Galleries look for new opportunities
Nov 30 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal
Uncertainty hangs over the future of two sister galleries on Tyneside but the mood is bullish, as David Whetstone reports.
Artists represented include Laurie J Proud, Mikhak Mirmahmoudi, Iris Priest, Yvette Hawkins and Jock Mooney.
Another eye-catching Globe initiative is Crunch! which will be opening soon in the vacant shop formerly occupied by Boots at Monument Mall, beside Grey’s Monument in Newcastle.
It arose out of a Dragons’ Den-style scheme in which artists and art organisations pitched projects to a panel of experts. Globe and Northern Print emerged as winners with £5,000 to invest in projects.
Simon Donald of Viz fame ran four-week cartoon workshops in Globe Hub, North Shields, for people whose ages ranged from 18 to 67. The idea was to display blown up versions of the cartoons in the windows of empty shops.
Rashida Davison was a nurse before turning to contemporary art. In an interview with The Journal a few years ago, she said she had fallen victim to post-natal depression which proved a watershed in her life.
“I went to see my GP and he asked me, ‘What do you like to do?’ At the time I made a lot of papier mache but I didn’t really do anything with it. There were buckets of it, waiting for me to do something with it.
“Having been someone very involved with their career, and discovering I didn’t want to do that any more – couldn’t do that any more – I did need something else. I had been quite ill after my first child and things didn’t get much better after the second.
“I decided I would like a studio. I thought it was a good idea to find a place where there would be artists’ work and I would be integrated into that group of people. I had this idea there would be a different kind of atmosphere.”
She and photographer husband Colin took on the lease of a former Dryden Glass showroom at 97 Howard Street, North Shields, in 1995 and invested £12,000 in doing it up.
She explained: “I called it the Globe Gallery because it used to be the Globe Boot Company. It was established in 1904 and it was where everyone used to get cheap shoes.”
Since then, the two Globe galleries have shown work by a wide range of artists working in all media. Typically, Rashida said of the current upheaval and uncertainty: “We are seeing this as a development.”
The current Globe City exhibitions run until December 12. The gallery opens Wednesday to Saturday, 11.30am to 5pm. For details about Globe exhibitions see www.globegallery.org
