Mrs Crippen.

James Ley, whose play UP was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, is developing a new play called Gas Lighter and spoke to the audience about his work at Cove.

And the fourth writer to speak to the fascinated audience was Australian novelist Christos Tsiolkas whose novels include Loaded, Dead Europe and The Slap which won the 2009 Commonwealth Prize for Literature.

He spoke about his Scottish experience, admitting to having fallen in love with Scotland, and read part of his new work which he had been unable to start until he was inspired by a visit to Luss.

In the Cove Park studios, artists displayed their works in progress and their completed pieces, talking about the design processes and their approach to new works. The artists were Luke Fowler, who is developing a feature-length film project at Cove, Deirdre Nelson who is a textile artist, and Michael Carberry who makes contemporary jewellery.

Young visitors to the park could take part in workshops of their own run by Yvonne Sloan of the Kilcreggan Primary School Art Club and loads of rather intriguing masks were much in evidence. The whole event was made social with refreshments varying from tea and coffee to beer and wine and a barbecue offering many delights.

The visitors who came in their droves from all over Helensburgh and Lomond and even from Glasgow and Edinburgh took the opportunity to wander around the park, visiting the studios and seeing the innovative living accommodation which not only includes the Taransay Pods from the Taransay 2000 reality TV programme, but a number of cleverly converted shipping containers which make surprisingly comfortable temporary homes. The park's founders Eileen and Peter Jacobs were there to join in and were presented with flowers and a bottle of champagne as a thank you for their continued philanthropy.