In 2008 the Prestonpans Community Centre in Scotland was host to an exhibition entitled “Barga”. The ongoing twinning between the city of Barga and East Lothian in Scotland which had so far involved mainly politicians and schoolchildren (article here) took another step forward that year when a group of Scottish artists who after visting Barga then took back their work to Scotland – paintings, drawings, photographs and poetry, to share with the Scottish public. (article here)
This week the group from Prestonpans were back in Barga with their tutor Tom Ewing (site here) for the second edition of the Scottish Barga Painting School.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BJaqi5XtEM
From the barganews archives in 2008 – Surprise defeat for Finland in the 6th International Petanque (article here) in May 2008 – Special mention should be made of two members of the team representing Scotland – Gillian Hart and Martine Robertson who although playing their first ever International Petanque Competition here in Barga where not hazed or fazed by the occasion or the multilingual heckling from some of the other athletes and did in fact have the clearness of mind to bring up on a couple of occasions obvious rule infractions from other teams. They brought a welcome, honest and refreshing lightness to a game which sometimes, as we all know, can sometimes dip into heavy polemic as the pressure to get a result mounts.
Click on the link below to hear a short interview with some of the artists involved in the Scottish painting school