For a few days every summer Andy Smith is in charge of thethird biggest town in Cumbria. Kendal Calling, which he set up when still a teenager, has grown to the point where its size has eclipsed the actual Kendal.

It's a stat that Andy looked back on with pride during aninterview with Tom Speight celebrating the festival's 20th anniversary at a networking event held by LA23NET atEden Arts’ base the Old Fire Station, in Penrith.

Lessons he shared: never say no to a music agent, knowing Blondie's songs doesn’t help if you don’t know who Blondie are, and the value of lawyers in getting your first big headliner to play…

It was also the launch of a new weekly arts newsletter for thecounty, Curated Cumbria.

When was the last time you shared some love for a saltmarsh ?

Salt marshes are the weird intertidal landscape of mud andgrass, occupying huge swathes of coastline around the world, continually exchanging their existence above and below water as tides rise and fall about them.

Deluge is a new exhibition of different media curatedby Art Gene in Barrow, celebrating salt marshes through three artists’ work. Over three years, Oscar van Heek, Dana Olarescu and Linde Ex have all visited three different locations, including Barrow, to respond in different ways to the glories of salt marshes. Read a great review of the exhibition from Corridor8 here.

Behind the Scenery’s Tom Speight has been along to find outtheir stories…

What’s bright blue, lives on the harbourside in Maryport andonce was a pub called the Queens Head ?

The answer is Shipping Brow Gallery, now just over a yearold and very much now a local landmark. The building had been home to Maryport Maritime Museum since 1975 but a new lease of life dreamt up by Dolly and Brian Money has seen it turned into an art gallery with both permanent and temporary exhibitions.

Painter Jim Osborne became its second ever artist in residence in September. His new group exhibition, along with Cockermouth printmaker Jack Fawdry-Tatham and Keswick painter Celia Burbush, called Tales from Elsewhere, takes place this March.

Tom Speight has been along to find out what makes theGallery - and Jim and his paintbrushes - tick….