All events can be booked on the Members Page

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MARCH 2023 DATE TBC

Visit to The Great Tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels.

It was world-renowned author Alexander McCall Smith who had the idea for the Great Tapestry of Scotland, which reveals Scottish history and culture as experienced, as well as shaped, by its people.

We will travel independently by train or car to Galashiels.

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Exhibition at the Firestation Creative Arts Centre in Dunfermline, 19th January until 28th February.

(Please note this is not a visit being run by EDFAS but an exhibition which may be of interest to members).

The exhibition is about the Patons, who were a family of prominent 19th century Scottish artists who grew up in Dunfermline. There is a very strong Edinburgh connection because they all moved to George Square, Edinburgh early in their careers, and their most important works still adorn the galleries and streets of Edinburgh.

The artists were:

1: Sir Joseph Noel Paton – Queens Limner and Portrait Painter to Queen Victoria, most famous for his fairy paintings which will soon be on display in the new refurbished wing of the Scottish National Galleries in Edinburgh. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/sir-joseph-noel-paton

2: Amelia Robertson (Paton) Hill – Sculptor, whose statue of David Livingstone stands in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. She also carved 3 statues for the Scott Monument. www.theameliatrail.com

3: Waller Hugh Paton – a prolific landscape artist whose painting ‘Dunnottar Castle’ is currently on display in the Scottish National Gallery: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/79582

4: Their father Joseph Neil Paton, a damask designer, whose designs are now in the V&A in London. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?q=Joseph%20Neil%20Paton

The exhibition will focus on the Paton’s childhood home, Wooers’ Alley, and how the surroundings influenced their work. At the time of the Patons, legendary art critic John Ruskin called Wooers’ Alley Garden an “Airthly Paradise”, and later Patrick Geddes expressed his vision for preserving Wooers Alley as it had the “artistic value of an additional little park”. Sadly Geddes’ vision never became a reality, and the Wooers garden fell into decline. The longer term aim is to raise funds for the (currently derelict) garden of Wooers’ Alley to be restored, so that it may again provide inspiration to the local community and visitors, as it once did for the Patons.

Part of the exhibition, alongside pieces of the Patons’ work, and artefacts from their childhood home which have never previously been on public display before, will be pieces of art by local children inspired by the garden of Wooers Alley, to show the potential that this beautiful area can have to inspire budding artists.