First post

Welcome to my blog! You are reading about me and this trip, courtesy of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Without them I wouldn't be on this adventure, so thanks a lot WCMT. As Sir Winston Churchill said, 'with opportunity comes responsibility' and this is my big opportunity!
I applied to the Trust with a project proposal in October 2009 and heard that I was successful at the end of January 2010 and so have been waiting a long time for the journey to begin.

My proposal was to do 2 things – travel to Virginia and North Carolina to study the export of North Devon Sgraffito pottery to the Eastern seaboard of America and its colonies, to look at and hold in my hand pieces of 17^th and 18^th century pot which were shipped out of Bideford to service the ever increasing numbers of settlers there. The second thing was to make 'first contact' with the arts and local community in Manteo NC, Bideford's new 'sister City' twin town. We share so much history as Bideford mariners sailed out of the port in 1587 to set up a colony on what is now Roanoke Island and Manteo is the main town. This colony vanished and became known as the Lost Colony and the mystery has never been solved as to what happened to the 116 people who had landed, made a settlement and then disappeared 2 years later. So, I wanted to go over to Roanoke Island and the Outerbanks region to get to know some of the present day folks there and to hopefully ignite a 'special relationship' between our towns. The plan is for me to set up an arts and cultural exchange programme after my visit, to enable artists to travel from their town to the other, bringing their work, making new work and sharing stories about their home town and what inspires them to make the artwork they do. This programme will hopefully enable residents of and visitors to both Manteo and Bideford understand about everyday life and culture and encourage relationships to be built.

So where am I going? Well for the Churchill Trust I had to put together a detailed itinerary and send it to them before my grant amount could be finalised and therefore my flight be booked. This definitely focusses the mind and makes you get on with it, pluck up courage to call people and talk to them about ideas and establish if they are willing to meet, share what they know and generally be accommodating. So the first few days (starting September 20^th) go like this – First stop is Jamestown, to study old pottery shards (or sherds as they call them over here); then to Raleigh to meet with the Arts Council and visit museums and archaeological centres and on to Seagrove Potteries to see contemporary potters in what is an old traditional pottery area. From then on its making my way across North Carolina and over to Manteo and Roanoke Island for approximately half my time.
I am writing this in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, staying in a cabin very close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, near a town called Waynsboro – I managed to fly out 4 days before I needed to be here, which is great and very special. My husband Dave is with me and is accompanying me to all these special places. He is here officially, representing Bideford Bay Creatives – we set up the organisation a year ago and I applied for a 'Go and see' bursary from Networking Artists Networks (NAN). We got a grant of £500 and Dave is using some of that for his expenses. He will be taking a lot of time in Manteo to network with artists, get to know them, share some ideas about future projects together and generally break the ice. Dave is also here as a photographer and will be taking photos for his own artwork and is also interested in showing the similarities and differences between Bideford and Manteo.

The photo above is of me writing this post. More soon.....