Jan Patience: Have yourself an arty little Christmas

Scotland is awash with artistic talent.

This Christmas, why buy mass-produced reproductions, when you can buy art made by a real person? Here is my selection box:

Own Art

Creative Scotland runs a scheme called Own Art, designed to make buying art easy and affordable.

It offers interest-free credit to buy contemporary artworks and craft. There are 43 Own Art galleries from Pier Arts Centre in Orkney to Flat Cat Gallery in Lauder in the Borders.

Art Up Your Street

All Scotland’s publicly-run galleries have shops, filled with original handmade jewellery and ceramics, not to mention prints of artworks.

I was in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s shop in Edinburgh recently and burned a hole in my debit card buying Joan Eardley merchandise and arty books. Even my small council-run gallery, The Lillie in Milngavie, has a great wee shop selling artworks and handmade jewellery and ceramics by local artists.

Print studios

All Scotland’s major cities have print studios. Glasgow Print Studio, Edinburgh Printmakers, Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen and DCA Print Studio in Dundee all have websites and shops.

Buying affordable original prints such as etchings, screenprints or monoprints is a great way to start a collection of work by leading artists such as John Byrne or Elizabeth Blackadder.

Artists’ studios

Wasps Studios is a charity which provides affordable space to more than 1,000 artists and makers.

Hundreds of works of art and gift ideas, made by Wasps’ artists are available at waspsstudios.org.uk/our-shop or at its South Block space in Glasgow.

P.S. If you haven’t seen Ray Harryhausen: Titan Of Cinema at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh then you’re in for a treat.

Film special effects maestro Harryhausen inspired a generation of filmmakers such as Peter Jackson, Aardman Animations, Tim Burton, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. His work included films such as Jason And The Argonauts, the Sinbad films of the 1950s and 1970s and One Million Years BC.

This blockbuster of a show runs until February.