Finding and forming questions about the Third Eye Centre Archives

In the Third Eye Archives, filed alongside lighthearted correspondence with Glen Baxter from 1981, there are a series of questions filed with his work. Possibly these were meant for educational purposes when people would come to see Glen Baxter's show, but it also appears that it was meant to help people compare the work to an exhibition going on at the same time, Michael Kenny's. One of the best aspects of this archive is to peer into how the educational programming of the Third Eye would have developed and used prompts such as these for the public or school groups.

Glen Baxter's exhibition contained 49 framed works, and a box of publications with a framed selection of postcards.
(Image courtesy of the CCA and the Third Eye Centre Archives)

"This first set of questions are about techniques of drawing. Write about these first, then write about the general questions on the next sheet. Base your answers in this set on no more than two or three drawings by each artist.

• Does the artist define objects and figures by drawing an outline? 
• Does he use the same method to draw outlines as he does to draw in surfaces and details? 
• How does the artist distinguish between parts of the picture inside outlines and outside outlines?
• Does this involve describing surfaces? Is the texture of surfaces related to what is in the foreground and what is behind? 
• Do lines appear flat, or do they move forward and back, in an illusion of space, like a perspective drawing?
  
  In this set, use points made on the first sheet, but not necessarily with reference to the same pictures.

• Does the artist start with a title, or does he make the drawing then title it?
• Is the drawing of something that you can recognise, if so what?
• Does the artist make the pictures quickly or not?"

The last page has the most ambiguous questions that would require more than a basic knowledge of art, but perhaps more than just the prompts. It veers into some speculative territory that escalates quickly away from talking about things that the audience can see. It is in these last questions that I begin to wonder whether this was put together by an educator or if this was what questionnaires looked like before educational programming became closer tied to curriculums and objectives.

• "Which artist enjoys his work most?

• Which artist says the most? Is the work obvious, or does it have many meaning?

• Which seems to you the most modern?"

As random juxtapositions occur all the time in an archive, there is another folder labeled "CRITICS" In this there is a guide to a conference in 1978 from the Institute of Contemporary Art in London filled with questions under the heading "THE STATE OF BRITISH ART: A DEBATE"

These are the questions that were addressed by a paper and a panel in the various sessions:

"THE CRISIS IN PROFESSIONALISM

• Is the crisis in contemporary British art caused by the disintegration of a 250 year old fine art tradition?

• With the decline of the private art market and the rise of institutional patronage, will a new tradition emerge? If so, would it draw recruits from past sources and perpetuate conventional skills?

WHO NEEDS TRAINING?

• Do artists need to go to art school?

• Does the history of art schools indicate that these have become centres of creativity enriching our culture? Or are they turning out graduates with doubtful qualifications, without the training or skills to communicate with people outside the professional art world?

THE MULTINATIONAL STYLE

• Is there an international style in art and if so why? Whose interests does this serve: art institutions, dealers, artists or public?

• Why do many third world artists imitate European and American modernism? Would 'national traditions' be preferable, and is there an Englishness to English art?

WHY NOT POPULAR?

• Is art unpopular or is popular art ignored? Many modernists think an artist should be independent of the demands of the general public, but is popular art necessarily conservative, necessarily bad or corrupt? 

• Why do many critics of art's elitism express their ideas in complex language? How does the relationship between art and its audience shape art, art education and public art policies?

IMAGES OF PEOPLE

• Have 'people' disappeared from contemporary art? What has happened to portrait painting? Who is 'entitled' to be depicted in art, and in what ways do sexual, racial, class and political stereotypes intervene in these depictions? 

• Why does the practice of studying the nude continue, and is this only conceivable in a patriarchal society? 

• Has the representation of people in art been doomed since the emergence of abstraction and the development of photography?"

These two documents are sets of questions that are meant to foster critical thinking and perhaps to engage an audience to create their own questions in tandem. These questions are rich time-capsules in how they create a summation of where we can mine for meaning. How are we meant to answer these questions? To reflect on as a lone audience member? As a community of artists? As academics?

Comparing the depth of inquiry I would like to propose some new questions that this archive brings to mind, perhaps it too will reveal the kind of meaning that is sought:

• Is the Third Eye Centre (and the way it is used) different or radical from a traditional archive?
• If so, is it sustainable or is it contingent on the passion of a person of influence?
• Does maintaining an archives require striking a balance between accessibility, care taking, and social capital?
• Besides the responsibility of researchers (such as regarding personal data concerning living individuals) is there a limit to how an archive becomes malleable for our own ends?
• What is the skill set of the archivist? What remains when one leaves the tangible archive? Does it change the way that one experiences reality?
  
