C-Art 2012 Open for submissions

C-Art Open Studios paints exciting picture for 2012

The county wide arts promotion ‘C-Art’ will this year run from 1 September – 16 September and is now open for applications from both artists and galleries across Cumbria.

Building on the 2011 event, C-Art 2012 is set to bring together more of the best Cumbrian creativity in another two week event this September. This year, in addition to individual artists, galleries are also to be included so that C-Art serves as a definitive directory of art, craft and design across the county all year round. Participating artists can also take advantage of selling their work year round in the C-Art gallery shop, situated in Penrith’s Devonshire Arcade.

“The first year of C-Art showed us that collectively marketing Cumbrian artists is really effective, both from the artists point of view and the visitors.  8000 visits to studios and £50k of sales is a great start. We are now looking to improve on that benchmark in 2012 by adding more events, arts sales, and literature and other arts activities and working ever more closely with Cumbria Tourism.  The arts are a key economic driver in these hard times, and with our landscape we can truly claim that C-Art is the most beautiful art trail in England!” explains Eden Arts Director Adrian Lochhead.

C-Art is also looking to develop further its curated programme of events alongside the Open Studios and welcomes collaboration with venues large and small across the county.

C-Art 2012 will run from 1 – 16 September 2012 and is now open for applications from both artists and galleries across Cumbria.

Deadline for applications is Wednesday 29th February 2012. Apply online by visiting the C-Art website here.

Alternatively please call us on 01768 899444 for further information.

C-Art Open Studios 2011 saw 100 artists and craftspeople across 80 venues open their studios for two weeks in September. For the first time, both fine and applied artists from across the whole of the county came together to promote their work collectively creating Cumbria’s biggest Open Studios event.

“The first year was a bit of an experiment” says Adrian Lochhead, Director of Eden Arts who organise C-Art, “and based on all the feedback it seems that there is a great desire from visitors, locals and artists to ensure that Cumbria has a collective event just as many other parts of the country do. The idea of highlighting our fantastic Cumbrian artists in a one stop shop event, website and brochure exceeded our expectations in 2011.  Adding galleries to the 2012 promotion has been requested and obviously makes complete sense”. 

During the 2 week event there were over 8,000 visits made to the studios, generating £57 000 of sales, with one studio based in Allerdale taking over £600 of sales in the first weekend alone.

Emma Wigginton, one of the participating artists from Cockermouth said of C-Art 2011 ‘We found it brilliant, the whole exercise has made us review who we are and what we want to do as artists. Myself and 2 other artists are now running workshops from my studio…it’s been a terrific boost to our confidence so many thanks for all the hard work behind the scenes.’

The website www.c-art.org.uk, generated 50,000 page views and helped promote the event to a wider audience both in Cumbria and across the region.

Participant Kevin Carr said ‘I would like to congratulate and thank you for all of your hard work involved in the organization of C-Art…I have met some lovely and delightful people who stayed on average an hour. My visitor’s book looks impressive with people from Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin, County Tipperary, Armargh and San Francisco.’

You can read the evaluative report from the 2011 event by visiting the C-Art website here.

Eden Arts wishes to thank Cumbria Tourism for their assistance in developing the project, with special thanks to Derwent Pencils, Booths and the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald for their kind support of the 2011 event.