Every year we are inspired by the variety of skills on show during Fun A Day in Dundee. We want you to be inspired too, so we’re sharing some of our previous participants’ stories as we get ready for Fun A Day Dundee 2020! 

Whatever you’d like to create, we want to see it! 

Let’s hear from Gavin Cruickshank, who took part in 2018 and 2019.  

‘In 2020, I’ll be taking part in Fun a Day Dundee for the third time. Although the local version of this global project had been running for some years, I first learnt of its existence in 2017 when some of my friends took part. They all enjoyed it so much that they encouraged me to try it out the following year.

‘However, I had some reservations. For a start, I’m not a painter, a model-maker, a jeweller, nor anything similar. Rather, my craft is to write prose and poetry. I also don’t rely on my work to make a living; instead, everything I do is fitted around a full-time office job.

So, while I knew rationally that anyone is welcome to join in, I still felt like a misfit. As such, I hesitated in signing up, leaving it to the morning of 1 January 2018.

I started off with the aim of producing at least one piece of prose or poetry for each day of the month. If I’d stuck slavishly to that intention, it probably would have made for a rather dull exhibition piece, more akin to an archive than a display. On day four, however, an unexpected element added more flavour.

I’d ordered a watch strap that was sent to me in excessive packaging. Inspired by the other FADD participants on Instagram and Twitter, I straightened out the packing paper – a full six feet long – and turned it into an interactive exhibit where visitors were invited to write down their own tales of corporate waste on the sheet.

This incidental event influenced my 2019 project, in which there was a strong focus on recycling. My work was still text-based, but the words were written on surfaces such as ripped envelopes, expired tickets, and even the sole of a worn-out Dr Marten boot. In 2020, this theme will be extended even further, and is likely to include the destruction of my previous FADD pieces – work that wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t taken that initial leap of signing up.

Being involved with FADD means enjoying non-judgemental support from the other participants. On a personal level, my conversations and observations have led me to consider what a writer might learn from thinking like an artist, such as how their work looks on a wall and not just in a book.

If you are still uncertain about taking part in FADD, my top tip is to sign up anyway then figure out the details later on. It isn’t a competitive environment, so if you find it’s not for you, there’s nothing to lose.

And if it does work out, it might lead you down the path you didn’t think you could ever walk.’

Follow Gavin on Instagram

Join us in January 2020 and create every day!

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