  And finally,
• Are these questions best approached through personal first-hand experience with an eye on the future or are there more ideal formats for exploring these questions?

Social Culture and Special Unit Sculpture

The Third Eye Centre functioned not only as a space for arts events and exhibitions, but was also engaged with social issues affecting Glasgow in the '70s and '80s, a concern that manifested itself in a close relationship with Barlinnie's Special Unit, an experimental piece of penal reform that encouraged rehabilitation through creativity. In addition to this, the centre played host to numerous talks that focussed on the social or political rather than the artistic. From the material contained within the archives, it seems that the community that surrounded the Third Eye had a radical politics that largely avoided compartmentalisation; through community arts, an inclusive atmosphere and events like the Special Unit exhibition. This group show featured work from many of Barlinnie artist-inmates, including well-known figures such as Jimmy Boyle and Hugh Collins.

One of the figures who emerges from the archive in the context of the Third Eye's socially engaged ethos is American community artist Beth Shadur. Recently, fellow researcher Caroline Gausden contacted Beth regarding her time in Glasgow, with the following response;

I had been doing community murals prior to coming to Scotland. When I was awarded a huge fellowship from Brown upon graduation in 1975, I wrote to Jimmy [Boyle] at the Special Unit about coming there to do a large mural project. We corresponded several times before I came. I was working briefly in Mexico to photo document the murals there, when I heard from him that I should plan to come that summer of 1976. We did a huge mural at the Special Unit that is now documented at the People’s Palace.

 

The Chicago-based artist also appears in several of the Portapak videotapes held within the archives, including this extract from footage of a talk by psychiatrist Maxwell Jones and subsequent discussion, where she espouses the case for professionals working to make their roles unnecessary:

Maxwell Jones Talk from The Glasgow Miracle on Vimeo.

In this footage, it seems we have an arts centre functioning as a democratic, open space - in opposition to the notion of a gallery as a cloistered, exclusive and elitist environment. On the European arts centre model Beth Shadur comments:

Third Eye Centre was radical in that it not only served an arts audience, but just regular people who came in off the street. That was what always fascinated me, because in the US, arts venues tend to be populated by those already interested in the arts. In Europe, arts venues seem to understand how to welcome everyone, so that people from different socio-economic classes come in to see art and have a coffee. That doesn’t happen so much in the states.

One of the events that sought to bring together the Third Eye's inclusive ethos and its work in various communities was the Special Unit exhibition, captured in the following film. It is an interesting piece of footage because it doubles as a kind of walk-through tour of the Third Eye, culminating in shots of the co-operatively run cafe where we see people queuing for their coffees:

Special Unit exhibition from The Glasgow Miracle on Vimeo.

Like much of the filmic material in the archive, the footage sits somewhere between documentation, experimentation and film. This is actually one of the most edited of any of the tapes and, unusually, has its own soundtrack. It's a great little piece of experimental film-making that really transforms the figurative sculptures into subjects, in a way reminiscent of Chris Marker and Alain Resnais' Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues Also Die). This 1953 film-essay critiqued the aestheticisation and commodification of African art by Western culture, Marker's camera imbuing the pieces with a feeling of humanity perhaps denied them by their confinement to museum cabinets.

Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1953)

The relationship between the Third Eye and the Special Unit bore strange fruit. Having been brought to Scotland by Edinburgh artist and gallerist Richard Demarco (co-founder with Tom McGrath of the Traverse Theatre ), self-styled shaman and conceptual artist Joseph Beuys found in the Special Unit an example of what he termed social sculpture. Beuys also had admirers among the inmates, as Beth Shadur describes:

Jimmy Boyle was friends with Tom McGrath and Joyce Laing before I got there. He had contacted Joseph Beuys too, upon seeing the work "I Love America and America Loves Me," telling Beuys that he, Jimmy, was the coyote. 

