West End Community Police Surgeries #dundeewestend

The next West End community police surgeries take place next Monday – details below and all residents welcome :
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Moira Macgregor : A Life in Style

Moira Macgregor (1931-2016) was a graduate from Dundee College of Art (now Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design) and built an international career as a fashion illustrator, editor and painter. Her work is characterised by her skilful draughtsmanship and a close attention to detail. 
 
In 2017, Macgregor’s family donated a significant collection of her work to the University of Dundee, in accordance with her wishes. This exhibition presents a selection of this generous gift spanning her entire career and provides an insight into the development of her artistic practice. Her stylish fashion illustrations reflect the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s, while minutely detailed representations of food evolve into pared-down abstractions as Macgregor developed her view of the world. The collection shows the full breadth of her skill as a designer, illustrator, painter and printmaker. 
 
Moira Macgregor was born in Dundee. After leaving Harris Academy she studied Drawing & Painting at Dundee College of Art, where she was awarded a travelling scholarship to Rome in 1954. 
 
After working in the Netherlands in 1958-9, Macgregor moved to London to work as fashion illustrator with Helen Jardine Artists agency. She made friends with her colleague Barbara Hulanicki who would go on to found Biba in 1963. That year she married fellow designer John McConnell, and both worked for Biba. Macgregor also created the popular ‘Capable Kate’ for Honey magazine. During this time, she worked as illustrator and editor for lifestyle columns in The Observer, Woman’s Own, Nova and Glamour magazines among others. 
 
In the 1980s and ‘90s, Macgregor’s focus shifted to highly realistic illustrations for advertising, book publishing and packaging. However, art was not just a job for her – she constantly observed the world around her and experimented with different techniques. From 1983 she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy summer exhibitions and never stopped creating throughout her life. 
 
As well as presenting Moira’s collection to the University, her family have endowed an annual bursary at DJCAD to support a student in undertaking a cultural study visit to another country, reflecting Moira’s own life-enhancing scholarship awarded by the College.
 
The exhibition will run until 22nd September and is open Monday to Fri 9.30am-7pm, Saturday 1pm-5pm.

Friends of Wighton lunchtime concert

From Sheena Wellington :
 
St Paul’s Cathedral, 1 High Street – Saturday 23rd June, Lunchtime Concert,  1pm
 
Fliskmahoy!
 
Frances Cooper (Soprano),  Emma Versteeg (Soprano), Carole Clark (Alto),  Rebecca Clarke (Violin) – Fliskmahoy! is an all-women group, three singers, and a violinist. Various musicians have been keen to arrange or write new pieces for them.  
 
One composer friend, Stuart Murray Mitchell, wrote one of the suites that Joanna Nicholson and Frances Cooper performed in concert at the Wighton last year.  He has also made a brilliant job of arranging some of the pieces found in the Wighton Collection. He  has called it Scotch Miscellany and this special piece will be performed at Fliskmahoy’s concert in St Paul’s.  
 
Tickets £5, students £3, accompanied children free.   Coffee/tea available after concert.

Getting things done – Lochee Road #dundeewestend

Residents have drawn to my attention the poor condition of the pavement on Lochee Road from Mitchell Street to Black Street.
 
I highlighted this with the council’s Roads Maintenance Partnership and have received the following helpful response :
 
“This section of Lochee Road footway between Mitchell Street to Black Street has been identified for including in the 2018/2019 footway slurry seal programme subject to budget availability. The works have yet to be programmed.”

Weekly Road Report – West End Ward #dundeewestend

DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL – WEEKLY ROAD REPORT
 
REPORT FOR WEST END WARD – WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 18 JUNE 2018
 
South Union Street/South Marketgait at Dundee Railway Station – northbound nearside lane closure from 9.30am for 2 weeks for footway works.
 
Riverside Avenue (at Perth Road) – temporary traffic lights from Monday 18 to Thursday 21 June for Scottish Water mains conditioning.
 
Perth Road (at Mid Wynd) – off-peak temporary traffic lights on Thursday 21 June for BT cabling work.
 
Forthcoming Roadworks
 
Logie Street – closed from Monday 2 July for 3 weeks for carriageway resurfacing.

The Gaff – exhibition in the D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum

From the Curator of Museum Services at the University of Dundee :
 
David Blyth + Nick Gordon
The Gaff
Running until 29th June 2018
D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum, University of Dundee
Open Fridays 2pm– 4.30pm. By appointment at other times.
 
Welcome to The Gaff. Inspired by the preserved vestiges of D’Arcy Thompson’s personal collection, Scottish artists David Blyth and Nick Gordon pay homage to this visionary man of Natural Science through playful response to the displays at the D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum. With reference to Thompson’s seminal book On Growth and Form, the exhibition showcases individual sculptural works by the two artists unified through their interrogation of ‘material culture’ and the accepted codes of the museum experience. ‘Behave, you Animal!’
 
In fact, it was a mutual interest in D’Arcy Thompson’s book that brought the artists together for this collaborative exhibition. By introducing new artworks into the historical collection to challenge the conventions of taxonomy and explore alternative connections and contexts, they aim to release new ideas from the zoological specimens within the collection.
 
The Gaff seeks to breathe new life into the museum experience by encouraging a different set of questions about the natural world and our perceptual understanding of what this means today. 
 
David Blyth lives and works in rural Aberdeenshire. He works at Gray’s School of Art as an academic lecturer on the Contemporary Art Practice course. David’s work involves the craft skills of taxidermy to draw upon narratives of Scottish folklore, shamanism and human-animal relations.
 
Nick Gordon lives and works in Stromness, Orkney, where he works as a technician at Soulisquoy Printmakers. An avid beachcomber, Nick’s work uses mixed media collage to explore our relationship with the environment. His work is a contemporary reflection of the cognitive processes of collecting, arranging, displaying and analysing – an archaeology of sorts. 
 
The exhibition can be seen in the Zoology Museum on Fridays 2-4.30pm until 29 June.    Find out more about it here.