See us...? We've all gone blippin' mad

Today, thanks to the continuing influence of the late great George Wyllie in my life, I attended the launch of a book jointly produced by Creative Scotland and Blipfoto celebrating creativity in Scotland. It's called See Us

The launch took place at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow, where the See Us exhibition is now on show.

Michael Russell, MSP and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and Blipper extraordinaire - he celebrates his 1000th Blipday tomorrow - was launching the book by handing out copies to representatives of schools involved in the George Wyllie Education Initiative.

This picture shows wee Laurie Salmond (a distant relation of a certain First Minister...) from Arthurlie Family Centre in Barrhead. Thanks to his head teacher, Rosamund Rodriguez , Laurie and his nursery pals were among the youngest kids to take part in the Wyllie schools' project. Their banana boat was epic, by the way.

I was there with a few hats on. As well as being a journalist who writes about art and a relatively new Blipper, I am chair of the Friends of George Wyllie, the group of family and friends which initiated the award-winning Whysman Festival last year.

George died at the age of 90 just as we secured Creative Scotland funding to make the celebration of his life less ordinary happen.

The Wyllie schools' project was an integral part of the festival and the tireless Angela McEwan Blipped every day, from September 23 last year until the George Wyllie retrospective exhibition at The Mitchell in Glasgow closed on February 2 this year.

Through Blipfoto, she charted the progress of the young people as they studied the work of George in the most fantastical ways.

There is much talk in Scottish education these days of 'ripples' and the Wyllie schools' project - which saw all the school kids making paper boats and much, much more - sent waves out in all sorts of unexpected ways. George was the archetypal Curriculum for Excellence standard-bearer.

Today was a big public pat on the back for all involved. It was also a mini Blippers convention.

As Kenneth Fowler (also known as Notes from the bench said to me, it's amazing how much you know about people's lives through Blip.

We are all open books...

Other Blippers present included:

Joe Tree, founder of Blipfoto

Right hand Whysman and partner of Angela!

... And probably others I missed out!

Go see the exhibition. It's worth seeing. And Streetlevel's gallery space in Trongate 103 in Glasgow is superb.