Indeed, in a letter to McGrath, Boyle - serving a life sentence and probably the Special Unit's most infamous inmate - asserted that the piece was the only piece of contemporary art with which he felt any affinity. In an ongoing friendship, Beuys was to stand in for Boyle at an opening that the latter was unable to attend due to his incarceration. The German artist even went on hunger strike in protest at the decision to move Boyle from the Special Unit to a normal prison - an action which became known as the Jimmy Boyle Days. This relationship, forged between two figures, both of whom have taken on somewhat mythical status, seems to typify the way in which the Third Eye was a node which fostered unusual relationships and through which distinctions between art and society at large became difficult to maintain. With the Third Eye Centre providing a model for arts centres in Glasgow and elsewhere, it may be worth questioning whether the current incarnations live up to this early promise. As Beth Shadur comments:  

Now, the idea of socially engaged art has taken off as if it is a new thing! Many of the community mural artists involved since the early 1970s would “laugh at this.” [...] It is really fashionable now to do socially engaged art and this type of work in many ways is the darling of the art world.

Courtesy the Richard Demarco Archives. Copyright Richard Demarco

The 1990 TSWA Four Cities Projects in Glasgow and the proposals that never materialised

It's been a while since I randomly picked out a box to pour through its contents and so this entry will be devoted to box TE/102 which includes the last content of the archives in 1990.

The box contains logistics and correspondence for proposals for the Glasgow side of the TSWA Four Cities Project, which is an apt subject for those students who are vying for spaces for a final degree show, and both the Glasgow International Festival and the Commonwealth Games are on many people's minds.

The archives provide a look at the volume of preparation and bureaucracy that goes into getting everything ready which rely on the proposals as a form of proof that the artist will be able to deliver, especially with a lot of money on the line and the declaration that the effort is meant to redefine public art as we know it.

The mockup for signs that would have been placed around works being installed.
(Images courtesy of the CCA and the Third Eye Centre Archives)

In a letter from Euan McArthur (the Glasgow Organizer) to Mr. McInnes (The Scottish Development Dept.)

"Before describing the proposals, however, I should explain that the TSWA Four Cities Project is a visual art project involving international and British artists, the largest of its kind held to date in the U.K., which wil be staged during September and October of this year. The four cities in question are Glasgow, Derry, Newcastle, and Plymouth. In each of these cities, several artists will make temporary works for specific non-gallery places, in response to social, cultural and historical factors as well as to the formal qualities of each..."

"The proposal for John St., has been received from the artist, Cildo Meireles. He wishes to construct a 'council house' within the precinct formed by the arches, essentially to bring 'the periphery' into the centre and to articulate the complex interconnections of poverty, wealth, power and responsibility, specifically focussed on issues of housing and planning in the city. The proposal does not involve touching the fabric of the buildings, but clearly, because in part the meaning of the work lies in the contrast between the architecture of the site and of the 'house', for the period of its installation it will affect how the listed buildings are seen."

(This work ended up being blocked and Cildo Meireles' response was then published as part of the catalog)

1. Invited to make a project in Glasgow by TSWA, I made a proposal for the space between the two arches on John Street between the City Chambers and the Burgh Court. I proposed to build a council house in this space. The project was concerned with the idea of centre and periphery, and with the idea of the model and multiplicity 

2. A few weeks before the project was due to be constructed, I was informed that Glasgow District Council had refused permission for its realisation. They did not explain why. 

3. As I knew their refusal was not motivated by aesthetic reasons, I then proposed a revised project. 

A very small model of the council house was to be suspended on a golden string. Its installation would cause no damage to the adjacent buildings. It would cause no obstruction to traffic or pedestrians. It presented no technical problems. At the same time, I suggested another site for the original project. The District Council refused both proposals. Again they did not explain why. 

4. So - 

It was not refused for aesthetic reasons.
It was not refused for budgetary reasons.
It was not refused for technical reasons.
It was refused for some other "obscure" reason. 

5. The function of a work of art is to cast some light on this kind of obscurity, to try and talk through this conspiracy of silence. 

I myself consider that censuring the word censorship is the strange way that Glasgow District Council found to celebrate the freedom of expression in the Cultural Capital of Europe 1990. 

