Shades of The Dear Green Place

I don't really regard myself as an art critic, though people are comfortable with the term and use it all the time. Art lover suits me better. (Even though I don't love all the art I see!)

Today, in my art critic role, I was one of the judges of It's My Greener Glasgow, a schools art and design competition run by the St Enoch Centre in Glasgow.

A handful of schools in Glasgow took part in this competition. the fruits of their labour are currently on display in an empty unit within the centre. The idea is that they respond creatively to environmental issues affecting The Dear Green Place of Glasgow.

Mighty impressive the work is too. Some of the young people have excelled themselves. It's always so hard to make a call when you're judging artwork - especially kids' work - as it is a very subjective thing.

I end up just going with my gut feeling.

I particularly liked this work by May Chung of Hillhead High called The Crane of Nature, inspired by the Finnieston Crane.

This picture shows my fellow judge, artist Shauna McMullan, surveying the scene.

As a quick aside... Shauna's 2004 text-based work in the Scottish Parliament called Travelling the Distance is really worth checking out.

I saw it for the first time when I visited the parliament last year ahead of an exhibition in the parly garden of work by George Wyllie.

It consists of three large panels containing handwritten sentences made of porcelain. The sentences were collected by Shauna on a journey around Scotland to meet 100 women.

Each of the 100 women was asked to write something about a woman they felt had made a significant contribution to life, culture or democracy in Scotland.

Shauna asked each woman to refer her to another woman, which was the basis for the artist's journey until she reached the 100th woman.

As a female writer and an art lover it appealed to me on so many levels. You could spend ages looking at it.

But back to today... the It's My Greener Glasgow organisers described the selection process of picking winners to me and my fellow judges as being like the X-Factor.

Over 3000 members of the public have already cast their vote. We had to select our top three in the fine art side and on the design side.

The winning school in each category wins £500, while winning individuals get mall vouchers worth up to £150.

The winners will be announced on October 9. Good luck to all the pupils. Gold stars all round.


You can find out more about It's My Greener Glasgow in this report from The Evening Times here.