Caithness under the Christmas tree last call out

The joint directors of Lyth Arts Centre (LAC) are looking to commission up to a dozen Caithness and north Sutherland artists to help create a special Christmas book and have put out a last call out before Monday's deadline.

Tom Barnes and Charlotte Mountford, co-directors of the popular Caithness arts venue, want each artist to design a two-page activity for a Christmas-themed, physical and digital, activity book entitled Caithness, Under the Christmas Tree.

The book will follow a similar style and format to LAC’s successful lockdown project: Caithness, Through My Window, but with a little bit of Christmas sparkle. That booklet featured activities designed by illustrator Hannah Cambridge, artist and jewellery designer Lindsey Gallagher, author and poet George Gunn and artist Joanne B Kaar. Described as a "creative scrapbook", it included drawing, colouring, crafts, games and poetry written in Caithness dialect.

Charlotte said: "We distributed over 800 physical copies of Caithness, Through My Window free of charge, and hope to reach at least the same again."

Requirements are as follows:

• Original and unique ideas to be put together for a variety of activities.

• The activity page must be two A4 pages in length.

• The finished page must be submitted in JPG or PDF format, so a reasonable level of digital design skill will be required.

The arts venue can provide templates, and will have a designer pulling the whole booklet together.

Charlotte added: "Keep your proposals as inclusive as possible, so avoiding the need for any additional specialist equipment.

"The fee for each agreed submission is £294. We have calculated this for eight hours at £36.75 [Scottish Artists Union hourly rate], which should give you an indication of the level of work required. We will likely commission 10 – 12 artists to complete their designs."

Artists have until Monday, November 2, at noon to complete the form and will be contacted the following day if successful.

Print deadline for selected artists is Friday, November 13 at 5pm.

To apply, please complete the online Google Form here by noon on Monday.

Say it with a folded flower

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.