- from Cildo Meireles, Sept 7th 1990 

This is a page listing all of the spaces that the Third Eye Centre had compiled to consider and gauge the plausibility of artists working with that site.
(Images courtesy of the CCA and the Third Eye Centre Archives)

Euan McArthur's original introductory letter continues

"In the case of the Kibble Palace, the artist Richard Wilson has made a proposal which involves constructing a metal and glass framework, similar in form to the structure of the Kibble Palace itself. It will be slightly curved, to play against the curve of the Palace itself and will span the space between the ground and the ceiling. It will be approximately 10ft. across at the base and about 12 to 18 inches deep, enclosing a hollow space. Where it touches the ceiling, the existing glass will be removed and new class, cut to fit the curve, will be fitted, the top remaining open to the outside atmosphere. The glazing bars of the Palace will not be touched. At ground level, it will penetrate the soil for about three feet. This will also be glazed and any pipes etc exposed will be enclosed within glass tubes. Thus, the structure will bring 'the outside', in the form of rain, condensation and perhaps lichen growth, into the controlled interior environment of the Palace, but without any contact between the two. Neither the building nor the collection will be exposed in any way. The structure will not rely on the Palace for support, but will be made self-supporting. The artist, who has long experience of similar projects, will reinstate the interior when the Project is finished."

Richard Wilson's project also was not realised:

"The location was on a pathway inside the Kibble Palace set between two plinthed sculptures called 'Australia' and 'New Zealand'... By resting onto and digging into the architecture and its foundations, where the building's industrial roots are exposed, the work would enlist the building as an active support rather than passive container. It was this aspect that perturbed representatives of the Conservation Section of GDC Planning Dept. Although the Curator of the gardens was keen to see the project proceed, and although technical drawings had been drawn up to the satisfaction of structural engineers, on 3 July 1990 the proposal was refused permission." - Richard Wilson 

Just the top page of Richard Wilson's proposal.
(Images courtesy of the CCA and the Third Eye Centre Archives)

The other artists whose works were realised include Stuart Brisley, Fischli and Weiss, Judith Barry, Rosemary Trockel, Kevin Rowbottom and JanetteEmery, whose work can all be found beautifully documented in the book New Works for Different Places, TSWA Four Cities Project: Derry, Glasgow, Newcastle, Plymouth produced after the project. This effort took place between the Glasgow Garden Festival and the City of Culture designation at a time where public art was being solicited to bring more attention to the city, but also being critiqued as needing to stake out it's own advancement beyond community art or activist art. It is particularly interesting how many of these proposals were formed compared to Ian Hamilton's  work. All of the artists were invited, they were proposed to fit the criteria of being temporary, they were submitted on time, with budgets, an initial explanation of why that particular site and various sketches.

To see how little information was sent by Finlay it is documented here: http://www.anewpath.org.uk/existing-artworks/3/details
(That site like many others, mistakenly says that the Third Eye Centre was renamed to be the CCA)

Other reactions were written at the time by Malcolm Dickson and Andrew Dixon:
http://archive.org/stream/VariantIssue81990/V8_All_djvu.txt
http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/archive/readArticle/714

As the tradition of submitting proposals continues, tip-toeing and crossing-fingers is still required for involving particularly unusual locations for conceptual works because there is no recourse if anyone in charge of a particular site doesn't find the work appropriate. The archives prove to be an interesting resource for reading unfiltered artist proposals, especially in the realm of experimental public work, and why they were selected or not. However, the actual matter of how to make every work a reality in its ultimate form would seem to be beyond the organisers, so too, it is beyond the archive.

The National Archives of Scotland

Recently our troop paid a visit to what is now known as the National Records of Scotland (NRS) in Edinburgh; I think ‘wow’, as a description, would be an understatement. First of all, what is the NRS?

The NRS is the result of a merger between the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) and the General Register Office of Scotland (GROS). The purpose of this body is to,

"...select, preserve and make available the national archives of Scotland… to promote growth and maintenance of proper archive provision… and to lead development of archival practice in Scotland." (http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/default.asp).

Based on the tour and talk we received at the National Archives General Register House on Princes Street, the NRS does this and more. The facilities in this building appear to be vast and quite striking. To date, us volunteers and researchers have now visited a number of archives including the GMRC (please see the previous blogpost) and the Sound Screen Archive of Scotland. While both were fascinating in their goals and scope, I would say that the facility of the NRS is unique in its beauty.

Arriving at the General Register House we entered the back of the building by going through the Adam Dome, the perfect vision of record storage. It is a large circular room, roofed with a glass dome, and with walls completely covered in records. From here, there are several other adjoining rooms that hold ever more materials, as well as areas for people to conduct research. Holding historical records of businesses, states, families and more - with over 72kms of historical records - the archive is a popular spot for genealogists and certainly a good place to start if you want to trace your family tree. Touring the building, it is hard to comprehend the number of lives the NRS touches upon, particularly considering this is only one of several that they use!

Along with the tour, our group received a talk on the aims of the organisation and the life cycle of records (see Figure 1.).

 

Figure 1.

The process of creating records electronically was particularly interesting. Using a Canon 800II Microfilm Scanner and Oce TCS500 Wide-Format scanner and printer (for those interested in the technology behind this), the NRS have created custom booths where employees sit and scan a surprisingly large quantity of records. Although the goal is to eventually digitise everything, the Digital Imagining Unit's (DIU) approach is lovely and practical, working through records that are requested, alongside those that are most frequently used.

Three archives later (four, if I include the Glasgow School of Art archive), the one dominant feature of these properties that I am impressed with, is that there is no dominant feature. Most archives appear to be allocated a property, an empty space that happens to be available, and are left to try and adapt to this environment. The Glasgow School of Art archive is in the basement; the Sound Screen Archive of Scotland is situated in an old industrial estate; and the NRS is in a listed building, beautiful, but a hindrance for making any changes to the property. The GMRC appears to be unique, in that it was designed with the purpose of an archive facility in mind. 

NuSpeak issue 'The old west"

As my interest in NuSpeak issues dead ended within the Third Eye Centre archives, I simply went over to Edinburgh to the National Library of Scotland to see all of the issues. They were surprisingly diverse in appearance, some were almost entirely in comic form (one issue before that one offered £5 for every cartoon published) and others were works of art in themselves, such as the Edwin Morgan issue which the Glasgow School of Art has its own copy in their special collections library.

The second issue of NuSpeak has the heading on the front "The old west" and within its pages it contains a list of Tom McGrath's aims with the centre with 7 main points.

"But I can give some general indication as to what the policy of the new centre will be. What follows below is a set of notes, no more than that."

He goes on to say that the centre will attempt to represent all of the arts from having a gallery, a theater, showing films, and having poetry readings, but it also states that he wants the space to be able to host both happenings and rock concerts. The second point is specifically about the audience he wanted to form a centre where "many different sites of creative values and attitudes can be expressed." This is described as ranging from the conservative to the avant gard, from high-culture to pop and it is meant to "extend the interests of the audiences to fields beyond their usual interest."

The rest of what follows I'll type in verbatim as its wording is particularly interesting and as someone who is interested in what forms an institution takes on an 'educational' capacity (sometimes entirely formed by volunteers which is interesting for how common a practice this is). While being in school I find that it can be difficult to research current ongoing radical practices as the term tends to only be used when something is already over, as if nothing can be radical in the moment that it is occuring, only when we mourn its loss. It was mentioned to me that when the Third Eye Centre opened there were those that reminisced that things were much better when the centre was based in 5 Blythswood Square, and it seems that these kinds of nostalgic comparisons are bound to go on until the end of time.

Numbers 1 and 2 were summarised in the paragraph above, here is the rest:

"3. As far as possible, within the scope of its budget, the centre will try to bring creative people to Glasgow from other parts of the world, so that everyone in the city, but particularly the artists, can have a direct experience of what is happening elsewhere.

4. Locally it is hoped that the centre will be a meeting place where a wide range of people can feel at ease and find something to their interest. (In other words I hope it won't be dominated by one clique or another.) There will be some kind of restaurant and coffee shop and, depending on building space, a selling area offering a wide-range of things not previously available in Glasgow. (That sounds ominous!)

5. As well as presenting exhibitions brought in from the outside of the city, or from the past (or the future), the centre will do as much as possible to help artists working in Glasgow at the moment. (For artists also read writers, musicians etc.)

6. As well as encouraging and representing these people who are already known or regard themselves as artists, the centre will attempt to show and encourage the creativity of 'ordinary people' of the city. This will be done via 'people-centred' shows where an exhibition (or concert or debate or whatever) wil be based around what people are already interested in in their daily lives or are already producing.

7. The centre will also try to help encourage and give expression to what I call the 'new age' culture - meditation, vegetarianism, geodesic domes etc.

Phew! As you can see, it's a big job and I've probably missed out the half of it. The main underlying aims are to break down cultural barriers and to encourage creativity at every level. - Tom McGrath"

A NuSpeak Publication Written by Children

"WHAT FOLLOWS IS ENTIRELY THE WORK OF A GROUP WHO VISITED THE GLASGOW CENTRE OF THE SCOTTISH ARTS COUNCIL ON JULY 4, 1973.

The group was composed mainly of children from Belfast with a few others from Gorbals and Glasgow Housing Estates, and the group leaders participating.

No pressure was put on the children to draw, and no suggestions were made about subject. The only extraneous stimulus which affected the final result was a copy of a colour supplement with a bulldog on the cover - the image seems to have caught at least a couple of imaginations"

- The Scottish Arts Council

5 Blythswood Square

Blogger's note: The last names have been removed to protect the artists' identity.

(images courtesy of the CCA and the Third Eye Centre Archives)

It's unclear if this was actually put together as a NuSpeak edition or if it was meant to be in the style of the NuSpeak publications which would have been most likely been in the process of being put together at Blythswood Square. These are a selection of drawings that were all stapled together within the archives amongst other general information about community art. The words and thoughts of children give an unfiltered look at the state of the times as well perhaps the role that Blythswood would have played as a community center.

Just to put it out there again, from what I understand no one has a comprehensive collection of all of the NuSpeak issues in Glasgow (but they are in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh), but it would be fascinating to compare the issues more in depth with the contents of the archives.

Tracking down Nuspeak editions, Blythswood Square's free publication

Related to the writings of Cordelia Oliver are the issues of NuSpeak that began as a free publication when the Scottish Arts Council Art Centre was located at 5 Blythswood Square.

These issues are quite hard to find, but the paper theses "The Artist as Critic: art writing in Scotland 1960-1990" by Susannah Thompson helps to see the first edition on Page 79, where the Third Eye Archive was presented with the last edition with no apparent complete collection anywhere in the world.

It began "This is the first edition of Nuspeak, an inter-personal information device. It is, as you see it, just a piece of paper with some words on it. But it is going to four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine other people by mail and is being circulated as a giveaway in different places. My name is Tom McGrath and I am setting up this scheme in conjunction with the Scottish Arts Council's new arts centre which will be opening in Glasgow late summer of this year with myself as director. If the arts centre hasn't opened by then, Nuspeak will tell you why."

Here is an image of one of the sections from the last issue that give a sense of fun that the layout had as well as the tone.

(A small portion, one eighth of a full-page spread of Nuspeak's last edition, 1975. The image is courtesy of the Third Eye Centre/CCA)

It is one of the best visual references to get a sense of everything that is going on in the art scene at that given moment. I put together a list of all the people it mentions with an asterisk if that person was graced with a full paragraph or an image of themselves or their work.

Derek Bailey

Jacques Barzun

Stan Bell

Earl Birnie

Mark Boyle

Stan Bonnar*

Boys of the Lough

Alison Buchanan

Bill Buchanan

John Byrne*

Cantilena Baroque

Shrley Cameron

The Cage

Sri Chinmoy

Martin Carthy

Cricst theatre group from Poland

Miles Davis

Joan Eardley

Michael Edwards*

Duke Ellington

Morton Feldman

Allan Ginsburg

Alasdair Gray

David Harding*

Peter and Phil Hartigan

Mike Horovitz

Richard Hough*

Walter Kershaw and the "Rochdale Sculptors"

Bob Laing

Steve Lacey

Jolyon Leycock*

Tom Leonard*

Mahavishmu

Sorley Maclean*

John McColl

Ewan McColl

Adrian Mitchell

Roland Miller

Edwin Morgan*

Robin Munro*

Cordelia Oliver

George Oliver

The People Show

Art in Revolution

Odile Redon

Ray Russell

Sahasrara, the crown Chakra

Peggy Seeger

Sonic Arts Union

Jim Torrance

Traditional Folk Club

John Upton

It ends by saying:
"With the opening of THIRD EYE CENTRE, all of its staff's energies and its finances have to be devoted to activities in the centre. We hope that you agree it is better, if you have to choose, to do something than to read about it. We don't have the resources to continue a free arts newspaper but if you feel strongly that a publication like Nuspeak should continue to exist in Scotland then write to the Director of the Scottish Arts Council and let him know your views. Our thanks are due to Tom Kinninmont and especially to Ian McFadden who, under rushed and shoestring conditions, managed to edit the paper."

These publications if collected in their entirety would paint a fascinating picture of the moment in time that the Blythswood Square paved the way for the Third Eye Centre and the ways that Tom McGrath in particular wanted to promote an awareness of everything cultural that was going on and to receive feedback.